I made my way back to Eleventh, then headed slowly south, checking the reflection in the angled windows I passed to make sure the ginger-haired guy was following me. He was, a constant twenty yards behind. I turned east on Forty-third, maintaining the gap between us until I reached a pair of old apartment buildings that were being torn down, presumably to make room for something taller and larger. The closer building was already in ruins. It offered no cover whatsoever. The next one was fenced off. Its windows were boarded up, so I slipped through a gap where two posts didn’t quite join and hurried around to the rear.
The ground had been completely cleared. The surface was smooth, obviously done by a machine, except for a pit that was directly at the back of the building. It was about eight feet deep and twelve square. Maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe they were rehabbing the building, or putting up an addition. But whatever the reason, I wasn’t going to argue. This setup was better than I could possibly have hoped for.
“Hey.” The ginger-haired guy appeared around the side of the building and puffed himself up, thinking he had the advantage when he saw that I was cornered. “I want to talk to you. Stay where you are.”
I took a step toward him. “Have you got any weapons on you? Any hard objects in your pockets? Anything sharp?”
The guy looked confused. He didn’t answer, but I saw his right hand brush across the back pocket of his jeans.
“I’ll take that as no, then.” I snaked my left leg around the guy’s ankles and shoved him hard in the chest. He fell back, and landed square in the center of the pit. There was a hollow squelching sound as the dirt knocked the wind out of him, so I gave him a moment to catch his breath before I continued. “Age before beauty, my friend. I’m going to be asking the questions. Starting with, why were you following me?”
The guy hauled himself to his feet, rage distorting his already unfriendly face. “What the hell? What’d you do that for, man? I’m going to kill you. Get me out of here!”
“If you’re going to kill me, that’s not much of an incentive for me to get you out, is it? No. So this is how things are going to work. If you want out, you have to answer my questions first.”
“Screw your questions.” The guy paced up and down, looking for handholds in the wall. The dirt was smooth and slick. He tried to dig his fingers in and kick footholds with his toes, but the sides of the pit were as hard as cement. Eventually he gave up and tried another tack. “Help! Help! Somebody? Get me out!”
The guy yelled for nearly two minutes straight. Then he stopped in the center of the pit, his fists by his sides and the veins bulging in his forehead, glaring up at me.
“It’s no good shouting help.” I shook my head. “This is New York. No one cares. Usually fire is your best bet, but you’re in a construction site. Who’s going to notice? It’s like I said. Your only way out is to answer my questions. So. Why were you following me?”
He didn’t answer.
“If you don’t talk to me, I’ll leave. How long will it be till anyone finds you? Will it be tonight? Tomorrow? Next week? I hope you had a good breakfast…”
The anger on the guy’s face suddenly turned into a smirk. He reached for his back pocket. Started to look worried. Tried his other pockets. Then began moving around, staring intently down at the ground.
“Are you looking for this?” I held up the slim flip phone I’d removed from his pocket as he fell.
The guy punched the earth wall in rage, then whimpered and tried to shake the pain out of his hand.
“Why were you following me?” I kept my voice gentle.
“Look, it’s my job, OK?”
“Your job is to follow me?”
“Not just you. I work security. At that building you were poking around, with no business being there. We’ve had problems recently. So the landlord promoted me, and sent me to protect the residents.”
“In that case I feel even worse for the residents. What’s the landlord’s name?”
“I don’t know. He never said.”
“Is it usual to get a job and not know your boss’s name?”
The guy didn’t answer.
“I guess that’s not a fair question.” I softened my voice a touch. “It’s probably not usual for you to get a job at all. What does the guy look like?”
“I don’t know.” The guy scowled. “I never met him.”
“So how did he hire you?”
“Over the phone. A friend introduced us.”
“What’s your friend’s name?”
“Norm.”
“Norman Davies?”
The guy nodded. “How did you know?”
“It’s a small world. Where’s Norman now?”
“I don’t know. He said he was going away.”
“When did you last see him?”
The guy shrugged. “Couple days ago.”
“So if Norman introduced you, he must have worked for the same guy?”
“Right. But he got fired. A few weeks ago.”
“Fired, why?”
“He got arrested. He was in jail. I don’t know why.”
“But then he got out?”
“Right. The police screwed something up, he said. He was lucky.”
“What if it wasn’t luck?”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
“So, your job. You provide security. Does that mean you’re at the building twenty-four/seven? Do you live there?”
“No.” The guy leaned on the pit wall. “I get paid to stay in the area. On call. I can’t be more than ten minutes away. So I hang out on Eighth. In the bars there. If there’s a problem, I get a call.”
“How does your boss know if there’s a problem?”
The guy shrugged.
“Did he call you just now, and tell you I was a problem?”
“He said you might be. He wanted you checked out.”
“Was that the last call you took?”
The guy nodded. I checked the call log in his phone. Found the last incoming call. The number was withheld.
“How do you get in touch with your boss?”
“I don’t.”
“How do you get paid?”
“In cash. Sometimes it’s waiting for me at the building. Sometimes it’s dropped off at home. Sometimes it’s at the bar. He calls and tells me where it’ll be each week.”
“One last question. What’s your name?”
He didn’t reply.
“It can’t hurt to tell me. And if you want to get out…”
“It’s Jonny. Jonny Evans. What’s yours?”
“My name’s not important. I’m just a janitor. I clean up dirty buildings. Now I’m going to check on what you told me. If it’s true, I’ll come back for you. Or at least send someone with a ladder. Like maybe the cops.”
I went directly back to the building where the Masons lived, let myself in, and stomped upstairs to the top floor. Then I came back down, making no effort to be quiet. I was on the bottom step, about to turn and head back up, when the phone in my hand started to ring.
“Mr. Carrick?” I kept my voice bright and cheerful. “It’s good to finally speak.”
“I don’t know who that is.” It was a man’s voice on the line, hesitant and cagey. “Who are you?”
“Let’s not play games.” I sat down on the stairs. “I was just speaking with Jonny, your security guy. He said this was the best way to get in touch with you. My name’s Paul McNaught, Mr. Carrick, and I’m here to buy your building.”
“It’s not for sale.”
“Let’s not be hasty. I’m very sentimental about the place. My aunt Jenny used to live here. So here’s the deal. I’ll pay twenty percent over market price, which can be independently verified. That gives you a very generous premium. Plus it saves you the cost and aggravation of making all the outstanding repairs. And it means you’ll be able to avoid a whole bunch of lawsuits. What do you say?”
“The building’s not for sale.”
“Let’s at least meet. We should talk. Try to find a way forward. You see, Jonny gave me some interesting information about his friend Norman. Did you know they’d met after Norman’s release from jail? Evidently they’re very close, because Norman told Jonny all about how you ordered him to attack one of your residents. They seemed like just the kind of details the police would love to know.”
“That’s complete crap. Let me talk to Jonny.”
“Jonny’s not here right now. It seems he’s gone underground for a while.”
The line went silent for a moment.
“Listen. For the record, I don’t know this Norman guy. But from what I’ve heard, you’re too late. He was tried for this alleged assault already, and he got acquitted. So now he’s safe. Double jeopardy protects him.”
“That’s an interesting theory. But here’s the thing. Norman wasn’t acquitted. It was a mistrial. Which means the whole double jeopardy thing doesn’t apply. The DA can re-file the charges at any time. And he’s pissed as hell about what happened. If my information gets into his hands, you’re screwed. So. Does 8:00 A.M. Monday work for you?”