After another night when my head hardly touched my pillow, I would have liked the chance to sleep late. And if I had to get up early to go somewhere, I would have liked something hearty to eat, as compensation. The next morning, I went 0 for 2. There was a message waiting for me on my voicemail. It was from Detective Atkinson. He had news about Klinsman. And inevitably he wanted to pass it on at the Green Zebra.
I might not be the fastest student in the class, but you can’t say I never learn. I remembered to take some paper, a pen, and a small scissors with me to the café. Atkinson was inevitably late. The chess table was free, so I broke a golden rule—or demonstrated a newfound civilian flexibility—and I took it. I ordered coffee, and while I waited for it to arrive I designed a set of my own chess pieces—I’d like to think they fell somewhere between Isle of Lewis and Man Ray—cut them out, and set a board. It was challenging to stop them from blowing away when anyone walked past, but I’d managed to complete the first six moves of the King’s Indian Defense when Atkinson arrived. He glanced at the paper shapes, momentarily intrigued, but didn’t spot the connection to his timekeeping and took the seat opposite mine. He waved to our server, ordered his usual eggplant Benedict, then called him back and added an energy-boosting kale smoothie. Judging by the intensity of his fidgeting, that wasn’t strictly necessary.
Atkinson waited in silence for his drink to be delivered, then took a sip and grimaced. “OK.” He briefly drummed his fingers on the table. “I asked you to come because I have news about the guy you thought possibly had links to China. I want you to know, very thorough inquiries have been made. You deserve that, given how your theories held water in the past, and I’m the first to admit that I benefited from them even when I doubted you. My contacts dug deep and what they found is, there’s no connection. No cause for concern.”
“Are you sure? Who did you talk to? Because it’s natural for people in certain positions to deny—”
“I can’t give you names, McGrath. But one guy’s high up in FBI counterterrorism. One’s a longtime NSA cyber task force expert, and he knows telecom inside out and backward. The other’s at the Treasury Department. She’s an expert in financial crimes. All of them say the same thing. There’s no there there.”
“I don’t get it.” I moved a random white pawn. “The stock damage Klinsman caused only helps the US firm’s Chinese rival. And as we all know, those so-called corporations are basically fronts for their government.”
“That’s not actually the case.” Atkinson drummed his fingers. “The share thing doesn’t help the Chinese at all. It’s irrelevant to them. Our government hasn’t lost confidence. The US company is still nailed on to win the same contracts. And its share price is already bouncing back. The official announcement was delayed, is all. Klinsman found that part out through some contact of his, and used the knowledge to his advantage. But when the information is made public, the stock will go through the roof. I shouldn’t even be telling you this. I could be guilty of insider trading, myself. But the only guy Klinsman helped was Klinsman. From what I’ve been told, anyone else with sufficient resources and the same facts at their disposal would have made the same play. And ironically, if the arson guy had pockets deep enough to ride out the storm, he’d soon be benefiting, too.”
“This smells all wrong.” I moved another pawn. “My father was a businessman. A good one. And he taught me that you make money by working hard. By building things. Inventing things. Not by trading paper and screwing your friends in the process.”
“Welcome to Wall Street, my friend.”
“Even if he’s not working for the Chinese, Klinsman shouldn’t be allowed to walk away from this. He’s just as guilty as Hendrie. It was a house for a house. If one guy’s punished, they both should be.”
“What do you want me to do about it?” Atkinson shifted in his chair. “One of them broke the law. The other one didn’t. Right or wrong, that’s the way it is.”
“Immoral, is the way it is.”
Atkinson made a show of looking at his watch. “I’m sorry, am I keeping you? Do you need to get back to kindergarten?”
“You should investigate. Find out what’s behind Klinsman’s golden façade. No one amasses that much money without cutting a few corners.”
“Maybe so. But I can’t investigate without evidence of wrongdoing. Or probable cause, at least.”
“OK, then.” I drained the last of my coffee, slammed my mug on the table, and gathered up my paper chessmen. “I understand. I’m not naïve. You need evidence first? I’ll find you some.”
“Like you found Pardew’s missing file?”
“Exactly like that.”
“Come on, McGrath. Focus. Prioritize.”
“Don’t worry.” I stood up. “Another few days, you’ll have Pardew’s file and dirt on Klinsman. Both. I guarantee it.”
I turned right out of the café, stepped into the street, and immediately had to dodge around a group of slow-moving sightseers. That just added to the impatience and anger I was feeling toward the world. Had I really spent twenty years of my life defending a system that was so inherently unfair? So frivolous, as my father would have said?
The thought of my father made me redirect my anger toward myself. The truth was, whatever good came out of my time in the service, my original motivation had not been noble. The old man was a committed pacifist. He freaked out over my reaction to witnessing a shooting and demanded I get counseling. I joined the army instead, to spite him. It was a mistake I never got the chance to correct.
I swerved around a messenger who’d stopped in the center of the sidewalk while he scanned the nearby buildings for an address, pulled out my phone, and called Robson. I wanted news about Brian—the contact Spangler had met at the pier—but he had nothing for me. So I switched tack. I tried Ro Lebodow instead. Ro was my go-to expert when it came to finance questions. The murkier the waters, the more valuable her advice tended to be. I first met her years ago when she helped me defeat a terrorist plot by unpicking a tangle of real estate transactions. I’ve consulted her many times since, most recently over a money-laundering case, where her insight helped me boost the local jail population, while another asshole landed himself in the morgue as an added bonus.
Ro sounded breathless when she answered. I guessed she was on her treadmill, which was one of her favorite places to work. She was the queen of multitasking, with such boundless drive it was as if she was tapped into the energy of the city itself. I asked how her schedule was looking and she said she was impossibly busy. There was no way she could see me until soon after lunch.
I decided to fill the intervening time at the courthouse. There were always floors that needed to be cleaned, and part of me was hoping that the bathroom guys might come back. They might need more guidance. I was still mulling that prospect over when my phone rang. It was Robson.
“Finally, some news. My contact at the NYPD came through. The guy from the pier last night was driving a car registered to a company. Rooney Home Security, Inc., out of Queens. I googled, and it looks legit. They install burglar alarms, things like that.”
I felt my mood begin to improve. “Good lead, John. Very interesting. And you know, I was just thinking we might need an alarm at the brownstone. Maybe I should go by. Get a quote.”
“I’m texting you the address now.”
I knew people who refused to visit the outer boroughs, even to go to the airports, and when my cab dropped me on the Union Turnpike, half a dozen blocks west of Cunningham Park, I could see their point of view. Rooney Home Security’s office was in the center of a strip mall that was set back far enough from the street to allow a single line of cars to park, as long as they stopped at an angle, like a row of fish bones. The neighboring units were identical except for signs that identified them as a church of some obscure denomination I’d not heard of before, a cellphone store, a massage parlor, and a pawnshop. Vertical blinds filled the office’s window, which was otherwise blank except for a sign announcing its business hours—8:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M., Monday to Friday—and a little clock illustration in case the numbers weren’t clear enough.
Inside, there was a modest wooden desk set near the center of the rear wall. A receptionist was sitting behind it, looking stern with her metal-rimmed glasses and her gray hair up in a bun, but she was so transfixed by her computer monitor that she showed no sign of having noticed I was there. The carpet was brown with a coarse weave, like it was from a cheap hotel. The walls had wood veneer panels to waist height and were painted white above. Framed charts and graphs on one side warned of soaring crime rates across the city, and adverts on the other suggested that the only possible safeguard would be a shiny new alarm system. A washed-out reproduction of The Hay Wain hung by the entrance in a fading gilded frame. Three Barcelona chairs were lined up under the window, or at least cheap knockoffs covered with white vinyl that was yellowing with age and imitation chrome peeling off their plastic legs. There were two more next to the side wall and a low table with a glass top, which was covered with unruly piles of brochures.
“Is Mr. Rooney available?” I stopped in front of the desk. “I need his help. It’s very urgent.”
The woman peered up at me and her expression made clear that she preferred whatever she’d been looking at on her screen. “Take a seat.” She spoke with the raspy whisper of a long-term smoker. “I’ll see.” I stayed where I was. She snatched up her desk phone with long bony fingers, wedged the handset under her chin, and jabbed angrily at its buttons. “Got a walk-in. Want to see him?” She listened for a second, then looked at me again. “What do you want, exactly?”
“A security system. For a house. A large house. In Manhattan. I want something with all the bells and whistles.”
She relayed the information, listened for another second, dropped the receiver back into its cradle, and jerked her thumb toward a door in the rear corner. “Through there. Go ahead. Mr. Rooney’ll see you now.”
Rooney’s office was roughly half the size of the reception area. The floor was covered with pale laminate and the walls were plain white. There was a gray metal desk facing away from a barred window. Two visitor’s chairs with bent chrome frames and blue canvas seats. And four olive green file cabinets along the far wall, with a bunch of trophies lined up on top. Half were for bowling. Half, for shooting.
Rooney hauled himself out of his black mesh executive chair, which had a frame like a chrome exoskeleton, leaned forward, and held out his hand. He was just shy of six feet tall, with white hair cropped close to his skull; a loose, fleshy face; black suit pants; and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled halfway up his meaty forearms. He had no wedding ring, and I could tell without looking at the certificates on the wall that he’d been a cop.
“You were a detective, Mr. Rooney?” I softened my voice and added some of the mid-Atlantic overtones that were common to most of the expats I’d ever met. “I’m ex-army, myself. Paul McGinn.”
We shook hands, he gestured for me to sit, and then sank back down into his own chair.
“McGinn, with two n’s?” Rooney took a pad of forms from his desk drawer and sat with his pen poised.
“That’s right.” I nodded. It was really just a superstition to always assume another Irish surname, but it had worked for a long time so I wasn’t about to change.
“Brian Rooney.” He continued to scribble on his pad. “Twenty years on the job. Now at your service. How can I help?”
“That’s an easy question to answer, I hope. I need a security system for my house, and I heard you guys are good.”
“Thank you.” Rooney nodded. “You’ve got to love word of mouth. It’s the best marketing there is. I’m happy that people are talking about us, but do you know the real difference with Rooney Security? We’re not just talk. We back our words with actions. Our motto is simple: Protected. Because if you buy a system from us, that’s what you’ll be.”
“Straightforward. To the point. I like that in a motto.”
“I do, too. I came up with it myself. Now, why not tell me a little about your situation, and make sure not to skip any problems or concerns that you may have. I’ll take some notes, we’ll line up an in-home survey, and I guarantee to come up with a solution that meets your needs. Sound good?”
“Sure, if you think that’s the best way to do it. OK. So here’s the deal. My father passed away recently and I inherited a house he owned in Hell’s Kitchen. I’ve only just moved in. Now, you may have heard that the neighborhood’s all right these days. Let me tell you, that’s just not true. Not even close. Twice in the last twelve months, one of my neighbors has been burglarized while he was at work. Another was the victim of a home invasion, last summer. No one was hurt that time, but it doesn’t pay to take chances. I want something done fast to keep me and my property safe. Hopefully I’m not at too much risk right now because I’m still getting set up—I don’t even have much furniture yet—but this security question is a weight on my mind. I’ll feel better when I’ve taken some action.”
“First of all, let me say I’m very sorry for your loss.” Rooney paused and looked down at his desktop for a moment. “I’m also sorry to hear about your neighbors’ terrible experiences, but I’m sure we can make certain you can avoid anything like that happening to you. I totally get where you’re coming from with this. For a first impression, I’m going to say I think you need a fully monitored, multimode system with fixed and mobile emergency triggers. I can tailor it to your exact requirements once I’ve been out and seen your property. Sound good?”
“I guess. As long as we can move quickly. A home visit is the next step?”
“That’s right.” Rooney nodded.
“OK. Sounds like a plan. How about tomorrow, 10:00 A.M.?”
“Hmm. Tomorrow’s Saturday. This kind of work we usually do on weekdays. I could switch a couple of things around and do Monday? I could be there by 8:00 A.M. Or earlier? Or in the evening, if that fits better around your work schedule.”
“No.” I shook my head. “I want to get the wheels in motion. No delays. The home visit needs to be tomorrow.”
“OK.” Rooney held his hands up. “Tomorrow it is—10:00 A.M. I’ll be there.”
“Good. I’ll write down the address. The place is easy to find, but parking can be brutal.”
“Thanks. I’ll manage. Any other questions while you’re here?”
“Just one. How many times has your office been broken into, here?”
Rooney looked like I’d thrown ice water in his face. “That’s kind of personal, Mr. McGinn.”
“Not really. How can I trust you to stop burglars getting into my house if you can’t keep them out of your own office?”
Rooney paused. “OK. That’s fair. I’m happy to say we’ve never had a break-in here.”
“That’s good. Do you use the same kind of systems that you sell?”
“Basically.” Rooney nodded. “I have confidence in my products, if that’s what you mean. We use a commercial version, obviously. Less aesthetically pleasing, but just as effective.”
“The same on the inside as the residential ones?”
“The technology’s the same. I’m in the trade, so I buy at cost, and I’ve added a few extra features.”
“I like extra features. I may need a few of them myself. What did you add?”
“Nothing crazy. Just a few prudent enhancements. Pressure pads, for example.”
“Hence the carpet in the waiting area. I’m not sure I’d want that. My house still has its original hardwood. What else do you have?”
“Pressure pads aren’t essential. Another option you could consider isn’t a physical thing at all. It’s a software patch. It adds very little cost, and what it does is, it gives you a six-digit PIN. That’s instead of the standard four digits. It’s actually genius. In theory it adds millions more permutations. But in practice it makes your PIN unbreakable. If an intruder doesn’t know to try six digits, he never will.”
“Now, that idea I love. I’ll definitely want six digits, too. It wouldn’t have crossed my mind. I mean, I didn’t even see your keypad.”
“Keypads should always be concealed. That’s standard practice.”
I paused, as if I was thinking. “I know. Behind the Constable!”
“What?” Rooney’s eyes narrowed and his lips tightened a fraction.
“The painting. I thought you must have an ironic decorator—a picture of the English countryside, in Queens. Using it to hide the keypad is much better.”
Rooney didn’t respond.
“I might do the same when mine’s installed. I’ll have to think about which painting to choose. Unless you have any advice?”
“It has no bearing on the system. It’s entirely up to the homeowner to pick something out. Now, is there anything else I can help you with before you go?”
“No, thanks.” I smiled at him. “I’ve got everything I came for.”