I took the subway back to the courthouse that day.
I like to ride underground railroads whenever possible. They can tell you a lot about a country. Take the Tube in London, which creakily reflects England’s faded glory. The Metro in Paris, with its quiet, elegant efficiency. The Moscow metro, with its impossibly grandiose stations and ticket halls. But my favorite system has always been New York’s. I love the simple efficiency of its stations. The no-nonsense ticket barriers. The trains, with their distinctive sound and rhythm. I could ride them for hours, just watching the people. Standing. Swaying. Reading. Talking. Listening to music. Hustling. Or if you’re on the wrong line at the wrong time, sizing you up for a mugging, or worse.
I took the 2 Train from Sheridan Square to Fulton Street, then headed north on Broadway before cutting across to Centre Street. The bulk and heft of the buildings all around me felt reassuring, and I was happy to let the relentless flood of pedestrians carry me forward. I was still troubled by Atkinson’s attitude, though. His approach was so compartmentalized, it frustrated the hell out of me. A couple of weeks ago, if I’d picked up on a threat against a navy ship or an air force base, I’d have passed it on to my opposite number as a matter of urgency. And I’d have followed up, to make sure the information was acted on. There’s no way I’d have just blown it off because it affected a different branch of the service. No one I worked with would have done something like that.
As I approached the southwest corner of Foley Square I came across a security booth at the edge of the sidewalk, next to a set of raised yellow-and-black bollards on chains that controlled vehicular access to the street. A guard was on duty inside. It wasn’t clear which agency he belonged to, because there were so many active around there. But what would he do if he overheard people plotting against the Empire State Building, for example? Ignore it, because he didn’t work there? I hoped not. Maybe Atkinson could swap jobs with him for a couple of weeks. Maybe that would change his focus.
I continued through the square and paused for a moment next to its giant abstract granite statue. The courthouse looked small from that angle, squatting next to its federal cousin. With the position of the sun at that time, it was literally in the larger building’s shadow. I felt my hope seeping away, like a sixth sense when a mission was about to go sideways. I shook it off, crossed the street, and made my way around back.
The guard at the employee entrance was much friendlier to me this time. He mentioned his kids. We shot the breeze for a few minutes. Then I asked him about the broken glass in the door.
“Nothing happened to it.” He shook his head at the naïvety of my question. “It just broke.”
“Glass doesn’t just break.” I kept any hint of an accusation out of my voice. “Something must have broken it. Or someone.”
“The wind, maybe.” The guy shrugged. “Or a drop in the temperature. The door has a metal frame. It expands, it contracts, and bang!”
“I guess.” I tipped my head to one side. “But shouldn’t glass be strong enough to withstand that kind of thing? The weather’s the same all over, but you don’t see broken doors all around the city.”
“It should be strong enough. If it’s the right kind.”
“You think this isn’t the right kind?”
“I know it isn’t. The glass in a door like that? It should be laminated. Like a car windshield. You should be able to beat on it with a baseball bat and not get through. But this? It’s regular glass. It’s too weak. You can tell by the little decals in the corner of the pane. The day they installed it I told my wife, you better get me a coat and scarf for Christmas, because that glass ain’t lasting till the new year. And I was right. And the joke is the glass they replaced—’cause of some kind of city-wide proactive maintenance initiative—there was nothing in the world wrong with it.”
“You’re saying the door’s been broken like this since before the end of December?”
“No. They fixed it in January. It broke again in February. And it’s broke a couple more times since then.”
“So what happens? They keep using the wrong kind of glass? Why would they do that?”
“ ’Cause if they used the right kind, it wouldn’t keep breaking.” He gave me a look that said he was struggling to believe that I couldn’t see something so obvious. “And then they wouldn’t be able to keep coming back and charging for more repairs.”
Carrodus was on his way out of the janitors’ room just as I arrived.
“Got to run.” He slapped me on the shoulder as he hurried past. “I’m late picking my kid up from school. Any luck finding that file?”
“Not yet.”
“Sorry. Me neither. But I’ll keep looking.”
“Thanks, Frank. Hey, before you go, I have one quick question. Is there any information anywhere about the building itself? Plans. Specifications. That kind of thing?”
“Probably. But how’s that linked to your dad’s case?”
“It isn’t. This is something else. It’s probably nothing, but it’s got me curious.”
“Well, there should be something. Maybe in the maintenance supervisor’s room? Go clockwise, and take the second spoke. His is the last door on the right. There’s no sign. Just a picture of a pit bull. It’s not meant as a welcome.”
I’d planned to get straight on with my search for Pardew’s file. The thought of it—the absence of it—was hovering over me like a specter and the nagging vision had only become more insistent since my conversation with Detective Atkinson over breakfast. I’d finished searching the fourth floor and was itching to start on the third, right away. But I figured taking a few minutes to scratch an itch wouldn’t hurt my overall plan. I’ve learned over the years to follow my instinct in this kind of situation. The route to a goal is rarely a straight line. So I followed the directions Carrodus had given me. I found the maintenance supervisor’s room. Knocked on the door, and got no answer. It was locked, but in name only. It took me less than thirty seconds to open it. Cleaning equipment isn’t all you can carry on a janitor’s cart, after all.
The air in the room was heavy with the stench of tobacco. Not any regular kind, though. Something heavier, more potent, not unlike the cigar smoke that had lingered on the Iranian colonel’s uniform in Istanbul. I closed myself in with the fumes and took stock of the room’s contents. There were two deep-drawer cabinets, wide enough to hold building plans. Four regular file cabinets. A plain metal desk with a dusty computer and a wilted potted plant, its spindly stalk straining desperately toward the weak glow that spilled in from the light shaft in the ceiling.
The architect’s plans seemed like a good place to start, but I found nothing in them that gave any specifics about glass or doors. Next I worked my way through the regular drawers until I found copies of repair orders. They were filed chronologically and went back six years. I jumped to the most recent ones. There were twenty-seven for the last month. Most were for fixing broken lights. A couple covered the aftermath of overflowing toilets. Various elevators had malfunctioned, with differing degrees of severity. An air conditioner had leaked. And the last one in the batch confirmed the replacement of the glass in the rear door.
I checked the specification. It was clearly stated: laminated. The kind of glass that the guard said should have been used, but wasn’t. Because it wouldn’t break and require a subsequent repair. I went back another month in the records. I found details of similar incidents—and another order for glass replacement. For the same door. And the same kind of glass. Laminated. Not regular. And from the same contractor.
I found four other orders for the same work since Christmas. I took photos of all of them. And while I had my phone out, I googled local glass suppliers. I found three companies serving the Manhattan area that had the right kind in stock. And when I checked their prices, I noticed something else. Their quotes were all less than a fifth of what the courthouse had been charged.