The Vaults (29 page)

Bernal fished into the pocket of his trench coat and handed Frings several sheets of paper, folded together in quarters.

“What’s this?”

“Two things. The first is Samuelson’s address. Talk to him. He’ll have answers for you. The second is financial records. They’re not the originals. I copied them by hand. I didn’t get everything, but you have the parts that are important. Talk to Samuelson. Look at the records. That should give you the story.”

Headlights shown through the fog as a car approached. Frings and Bernal stood in silence as it crept by them on the bridge.

“You know that car?” Bernal asked.

Frings shook his head, then, realizing that Bernal might not have been able to see his response, said, “No.”

Frings heard Bernal inhale hard on his cigarette and hold it for a beat before exhaling in a rush. “I’m taking a big risk doing this. A big risk.”

“You’re doing it so you won’t sink with the ship. You’re hedging your bets.”

“Easy to say from where you stand, Mr. Francis Frings. Where I stand, there are no good choices. Where I stand, I’m likely to get hurt no matter what choice I make.”

The time when Bernal had had real choices was long gone. He’d made them and enjoyed the benefits for a time. The bill was now due, though, and Frings had no sympathy for the man before him, invisible in the darkness but for his cigarette. He did, though, have an interest in keeping Bernal from a complete mental collapse. “I can help you with one thing. The man who took the photos of you.”

“Yes?”

“I talked to him. I convinced him that he would be better off if he sat on them.”

“How did you do that?” Bernal’s tone was flat. He was under too much pressure to feel much relief from this news.

“He sent them to me. I got in touch and told him you were helping me out and that his pictures would ruin the whole bit.”

“I suppose I should thank you.”

“No,” Frings said. “I did it for selfish reasons. Thought you might want to know, though.”

They shook hands.

Frings thought of something. “Who’s Casper Prosnicki?”

Frings thought he heard Bernal gasp.

“You know him?” Frings pushed.

“Samuelson will explain. He will . . .” Bernal’s voice trailed off.

Frings waited, but the life seemed to have left Bernal. Frings turned and, without another word, headed back to the shore. He clenched the papers tightly against his chest and, the tension of the meeting now released, felt the true force of his fatigue. A figure brushed past him on the bridge. He stopped and turned, watching the man’s silhouette recede into the fog. Frings was indecisive, and before he’d figured out what to do, he heard someone—with the fog playing tricks with the sound he could not tell if it was Bernal or someone else—shout, “Who’s that?” A beat of silence was followed by a violent splash from below as something hit the river.

Frings turned and sprinted off the bridge, barely able to see where he was going. He stumbled twice, the panic getting him back on his feet and pushing the pain from his consciousness. He ran until he found himself in a residential neighborhood, unable to continue, his lungs burning for oxygen, his legs rubbery. He placed the papers on a stoop and sat on the steps with his head down, gasping for air.

He thought about what had taken place on the bridge. The man who brushed by him on the bridge now seemed familiar. A trick of hindsight? He wondered who it was and how this stranger had known about the meeting. He wondered if the stranger knew that he, Frings, had met with Bernal. Mostly, though, he wondered why Bernal hadn’t cried out as he jumped—or was pushed—from the bridge into the frigid waters of the river.

Unable to get this last thought from his mind, Frings stood unsteadily, put his hands on his knees, and retched until he had nothing more to give.

Nora lay on top of the sheets in white satin pajamas that she found in the bureau. Her wet hair dampened the pillow, coaxing the smell of soap from its fabric. She was, if not comfortable, at least beginning to have a better understanding of her situation, and she found this energizing and could not cross over into sleep.

Years of being the focus of attention of just about any man she encountered gave her a strong sense of a man’s intentions. Her captor was difficult to read. He was quiet and shy, often a good sign, though shyness was sometimes the product of intentions that a man knew were beyond societal bounds. That was why she had tested him with the bath.

She now believed that he would not harm her. He was smitten, but not in a way that would lead him to use force on her. He would not want her in any way that he did not feel was reciprocated honestly. This was her one advantage among all the disadvantages she faced; an advantage that she had already begun to use, but to what purpose she was still uncertain. She had sensed the tension as she brushed by him. The brief suggestion in his mind that she might actually fancy him as he fancied her. She could use this weapon against him. She needed to figure out how. Or maybe just having it would be enough.

Henry had to lift Siobhan off him to roll over to the phone. She began kneading his back, which was slick with sweat.

“What is it?” Henry’s annoyance was tempered by the knowledge that it had to be significant for anyone to ring him at this hour.

“Mr. Mayor,” said the doorman, “two men to see you, sir.”

“Names?”

“It’s your, uh . . .” There was a pause. “It’s your assistant and a man named Smith.”

“Send them up.” Henry felt the tension in his muscles against Siobhan’s strong fingers; the anticipation of bad news and the need for difficult and important decisions to be made.

He stood up and pulled the sheet from the bed, wrapping it around his waist. Siobhan, naked, lay back on the pillows and used both hands to brush the red hair from her face.

“A couple of boys are coming up,” Henry said to her. “Why don’t you curl up and get some sleep. I’ll wake you up when they’re gone.” He took a blanket that had been discarded to the floor and threw it over her. It was a relief to him to have her body covered. Modesty was not her strong suit.

Henry walked out to the living room to wait, listening to the grinding of the elevator gears. He smelled, he realized, of her and of sweat. His massive chest was mottled with red from exertion. He ran a hand over his scalp, feeling the prickly hairs just starting to emerge on the sides.

The elevator opened into the living room, and Peja and Smith hesitated before stepping out, balking at the sight of the mayor, naked except for the sheet around him, sitting in his oversize leather chair.

“What the hell are you waiting for?”

The two men entered and sat. Peja looked tired and miserable. Smith just looked worried.

Henry looked back and forth between the two men. “What in God’s name is going on? Why are you here?”

Smith began to speak, then thought better of it. Peja said, “Bernal’s dead.”

Henry turned his attention to Smith. “True?”

Smith nodded.

“Jesus Christ. What happened?” Henry leaned forward in his chair, glaring at Smith. “Goddamn it. Tell me you didn’t bump him.”

Smith was avoiding eye contact by staring over Henry’s shoulder. “I followed Bernal, like you said. A cab picked him up at his house a little after ten thirty and headed north. I found a cab, not so easy to do in his neighborhood, and the cabbie found Bernal’s cab and tailed it. The farther north we got, the foggier it got, so it was hard to keep the other cab in sight, but easy for us to stay hidden, if you follow. So he gets out of the cab—what?—about three blocks from the river. I make my cab go past him and go right for another block before letting me off. Trying not to tip him, you know?

“I figured Bernal was going to the river, so I looped around. It was foggy as hell there. Barely see your hand in front of your face, you know? So even though I knew basically where he was, it was hard to be sure. So I found a spot just under the bridge and waited and listened. Then this other gink comes. I can hear him walking down towards the river and then stop, and then I can hear them, him and Bernal, having a chat. I couldn’t really make out what they were saying, so I thought about trying to get closer, and then they suddenly start coming up the hill towards me. So I kind of hid behind this pillar, even though there’s really no need because the fog is so thick.

“Anyway, they go up on the bridge, and I follow as close as I can, you know, trying not to make noise. So I get up there and I can hear them talking, but again, I can’t really make out what they’re saying. Then, like that, they’re done and someone is coming my way. So I just start walking towards them, like I’m out on a stroll. I walk past him and I realize that it’s goddamn Frankie Frings.”

“You’re joking.”

“I’m not. It was Frings. I just kept on walking until I came to Bernal. I can tell as I get close to him that he’s in a panic. You know how you can kind of tell?” Smith looked at Henry for confirmation, trying to get the mayor on his side. Henry nodded.

“Anyway, I get up real close so that he can see my face, so he knows who I am. Well, he gets a look and pulls away and takes a jump. He just threw himself over the railing and was gone.” Smith stopped and looked at Henry, who was rubbing the sides of his face with both hands.

“What were they talking about?”

“Like I said, I don’t know.”

“What would you guess?”

“Jesus, Mayor, I have no idea. It could have been anything.”

“And, Peja, why are you here? Are you his insurance that I don’t kill him?”

Peja laughed nervously. “No, sir. We figured you’d probably want something done.”

Henry sighed. “Where’s Frings now?”

Peja and Smith looked at each other. Peja said, “We’re not exactly sure. I’d guess that he’d go back to Nora Aspen’s flat.”

“You’d guess,” Henry mocked. “Listen to me. You get Feral over here first thing in the goddamn morning. I need someone who isn’t going to ball everything up.”

Henry stayed in his seat for a while after the two men left. Bernal’s talking to Frings could only mean bad things. The question was, how bad? The Poles would sign tomorrow, if he could keep things under control until then. When that was tied up, he could focus his attention on Frings and even play a little rough with the girl if that was what it was going to take.

Cold and wet, Frings entered the apartment at the edge of exhaustion. The painkillers and marijuana magnified his fatigue.

There was still no Nora. He had been counting the steps until he could fall into bed, but Nora’s absence sent his adrenaline surging as for the first time he seriously considered the possibility that something had happened to her. Was it this sudden sense that she might be in danger—or worse—that caused him to now notice the note on the table in the foyer, or had it not previously been there? It was written in block letters:

MR. FRINGS—THIS IS TO INFORM YOU THAT WE HAVE NORA ASPEN. CEASE YOUR INVESTIGATIONS OR YOU WILL GET HER BACK IN PIECES. WE WILL KNOW IF YOU DISREGARD THIS INSTRUCTION.

Frings rubbed his eyes. She’d been abducted, no conditions for her release. Meeting the demands simply kept her alive. And the demands were vague. “Cease your investigations.” This could refer to any of a number of investigations that he was either actively pursuing or that were still open. But he knew that the message came, at least indirectly, from Red Henry.

He sat at the kitchen table with the note and thought about his options. The absence of a mechanism for getting her released troubled him. Was she going to be held indefinitely? She was a celebrity and would be missed not just by a small circle of friends and family, but by the public at large. What would be necessary to satisfy her captors that he had given up on his investigations? He sat with his elbows on the table and his hands supporting his head. He was exhausted and his lip burned, but his mind was clearing for the first time in a while. There was, he decided, no way of guaranteeing that following the demands in the note would lead to Nora’s safe return. Quite the reverse was true, he thought. They could not afford to let her go for fear that he would begin his inquiries again once she was
safe. The only way to guarantee her safety was to acquire a bargaining tool himself, and the only way to do that was to continue to pursue Bernal’s leads.

This decision brought renewed urgency, and he put off sleep to examine the papers that Bernal had passed to him.

On the first sheet someone, probably Bernal, had written directions to Otto Samuelson’s place. He lived in a town called Freeman’s Gap, which Frings had heard of, somewhere in the hills outside the City.

The rest of the papers—twelve sheets in all—were ledgers with handwritten names and figures. This was what Bernal said he’d copied from the originals. It took a couple of minutes for Frings to figure out the layout, but then it was easy to follow. It was an accounting of money paid bimonthly by a group of individuals to four different accounts. Each sheet was titled “Navajo Project,” followed by the month. The pages covered the months from November of 1932 to October of 1933. The names of the individuals paying in were familiar from Puskis’s list: Samuelson, DeGraffenreid, Smithson, Acton, McAdam, and others. The money was paid to four accounts, labeled “St. Mark’s,” “All Souls’,” “St. Agnes’,” and “General Fund.” The amounts that each of the men was paying every month were staggering, often between eight hundred and fifteen hundred dollars. Incredible amounts. How could they be generating that much? The bulk of the money went to the General Fund, with a smaller portion designated for All Souls’, a still smaller portion for St. Mark’s, and a pittance to St. Agnes’. The dispersal seemed to be based on a percentage of the total amount paid each month.