The footage appeared to show two men bumping into each other, exchanging a quick word, and then moving on. The pickpocket had been skilled enough to hide the theft; all you could see was the bump. The camera—mounted in a dome on the ceiling of the passageway in Grand Central Station—didn’t have an ideal angle, but the picture was clear. It had been early in the morning; rush-hour commuters passed in both directions across the screen.
Michael D’Angelo—in-house investigator for Carlyle, Driscoll, and Hathaway—had been tasked with examining the video. He sat at his desk and watched the footage again and again, backing it up and playing it over, step by step. D’Angelo had spent eighteen years in the FBI; he knew this kind of thing took time and patience.
The victim of the pickpocketing, Chris Cowley, was a junior associate attorney at the same law firm that employed D’Angelo. He reported that the cell phone had been stolen from the inside breast pocket of his jacket. Upon discovering the theft, Chris had rushed to work and waited for his boss, Elizabeth Carlyle—the head of the firm—to emerge from the elevator. When she did, he told her that his phone had been stolen, and—far more alarmingly—that he had hot documents from the Calcott case on the phone.
Walk. Step. Bump. D’Angelo tapped the space bar and paused the video. He backed it up, this time a little further, and watched again. After the bump, the video showed Chris continuing toward the turnstile, where a slight bottleneck of morning commuters had formed. This had slowed his progress. Once through the turnstile, the footage showed Chris patting his pants pockets for the first time. Two seconds later, the patting moved up to his jacket and became more urgent. Chris then turned and looked in the direction he’d just come from.
D’Angelo sighed, took a sip of coffee, and backed the video up again. He noted the time of the bump—08:12:41—and let it play right up until Cowley turned and ran after the thief. Sixteen seconds. He jotted the time down on a yellow legal pad along with his other notes. He watched the whole thing again. Something about it didn’t sit right with him. For one thing, the lawyer and the pickpocket appeared to exchange a glance a few steps before the bump.
But that wasn’t it—after the glance, they appeared to be drawn toward each other. Still, that wasn’t it, either; it was the bump itself that bothered him. D’Angelo paused the video, closed his eyes, and tried to put himself into the young attorney’s shoes. Would he, under similar circumstances, ever bump into someone like that? He didn’t think so. Could he imagine performing an awkward dance? Sure. Maybe touch a hand to an arm? Yes. But to actually bump into another man, to have your legs, torso, and shoulder make contact with another person in the midst of rush-hour traffic? It didn’t seem likely.
He paused the video; his mind drifted back a few hours and replayed the events of the morning. He’d just settled in at his desk when Elizabeth Carlyle stopped by and asked him to come to her office. She’d always been tough, but her voice sounded particularly flinty that morning. “I need you to come with me right away.”
It wasn’t every day that Elizabeth Carlyle came to summon you. In fact, D’Angelo couldn’t remember it ever happening before. She wasn’t the type to drop by in person; she’d usually send someone to get you.
She was in her late fifties. She dressed in tailored power suits, and always—except when she was in court—seemed to be in a hurry. She was cold, but it was hard not to be impressed by her. D’Angelo studied her for a second and saw that she was stressed. Without asking what she needed, he pushed himself up from his desk, touched the knot of his tie, and followed her.
When they entered her office, D’Angelo observed Chris Cowley sitting on a chair in front of Ms. Carlyle’s desk. D’Angelo didn’t know him well; they’d never worked on anything together. Now D’Angelo looked at him as though for the first time. He was in his late twenties but was still skinny, like a teenager. He had a full head of light brown hair, and his face appeared to only need occasional shaving. A petulant expression hung on his face, and for a moment it made D’Angelo think that he, himself, was about to be accused of some misdeed. Before he could even begin to imagine what that accusation could be, Elizabeth spoke: “Michael, Chris’s cell phone was stolen this morning.”
So what? thought D’Angelo.
She then told him that Cowley had been carrying the Calcott hot documents on the phone, that the phone had been unlocked, and that his password had—inconceivably—been turned off. The hot documents were the most toxic emails, memos, chats, text messages, and other evidence at the center of the Emerson v. Calcott case. That case, a federal civil suit between two banks, represented the largest portion of Carlyle, Driscoll, and Hathaway’s billable hours. It was, to put it plainly, their biggest case. Without the Calcott Corporation, the firm would not exist.
Anger rolled through D’Angelo. He found that kind of sloppiness personally offensive. It didn’t take long for the anger to transform into suspicion. What the hell was this kid doing carrying hot documents on his phone? And what in the name of God was he doing walking around with his phone unlocked?
He studied Chris. The lawyer sat there with his elbows on his knees, bent over like a man waiting for news. His ill humor was still apparent. D’Angelo was in the middle of wondering whether it was genuine or not, when Elizabeth asked if he could wipe the phone remotely.
He thought about it. “Sure,” he said. “If it’s turned on and has a signal.”
“It’s not on,” said Chris. “It’s off. Fuck.” He looked like he might cry. “I checked.”
Hoping for some kind of guidance, D’Angelo glanced toward Elizabeth Carlyle. He didn’t have a particularly warm relationship with her. She wasn’t the type of person who joked around—it was a quality he actually admired—but her vibe right then was downright hostile. It scared him, and for a moment he patted at his own pockets, making sure he hadn’t lost his phone. “I’ll see how we can do it,” he said.
“Good,” said Elizabeth. “I need to tell Scott. I’ll be right back.”
She left the room, and D’Angelo again turned his attention to Chris. The younger man shifted in his seat and stared out the window. He kept shaking his head—a gesture D’Angelo interpreted as an attempt to express disbelief.
“It’s a company phone?” D’Angelo asked.
“Yes.”
“Verizon?”
“Yes.”
“iPhone?”
“Yeah.”
“Tell me the number,” said D’Angelo, taking a notepad off Elizabeth’s desk.
Chris told him the number. After that D’Angelo had him run through the basics of the incident. The thief had been Asian, maybe Chinese, midforties, wearing a black suit. Chris said that after he noticed his phone missing, he tried to chase the man to a downtown-bound 6 train, but he missed him. He said he was 90 percent sure the man had boarded the train.
D’Angelo took out his cell phone and scrolled through his contacts looking for someone who would know how to wipe a powered-off iPhone. He called Emily Nolan, an ex-colleague from the FBI. The call went straight to voicemail. He left a message. Next he called Jerry Lamb, another colleague from the Bureau. D’Angelo—outlining the general scenario for Lamb—moved toward the window and looked down at Madison Avenue. Eighteen floors below, he saw people shuffling to their jobs. A feeling of well-being settled on him; he felt focused.
The feeling was short lived. First, Jerry informed him that as long as the phone remained off it couldn’t be wiped—not without putting something on there first. Yes, he was sure of that.
Elizabeth, now trailed by Scott Driscoll, her closest ally in the firm, came back into the room. As D’Angelo tried to end the call, her face showed impatience.
He told her the bad news. He tried to soften it by saying the phone would probably end up getting shipped to China, where it would be wiped and sold on the black market. That didn’t comfort her.
When she asked again, he confirmed that it couldn’t be done. He watched her eyes close; she rubbed her temples. D’Angelo glanced at Scott Driscoll. He was skinny and normally walked around with his arms out like a weight lifter, but he now stood—arms crossed in front of himself—like he was going to throw up. He looked ashen. He was roughly the same age as D’Angelo, midfifties, but he looked older now.
Calm down, thought D’Angelo, forcing himself to take a steadying breath. In his mind, he began forming a sentence; the message was going to be that he should get over to Grand Central, contact the NYPD, and begin trying to track the thief. See if the cops knew this dude. Start working.
Before he could speak, Elizabeth had opened her eyes, turned to Scott Driscoll, and asked, “Valencia Walker?”
Driscoll nodded.
D’Angelo felt a pang of jealousy. He was standing right there—what the hell did they need to call her for? He knew better than to protest. Instead, he looked away, nodded like he agreed, and told himself they were calling her in because they were going to ask her to do things that they wouldn’t ask someone from their own firm to do. They needed a buffer. By the time his eyes went back to Elizabeth, she had already placed the call.
A moment later she spoke into the phone: “Valencia, we have a situation,” she said.
Valencia Walker was twenty-one blocks south of CDH’s office. She was glad to excuse herself from the meeting she was in. She’d been expecting a call from Elizabeth and acted amused that it would be about a lost phone. What would she think of next?
After hanging up, she sent a text to two of her colleagues and told them she had a job that needed immediate attention. Were they in the city?
Milton Frazier responded instantly: Affirmative.
Me too, replied Billy Sharrock a moment later.
On the elevator ride down, Valencia texted them that the billing name for the job would be Hopscotch. She told Billy to go to Grand Central and contact the NYPD sergeant on duty: Have him stand by. She asked Milton to pick her up in front of Credit Suisse as soon as he could. Then she texted her assistant Danny Tsui and told him to drop everything, sit at his desk, and wait for further instruction.
As soon as the elevator doors opened, she stepped out and called Wally Philpott, an NYPD detective she paid for jobs like this. “How busy are you?” she asked, when he answered.
“Never too busy for you,” said the cop.
“Can you meet me at Grand Central in half an hour?”
“Oh boy,” said Wally. “Here we go.”
Now it begins, thought Valencia as she made her way toward the building’s exit. All of the men in the lobby—the security guards, couriers, and men in suits—watched her. She could feel it. She knew she was good-looking, and she dressed the part. She wore tailored suits, chic and expensive. But it wasn’t her looks or clothes they were gaping at. They were staring at her because she carried herself like the most powerful person in the building, no matter what building she happened to be in.
That sense of power had been developed during her ten years as a case officer in the CIA. Her path to the Agency had been unusual. She had gone to college (University of Pennsylvania), bummed around New York for a bit after graduation, went to law school (NYU), and joined The Bronx Defenders. After five years, wanting to make more money and needing a change of scenery, she applied for a position on the legal team of a large consulting firm. They had offices in Istanbul. She’d spent her junior year of college studying abroad at Boğaziçi University and spoke some Turkish. The job seemed like a natural fit.
One of her first jobs in Turkey involved handling some negotiations with a large communications technology company. Her counterpart at the company was a man named Hugh Loftus, a loud, big-bellied Texan. He had a red face, and he drank constantly, even during business hours. They spent months working together.
One night, they were in Emirgan, a neighborhood on the Bosphorus, having drinks with some of their Turkish colleagues. They were seated outside, and the sun was setting. Valencia looked across the table at Hugh. His face had become serious, something that rarely happened. He asked her to join him for a cigarette. She didn’t smoke, but she stood up and followed him to the sidewalk.
When they were away from the group, he lit his cigarette, looked over his shoulder, and pulled Valencia by the arm so she was closer. They walked away from the outside tables. She worried that he was going to hit on her.
“You know, I used to work for the government,” he said. “Would you ever think of doing that?”
Valencia told him her last job had been with The Bronx Defenders.
He smiled, shook his head, and looked down the river. “I’m talking Government with a big G, you hear me, right?”
Valencia smiled and raised her eyebrows theatrically. “You mean spy?”
“I’m gonna recommend you.”
She asked why, and he told her he liked the way she carried herself. “You seem comfortable in your skin,” he said. “Your Turkish is decent. You don’t have any damn relatives here. And you brought me a Killen’s steak when you came to negotiate.”
She smiled.
“You flew it all the way in from Houston.”
She reminded him that she’d also brought a bottle of bourbon.
“And that,” he said, tapping her shoulder with his fat finger.
Still, she thought he was joking, and she paid him no mind.
Two weeks later, he called and said that a friend was in town. Maybe she’d like to meet him? She didn’t need to ask what the meeting was about. She understood now. Before then, she’d never thought of being a spy; she had never even considered it. But just like that, it all made sense. Her life clicked into place. She couldn’t sleep that night. She was too excited.
She met Hugh’s friend—a thoughtful man who introduced himself as Cunningham—took a walk with him, answered questions about her life, asked him about his. The CIA was never mentioned. It all seemed very informal. A month later, Hugh met back up with her. “It’s time to take a leave of absence,” he said. “It’ll be good for you.”
She returned to the United States and spent the next year taking tests, being polygraphed, psychologically profiled, and waiting for her background to clear. She did contract work to pay her bills. On February 21, 2000, she received a generic envelope in the mail.
When she opened it, she saw it was from “the Office of Personnel.” It didn’t say anything about the CIA, but it told her to report for duty in three weeks.
In March of 2000, she began her two-week orientation. From there she was assigned to a desk in the European Division, Turkey section, of the Clandestine Service. She spent her days reading intelligence reports, serving as an interagency liaison, and doing whatever her branch chief—a skinny, unassuming man, called Culpepper—asked.
After three months on the desk she was sent to The Farm for operational training. Her assessment had flagged her as a natural recruiter. Her charts showed that she was exceptional at winning people’s trust. She would be trained to spot, assess, develop, recruit, and run foreign agents. Her training, of course, would also include all things operational: countersurveillance, weapons, disguise, counterfeiting, and communications.
Beyond normal spycraft, her lessons also included more esoteric things: acting (taught by an ex-Broadway actor), somatic regulation, and interpersonal manipulation (both taught by a husband-and-wife team of Rice University psychologists).
The ten months at The Farm was the happiest time of her life. After The Farm she did a monthlong crash course in Turkish at CIA University in Chantilly, Virginia. From there she did four two-year postings abroad (and one in the United States). Her first was at the legal office in the American embassy in Turkey. Officially, she was working for the State Department. Unofficially, she was recruiting and running agents, Turkish and otherwise.
She arrived in May of 2001. Four months later, on September 11, America was attacked. The world changed quickly.
Milton Frazier, one of Valencia’s men, had also been an officer in the Agency. His path there had been more standard; he’d joined after being in the Special Forces. They had never met while they were overseas. He had heard of her, though, and he read her reports.
Milton joined Valencia’s firm four years ago. He’d been sleeping with her for the last six months. She had initiated it. It was a strange affair. She was almost ten years older than him. They barely talked about what they were doing—which was fine with Milton, since he was married and had two kids.
As he pulled up to Credit Suisse, he saw Valencia standing near the door. She had her phone to her ear and her lips were moving, but her eyes tracked his approach. Right when he stopped, she ended her call and hopped in the front seat.
“Some kid had his phone stolen,” said Valencia.
“What?”
“A lawyer at CDH.”
“What kinda shit was on this phone?”
“The kind they’d rather not have floating around the toilet,” said Valencia.
Milton watched her pull the visor down and check her lipstick. She cleaned her teeth with her tongue and then looked at him. The look told him to stop staring at her. His eyes went back to the road; he checked all his mirrors and noted the plate numbers behind him.
When they arrived at Elizabeth Carlyle’s office, a security guard accompanied them in the elevator to the eighteenth floor. Elizabeth’s assistant stood there waiting; after a quick greeting, he ushered them back toward a quiet conference room. Milton walked slightly behind the group so he could sanitize his hands without being observed.
When they entered the room, Milton saw Elizabeth Carlyle—who he’d met a dozen times—leaning on a table tapping at her phone. Elizabeth hired Valencia’s firm whenever she needed a sticky situation taken care of. These jobs, by their very nature, usually fell into ethically gray areas. Standing there, Milton thought about the last thing he’d done for them. He’d been tasked with explaining the downside of testifying to a witness in a securities fraud case.
Milton had laid out exactly what refusing to testify would look like. The witness would be held in contempt of court. He might end up sitting in jail for the duration of the trial. But that was extremely unlikely, and still, wouldn’t that be less bothersome than ending up on the wrong side of a lawsuit?
Milton delivered this message in a friendly way; he smiled and spoke like a buddy offering advice. It was, strictly speaking, witness tampering. And if any of it ever came back on them Milton knew he’d have to take the fall. Elizabeth Carlyle certainly never asked for him to do anything like that. Neither did Valencia Walker. He’d acted on his own. That’s why he got paid the big bucks.
Still, with all the jobs they’d done for the law firm, Milton had never exchanged more than vague pleasantries with Elizabeth. Valencia always dealt with her. The two women didn’t email. They’d meet for lunch, and Valencia would come back with the job.
Right then, when they stepped inside the conference room, Elizabeth looked up and shook her head as though trying to impart what a mess they were walking into. There seemed to be a shared bad mood in the room. It seemed worse than normal.
Seated at the table was an exhausted-looking young man Milton assumed was the lawyer who’d lost his phone. The third person was a white man in his fifties who stood up, walked over, and offered Valencia his hand.
Milton watched Valencia smile warmly and ask about his old boss in Newark, Donnegan. Always working the crowds, thought Milton. The woman was like a damn politician.
“Michael D’Angelo,” said Valencia, motioning toward Milton. “You’ve met Milton Frazier? He works for me.”
“Pleased to meet you, sir,” said Milton, shaking hands.
“Is this the kid?” asked Valencia.
Elizabeth closed her eyes and nodded. “Chris Cowley,” she said, barely able to hide her distaste.
Milton walked around the table and leaned against the far wall to watch. He knew that’s where Valencia would want him. It also allowed him to keep his eyes on the door, a remnant from his years abroad.
“Okay, sweetie, let’s sit face-to-face so we can talk,” said Valencia, smiling at the young man. “Pull your chair out.” Valencia then set a chair directly in front of his and sat on it. Their knees were a few inches apart. “That’s good.”
Milton watched her stare at the young man in silence for a long moment. It was a two-step process: first she wanted to raise his blood pressure and then she wanted to see how he’d react to direct attention. The performance wasn’t just for her interview subject, though; she was telling everyone in the room—particularly Elizabeth and her investigator—that she was in charge. This was her case now.
Milton’s gaze returned to the kid. He didn’t look particularly impressive. He was definitely young: a blonde lawyer, a little baby. A little white boy. Milton watched Valencia lean in and sniff the air between them.
“Have you been drinking?” she asked.
“Last night,” said the lawyer.
Valencia took hold of his wrists. While she did this, Milton stole a quick glance at Elizabeth and the investigator. They both watched with rapt attention. Elizabeth was blinking, as if she had allergies. D’Angelo crossed his arms, apparently aware that Milton was looking at him.
Holding the kid’s wrists in each of her hands, Valencia let an uncomfortable amount of time pass. She stayed still. Later she told Milton that the lawyer’s pulse was fast—somewhere around ninety-five beats per minute. But she didn’t say anything about it then.
Finally, she let his wrists go, and leaned back. The young man was nervous, Milton could see that from where he stood. But nervousness could be expected; at the very least, the kid was going to lose his job.
Valencia asked how he’d gotten to work that morning.
“I took the A train to Fulton, then the 4 to Grand Central.” The words had a rehearsed quality. Milton marked it in his mind and filed it away.
Valencia made Chris Cowley run through the whole trip: where he boarded, where in the car he rode, where he got off.
When Chris finished, D’Angelo handed Valencia a manila folder. “This is the subscriber information, if you want that,” he said. He then filled in a few more details: the location and the time of the incident. From the notes he’d taken, he read the description of the thief.
Valencia opened the file he’d given her, looked at it, and handed it to Milton. “I’m going to ask you all to stop doing anything more from here on out,” she said. She turned to D’Angelo. “Nothing. No Find My Phone app, no calls to the target phone. No police. No nothing.”
D’Angelo dropped his head.
Valencia turned back to Elizabeth. “Liz, sweetie, I want you to go on with your day. Go to the meetings you have to attend. If you have a lunch date, go to it. We’ll keep you posted. Hopefully we’ll have it all sorted out in a few hours.”
She turned back to Chris. “All right, you’re going to come with us,” she said. “Show us exactly what happened.” She stood, offered Elizabeth a small smile.
Milton nodded his goodbye to D’Angelo and shook Elizabeth’s hand. “We’ll get it back,” he told her.
“I was right here,” Chris Cowley said, pointing at the ground. He was showing Valencia Walker and Milton Frazier where the theft had occurred. They stood in one of the tiled hallways of Grand Central Station, where a seemingly endless crowd of pedestrians walked past without paying them any attention.
“I was walking this way, and the guy just bumped me. I said, ‘sorry,’ because I thought it was my fault, and kept moving.” He pointed in the direction they’d just come from.
“Don’t point,” said Valencia. “Just talk.”
“Right here, then.”
“And after that?”
“Then I exited—sorry—I exited, noticed what happened, hopped that turnstile, and ran back over this way. First I went over there”—he pointed toward the 7 train platform—“’cause I thought I saw him down that way. But he wasn’t there, so I ran over that way to the 4-5-6, and missed a 6 train.” He pantomimed banging on the door.
“Downtown?” asked Milton.
“Downtown.”
“Did you see the man?”
“I think I saw him on the train when it passed, but I can’t say for sure.”
Chris then led them to where he’d missed the train.
“It was right around here.” He turned and surveyed the area for a moment. A few commuters watched them with a kind of grumpy midmorning nonchalance.
Chris wondered if anyone else was watching them. He pointed toward a movie poster. “After I missed him I looked at that poster, and then I walked toward that exit.”
Feeling suddenly hungover, Cowley stared that way before he glanced back at Valencia. He couldn’t place her exact age; she appeared to be in her late forties or early fifties. She watched him with a slightly amused expression on her face. She wore eyeliner and lipstick, but no other makeup. She seemed extremely capable, and Chris couldn’t help being impressed.
He then looked at her associate, Milton, who was listening with his hands behind his back. The dude dressed well, Chris gave him that—expensive suit, perfect shoes. He was black and had a shaved head. His face, to Chris, looked skeptical—a kind of professional skepticism. Even under the circumstances, Chris couldn’t help noticing how attractive he was. The man clearly worked out.
Their eyes met for a moment, and Chris tried to psychically convey his romantic feelings without being obvious. I’m here, he said to Milton in his mind, if you’re interested.
“Call Danny Boy,” said Valencia to Milton. “Tell him to contact Arty Jacobson at Metro Authority. Tell him to pull the tape from—where are we? Downtown 4-5-6, approximately sixty-something yards north of the south wall. Tell him this gentleman here”—she pointed at Chris—“ran for the train, missed it, and you said you hit the door?”
“Yeah,” said Chris.
“Hit the door. And were you in that suit?”
“No, I was wearing a black leather jacket and jeans,” said Chris, feeling slightly embarrassed as he said it.
“Black leather jacket. Track it all the way back to when he gets off the train here in Grand Central. Tell him we need the video right this moment,” said Valencia, dropping her chin to emphasize the point. “Money is not an object. I don’t care if he’s in a meeting with the governor, we need it now.”
“Got it,” said Milton.
Right then another man in a suit approached the group. Valencia introduced him: “Chris, this is Billy Sharrock, one of our other associates.”
They shook hands. Billy Sharrock, like Milton Frazier, appeared to be in his early forties: a white version, thought Chris. He looked more dangerous; he had rough skin and his brown hair was gelled straight back. His suit, like Milton’s, was well cut, but he seemed somehow uncomfortable in it.
“We’ll find your phone,” said Valencia. She punctuated this by smiling at the group. Chris wasn’t sure if anyone knew what that smile was supposed to mean. “Billy can find anything,” she added, looking at her watch like she was pointing out his tardiness.
Suddenly bashful, Billy stood there gazing at his feet.
* * *
A Chinese man named Ren Xiong stole the phone. Forty-four years old, he’d been in America for less than eighteen months. Just as Chris Cowley reported, he had jumped on a downtown-bound 6 train and ridden six stops from Grand Central to Bleecker Street. From there he exited on foot and headed west toward Washington Square Park. He’d already practiced this route, and was familiar with it, but today, after the theft, everything seemed to stand out with more clarity. He felt intoxicated, as if he were on amphetamines.
There was a camera on the corner of Broadway and Bleecker above the doorway of a shop. Xiong turned his head as he passed, but he didn’t fully avoid it. Up to a point, he was supposed to be seen; then he would vanish.
As he walked, the incident played through his mind. It had gone well. Nobody had seen him. He could still feel the inside of the pocket against the back of his hand. He could feel where their shoulders had touched, a kind of physical memory of the event.
He carried the stolen phone, powered off, in his front pants pocket, tapping it every few steps to make sure it was there. A white woman walked by, and he couldn’t help glancing at her. It was a beautiful day, the weather was still cool, but there was a hint of warmth in the air. Spring was coming. It would be his second American spring.
At that early hour, the park wasn’t crowded. Students walked to class with their eyes on their phones. A few homeless people slumped on benches. A maintenance man fussed with a trash can. Pigeons looked for scraps of food.
Xiong made his way to the west side of the park, where the first few games of chess had already started. He approached a table and watched a Nigerian man he knew—Malik Abdul Onweno—make quick work of an older Russian. Xiong watched Malik’s rook chase the Russian’s king. The Russian retreated hastily. After each move, the men slapped at a timer. Malik’s queen jumped to the back rank, and Xiong—unlike the Russian—could see the match would be finished in two moves.
“That’s it. Lights out. Checkmate,” said the Nigerian, standing up triumphantly. He noticed Xiong for the first time.
“Wassup with it, man?” he said, stepping toward him and laying a hand on his back. Xiong had told him to be here at this hour, and he was. He studied the man’s face and read a hint of nervousness.
The Nigerian turned to a friend of his, raised his hand to his mouth like he was whispering, and called out, “God Save, take my spot.” The younger man, God Save, jumped up and took his spot at the table.
“Wassup with you?” asked Malik. He escorted Xiong away from the chess players, one hand on his arm like a jail guard.
“I have the phone I spoke about.”
Malik guided him to a park bench where they sat. Xiong handed him the phone. The Nigerian made a show of rubbing his thumb across some scratches on the back and then made another show of picking at a scratch on the screen with his thumbnail. “It works?”
“Yes,” said Xiong.
Malik, as though he was breaking bad news, said, “I can give you sixty for this.”
Xiong frowned and nodded. He didn’t care about the money. His eyes shifted to the park in front of him, and he looked for cameras. Now was the time to start avoiding them. How long did he have until someone came looking for him?
The thought caused a small wave of apprehension to pass over him. He ignored it by staring at the ground. His mind drifted to a memory of being in the Hai River Park in Tianjin. The image of his father passing out ear-hole fried cake came to him for a moment. It vanished when Malik tapped his arm and held out three twenty-dollar bills between his index and middle finger. Xiong took the money, folded it, and put it in his coat pocket. For Malik’s benefit, he formed his mouth into a smile, and then leaned close to his ear so he could whisper: “You don’t want to hold this one. Tell your guy the same.”
Malik leaned forward and whistled to another young man. When the young man rode up on a bike, he held the phone out like a ticket. “Take this to the Jew,” he said. He then pulled a roll of Scotch Tape from his pocket, ripped off an inch, and put it on the back of the phone. He held it up so the young man could see the tape. “This one, don’t hold on to it,” he said. “Don’t sit with it, man. I’m not playing. Don’t eat your lunch—you got to move this one. Tell him the same.”
Youssouf Wolde, the young man who took the phone, was an eighteen-year-old Somali. After Malik handed him the phone and gave him his instructions, he put it in his backpack with the others. He glanced at the man sitting with Malik and wondered how his friend knew so many people. Then he put his earphones back on, fussed with his own phone, and pressed play. He was listening to Bobby Shmurda.
The man they called the Jew kept his office in the Diamond District.
Youssouf rode his bike up Sixth Avenue all the way to West Forty-Seventh Street. When he got there, he turned against traffic and pedaled to the middle of the block. Before he’d finished locking his bike to a light pole, two large Israeli men approached him. One wore a tracksuit and looked like a Tel Aviv gangster; the other wore jeans and a sweater and a Bluetooth earpiece. Youssouf recognized their faces but didn’t know their names.
“Brother, you looking to sell?” said the man in the tracksuit.
“Nah, I’m good,” said Youssouf.
“Where’s Omar?” asked the other man.
Youssouf wasn’t sure which Omar he was referring to, so he just shrugged his shoulders and told him he didn’t know.
Centered between all the jewelry shops was an electronics store called Asia Model, filled with tall stacks of merchandise. Discordant beeps and bells rang out from the toy section. Youssouf made his way toward the back of the shop, stepping around an old man, who was squatting to see something at the bottom of a shelf.
A clerk at the counter, a man Youssouf was friendly with, saw him and called out, “Opa, where’s my lunch?” Youssouf didn’t know what he was talking about, either, so he just laughed him off and kept moving.
Before reaching the back of the store, Youssouf went through a doorway on his right that led to a quiet hallway. He passed through another doorway and then skipped up the stairs, two at a time, until he reached the third floor. As he walked, in his mind he repeated the rap lyrics he’d just been listening to: Making all this loot ’til it stacks. Boy call me real ’cause I’m racks.
At the end of the hall, he came to a door with a piece of paper taped to it that read American iPhone Repair. He walked in. True to the name, inside he found four men seated at their desks repairing iPhones. Three of the men glanced up at him, and one, Ohad, an Israeli, rose to his feet.
“Wassup, player?” said the Israeli.
“Is Avram here?”
Ohad sat back down. “Yeah, yeah, go,” he said, seeming sad that Youssouf wasn’t there for him.
Youssouf proceeded forward and the next door was buzzed open. He entered a second room, brightly lit, where six additional men sat repairing phones. A few of them glanced up and nodded. Techno music played from a small speaker in the middle of the room. Youssouf continued to the back, where another door buzzed open.
This room had a window and was nicer than the other two. Seated behind a desk cluttered with paper was Avram Lessing. He wore a blue oversized New York Giants hoodie. The top of his bald head was partially covered by a yarmulke. His face, despite the baldness and his age, was chubby and youthful. He wore glasses.
He was talking on the phone. “Mommy, I have to go now,” he said, gesturing to Youssouf to sit. “No, no, tell Aba I’ll call him back.” He ended the call, and with a cocky expression looked over. “So?”
“I got six,” said Youssouf.
Avram picked up a bag of toffee candies and offered them to his guest; Youssouf took a small handful, opened a toffee, put it in his mouth, and put the others in his pants pocket.
“Six 7s, any 8s?” asked Avram.
“Man, they iPhones, that’s all I know.”
“So, break ’em out, fam.”
Youssouf smiled; he liked Avram.
He was about to get up when he remembered the instructions Malik had given him. He opened the bag, dug around in the phones, and pulled out the one with the inch of Scotch Tape on the back. After holding it up and showing Avram, he spoke in a whisper: “This one—you don’t want to hold on to this one.”
Elizabeth Carlyle sat at her desk and considered the calls she could make. For starters, she could try Edwin Kerins, the most reasonable of Calcott Corporation’s in-house counsel. She’d explain to him that one of her junior associates had taken a copy of the documents out of the office. He had them on his phone, she’d say. Yes, the phone was stolen.
Then she’d have to call Charles Bloom, Calcott’s CEO. She pictured him for a second, saw his saggy-skinned face, and felt sick. She’d call all the partners of her firm, of course, even the ones who were out of town. She’d tell them all what had happened. The calls would be miserable. There would be yelling, confusion, and long, predictable silences as people tried to understand exactly what she was saying. Recriminations, finger pointing.
Worst of all, though, someone would try to soothe her, someone would try to minimize the damage, tell her it wasn’t her fault. Fucking idiots. A Rolodex of idiots played through her mind. All of them. Every single one.
The fact of the matter was that after thirty-one years of practicing law, Elizabeth Carlyle was burnt out. Her twelve-hour days should have become shorter long ago. She was a named partner; she didn’t have to work the hours she did. But that wasn’t how she operated. She needed to touch every facet.
Elizabeth had known she was going to be a lawyer since the sixth grade. Her father had been an attorney, but he wasn’t her inspiration. It was another classmate’s father, a man called Mr. Holland, who made a presentation on constitutional law to Elizabeth’s sixth grade class.
“If you know the rules,” he said, standing in front of the class, and looking right at little Lizzie Ording, “and you prepare, and you come to court, you will win the case.”
The theory, of course, turned out to be false. Still, something about it stood out. If she prepared more than anyone else, she would win. If she knew the law better, she would win. If she learned how to act and carry herself in the courtroom, if she learned how to charm judges and juries, she would win.
In other words, there was a way to bring order to the universe. She started, right there and then, to think of herself as a lawyer, and told her mother and father that night that she would study the law.
She went to Georgetown, graduated summa cum laude, and headed straight to law school at Yale. From there she jumped into a clerkship with the honorable Edward R. Monroe at the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. A year later she was scooped up by Heller, Bromwell, Burgess, Drake—which, at the time, was the most prestigious law firm in New York City.
She specialized in Chapter 11 reorganization, and then shifted to white-collar crime, and then finally settled in civil litigation. After six years she was poached by a rival firm, Mooney, Driscoll, Hathaway, Evans, Miller. A decade and a half later, in the midst of the 2008 meltdown, that firm dissolved and reorganized as Carlyle, Driscoll, and Hathaway. She’d made it.
It didn’t feel that way now. She looked at her hands. They looked suddenly older than they had the day before. The veins seemed more pronounced, the skin more scaly. They reminded her of her grandmother’s hands. A tiny sliver of unpainted nail could be seen peeking from the bottom of her sensible red polish. Not my fault, she said in her mind. Not my fault.
Her thoughts shifted to the Calcott case. The thing was like a cancer that kept spreading. The case had started after a failed merger between the two banks. During the due diligence period, Emerson’s accountants had discovered an irregularity in Calcott’s records. Elizabeth had been tasked with looking into it. She discovered that a small group inside the bank’s special opportunities fund had been funneling large sums of money to a shell company in Oman. It was a mind-boggling violation of FCPA rules.
When she reported it to the CEO, Charles Bloom, he told her that the fund was experimental. He frowned. “Bury it,” he said. “Just bury it.”
“Excuse me?” she asked.
“Bury it,” he repeated. “Tell the fund they’re gonna have to gas up at the Middle East Section from now on. Tell them to make this right.”
“I’m not telling them anything,” she said.
“I’ll do it,” he said, smiling as if she were making a big deal out of nothing—like she was some kind of prude.
The question of the irregularities in the fund’s books wasn’t going to just go away. A week later, Elizabeth convinced Calcott’s in-house attorneys that the best way out was to walk away from the merger. She warned them that Emerson would sue for breach of contract, but the claims involved in that lawsuit would be far less toxic than this Oman bullshit.
Elizabeth outlined their response: They would countersue with enough claims that Emerson would be forced to back down. Emerson wouldn’t want to have a nuclear war over this. Nobody did. They would back down. The board took Elizabeth’s advice. They walked away from the merger.
Elizabeth ended up being right about everything—except Emerson backing down.
Chris Cowley was glad to have a moment to himself. He’d been in the front seat of Valencia’s SUV for the past ten minutes. They’d told him to wait there. He didn’t have his iPhone, so he sat rubbing his forehead and watching pedestrians come and go. A mellow, post-adrenalized feeling had settled over him; it reminded him of how he’d felt as a child, after a good cry. The worst was over.
Time would wash the details of this memory away. Temporary problems, he told himself. In ten or fifteen years, he would have a hard time describing the vehicle he was sitting in right then. His eyes moved around the front of the SUV and settled on the glove compartment. Did the woman keep a gun in there?
He studied it for a moment, then leaned forward and tried to open it. It was locked. He was just beginning to wonder how hard it would be to pick the lock when someone banged on the passenger window right next to his head. When he looked out, he saw a thin-haired, white guy looking down at him. The man was dressed in an ill-fitting suit; he had cop written all over him, head to toe.
“NYPD, kid—open up.”
Chris, upset about being startled, didn’t roll down the window. “Can I help you?”
“Open the door.”
Chris dug in deeper. “They said they’ll be right back. It’s not my car. I can’t move it, Officer.”
“Come on kid, open up. Valencia called me. She wants me to sit here with you.” The cop smiled halfheartedly. The whole thing seemed like some kind of game. Chris opened the door and stepped out.
The cop coughed into his left hand and then held out his right. “Wally Philpott,” he said.
“Chris Cowley,” said Chris. They shook hands.
Even during this simple exchange, the cop seemed to be measuring him in some way. He seemed to believe he could read a man’s mind by looking at his face. It almost made Chris want to laugh.
The cop gestured at the vehicle. “Let’s wait in the car,” he said.
“I can’t let you in there, I’m sorry,” said Chris. “It’s not mine.” He took another step away from the car.
“Gotta be careful these days,” said the cop, shifting his head inquisitively from one side to the other. “Thieves everywhere, right?” He tapped at what must’ve been his gun under his coat. “They pay all right, though,” he added, nodding back at Grand Central, almost as if he were speaking to himself.
Chris turned his gaze past him, hoping he’d see Valencia and her associates. He was getting impatient.
“This guy get you with a bump and brush?” asked the cop.
Chris knew what he was asking, but he still wasn’t sure he should be talking to him. “You work for Valencia?” he asked.
“She hires me sometimes,” said the cop, looking away for a moment as though he shouldn’t be admitting so much. He coughed again, looked back and continued, “Lawyer?”
“Look,” said Chris, raising his hands apologetically, “I’m sure you’re a good guy, but until Valencia gets here, I’d rather not talk about anything. You understand, right?”
“Yeah, I got you kid. I’m just shooting the shit, don’t worry about it.” He reached forward and slapped Chris on the shoulder, a gesture that was both friendly and not. The cop’s eyes continued to search Chris’s face.
Remembering that he’d snorted a little cocaine the previous night, Chris gave his nose a quick rub with his right index finger. He sniffled. The idea of sex passed through his mind. He looked at the cop and imagined being fucked by him. It brought a small level of comfort.
“You watch the playoffs?” asked the cop.
Chris rubbed his nose again. “I’m afraid not.”
The cop exhaled. A moment passed. “There she is,” he said, nodding toward Forty-Second Street.
Chris saw Valencia walking in their direction, her eyes directly on him as she approached. It took effort not to look away or drop his gaze down to the ground like a man with a guilty conscience; instead, Chris scratched at his head and then rubbed his eyes.
“Good, you met Wally,” Valencia said when she arrived. Chris watched her shake hands with the cop and pat him on the back.
The cop then quickly shook hands with the other two men, and Chris watched Milton pass the cop a white envelope. The cop put the envelope in his inside jacket pocket without looking at it and Chris assumed that it contained money.
Valencia moved closer to Chris and held her phone up for him. He had to lean in, but when he did, he saw an image of the pickpocket grabbed from a surveillance camera.
“Is that him?” asked Valencia.
Chris squinted at the image. “I think so.”
“Okay, good,” said Valencia. She took the phone and squinted down at it, just as Chris had. For a moment he wondered if she was making fun of him. “Good,” she repeated.
Her phone rang. She plugged one ear and answered. “Yeah, Danny?” She listened. “Okay, Bleecker Street. Six train”—she nodded and lifted her eyebrows at Milton—“8:26 a.m., northwest exit onto Bleecker.”
Phone to her ear, she turned and nodded at her companions. She looked happy. “Very nice work, Danny. No, thank you. Okay call me then.” She ended the call. “Bleecker Street,” she said.
After wasting almost an hour and a half on Facebook, Avi Lessing was feeling frustrated with his lack of workplace discipline. He placed all six of the phones he’d purchased from Youssouf Wolde in a canvas tote bag, pushed himself up from his seat, pulled out his set of keys, and unlocked a door in the back of his office.
Behind the door was a fairly large walk-in closet. Avi had repurposed it by lining the walls, floor, and ceiling with copper sheeting. Inside what he called the Gold Room—his employees called it the Wank Room—was a desk, a chair, a desktop computer, a fan, and a lamp. The copper sheeting prevented Wi-Fi or cellular signals from leaving or entering. No GPS, no remote cameras, no calls. No Find My Phone: Avi could snoop as much as he wanted.
After turning on the lamp, he closed the door, locked it, and sat down. He turned on the computer, and then, one by one powered up each of the six iPhones. I’m tired, he thought, while he waited for the phones to boot up. I need to stop eating that bullshit for breakfast. Can’t eat sugar cereal, gotta eat fruit and lean proteins.
When the first phone was ready, he grabbed it, pressed the home button, and saw the prompt for a passcode. He turned the phone off and set it aside. The same thing happened with the second and third phones.
The fourth phone was Chris Cowley’s. Avi pressed the button and saw a home screen, with some kind of painting of a pool. It looked like Miami. White water splashed up where someone had just dived in. He saw the time and date in white. He turned the phone over and saw the piece of tape on the back. This was the phone Youssouf had said not to hold on to.
The battery icon showed three-quarters of a charge. He pressed the home button again, and quickly scanned the apps and programs. There were no social media apps, and no bank apps. He thumbed around for a few moments, wondering where to look first.
Credit bitch, gimme that credit shit, he said in his mind, thinking, like he sometimes did, in the voice of a rapper. Wassup mommy? Wassup mommy? You wanna ride on my Ducati? You wanna ride in my Bugatti? I’m about that passcode shit.
He pressed the phone’s photo icon and looked at the pictures. Nada. A few selfies; a dinner; a long-haired man; a sunset; a shot of Manhattan taken from Brooklyn; a group of drunk men laughing in front of a bar. No girls. Nothing good. He made little clicking noises with his tongue while he looked.
Next he tapped the documents folder. Inside was a single file, titled Calcott Hot Docs_1_36. He squinted at it for a moment, and then tapped on it. A trove of hundreds of files appeared. He felt himself frown, and leaning forward in his seat, he began fingering around in these files.
The first few batches seemed to be financial records of some sort. Spreadsheets, they didn’t mean anything to him. Next, he came across what seemed to be an archive of old emails. What is this shit? he wondered. He skimmed and skimmed: Calcott. Calcott. VP. Todd. Careful. Breadth. Magic. Disclosures.
A quiet, euphoric feeling came over him. Oh yeah, bitch. The clicking noises he made with his tongue and mouth increased in volume. These were not normal emails. This was juicy. Some of them were marked Confidential. Some were brief, some were long. Some were corporate-sounding, some sounded casual. He didn’t know what exactly they were about, but he knew they seemed important.
“Mmm-hmm,” he said, nodding and leaning forward.
Over the next few days and weeks, he’d think about that moment. He’d play it over in his head again and again. He had a chance to act differently. There had been a brief amount of time—not more than ten seconds, really—between when he stopped skimming the emails and when he began copying them. Later, he’d look back and wonder whether he had felt any kind of apprehension.
Maybe a small amount of reluctance—a quiet warning, something like, No, it’s too much work. It wasn’t enough to stop him. He plugged his USB cord into the phone. He clicked with his mouse, and a prompt asked him if he wanted to save the files to his hard drive. He clicked Yes. He would come to regret that decision more than anything he’d ever done in his life.
When he finished copying the files onto his computer, he stepped back out to his office and googled: “Calcott Corporation” + “New York.” One of the first results that popped up was an article in the New York Times from a few months ago that mentioned a lawsuit between two banks.
He skimmed through a few paragraphs: The specter of a trial has Wall Street on pins and needles. Farther down: What once seemed unlikely, now seems inevitable. In the middle of the story was a picture of one of Calcott’s attorneys, Elizabeth Carlyle.
He looked at her for a moment, zooming in on the image. She looked powerful, like a senator or something. A quick search and he was on her Wikipedia page. She was definitely a big-time player. This was big. This was the real deal. This wasn’t for his homey in Queens. This was way above old Mick the Mook’s pay grade. These weren’t small-time matters. These documents were valuable. This was real shit. He knew just the person for this.
He’d sell them to Yuri Rabinowitz.
Yuri Rabinowitz, Yuri’s brother Isaac, and a third man, their friend Moishe Groysman, were riding motorcycles back from Manhattan when the call came in. Yuri was thirty-one years old. His brother was twenty-eight. Moishe, at thirty-eight, was the oldest of the three. Their bikes were dark and loud. All three men wore black leather jackets; their helmets had mirrored visors. They looked macho and futuristic.
They had just visited a club in Chelsea. One of their associates—another Russian—had wanted them to invest in it. They had not been impressed. The place needed repairs. The walls in the kitchen were rotted. The ceiling in the main room hung low. There would be no investment. They could say as much to each other without words—a look was enough.
Still, they said no. They told their friend the place was a dump, and they asked him what the fuck he was wasting their time for.
Their friend, in an effort to seem important, had brought along an American real estate agent. The agent, a woman in her thirties, seemed a little nervous around the men. She held a paper file over her chest and kept her eyebrows lifted the entire time, as though her face had frozen in shock.
“What kind of club are you going to make here?” Yuri asked his friend in English.
“Ultra lounge,” said the friend, with a shrug, as though the question were too obvious to answer.
Still, as bad as the club was, they weren’t upset to have made the trip. It had given them an excuse to ride their motorcycles into Manhattan. They were on their way back to Sheepshead Bay, stopped at a light, when the call came in. Yuri didn’t answer, but when he saw it was Avi calling, he pointed to the corner, and when the light changed, the three men turned right onto DeKalb and then backed their bikes up against the curb. Yuri, still seated on his bike, took his helmet off, hung it on his handlebar, and returned the call.
“You called back,” said Avi.
“Avi—”
“Where are you?”
“Brooklyn.”
“Listen … I have some documents, that you … that you might …”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Legal documents.”
“About me?”
“No! Not about you. How do I say this—just—you would be interested in seeing them.”
“Documents about who?”
“They’re not about anyone, Yuri. I’m telling you: I think you might want to see them.”
“Am I reporter? Why would I be interested in this?” He turned and made a What-the-fuck face for his brother and friend to see.
“It’s better we talk in person,” said Avi, clearly trying to stress how important these so-called documents were. “You need to come to my office. This is big. Trust me—this is big. I guarantee you.”
“Avi, I swear to God—I’m going to break your fucking neck.”
“Come to my office and break my neck if you want.”
The line went dead. Yuri looked at his brother and, speaking in Russian, reported what Avi had said. His brother shook his head and smiled. Their friend Moishe had taken off his helmet and was staring at Yuri with a flat expression.
They headed back to Manhattan.
Ren Xiong stood outside a fruit and vegetable market just down the block from his apartment building. He stood with the posture of a man searching for produce, but his intention was to examine the street. He didn’t expect to see anything amiss, but it would have been foolish not to stop and look.
Will I ever see this street again? he wondered. After a moment of watching, he picked up a red apple and examined it for bruises. I need a drink, not an apple, he thought. His gaze returned to the street; he paid special attention to every car on the block. Only one of the parked cars was occupied. He watched the car for a few seconds and then entered the store. The apple cost seventy-five cents; he paid with loose change.
Crossing the street with his shoulders slumped, Xiong headed toward his building. He took a bite of the apple and then slowed his pace so he could finish it and throw it away before he went in. As he passed the car, he glanced in and saw a young girl, probably not more than fifteen, sitting in the front passenger seat. She looked like she was daydreaming.
Xiong’s apartment was above a Chinese meat market on Mott Street. The five-story building was filled with mostly Fuzhounese tenants. Country people. Tiny apartments, dirty hallways, bright fluorescent lights. Xiong stopped outside the meat market and threw his half-eaten apple into a trash can. He had his keys out before he reached the door. After entering his building, he closed the door in a manner that allowed him to take a final look at the street behind him. Nothing.
He took the stairs, two at a time, to the fourth floor. In the hallway, one of his neighbors, an older woman, was just entering her apartment. Xiong pulled out his phone and slowed his pace by pretending to send a text message. When he was alone in the hall, he squatted down and examined the kit he’d set at his door. It was a small thing, just a sewing needle he’d cut down to the size of a thumbnail. He’d leaned the needle against the door near the doorframe. If anyone opened the door, the needle would fall. The needle stood.
He still opened the door with caution—the kit didn’t address the issue of the window. Once inside his room, he exhaled, scratched his scalp, and let his eyes wander over his small space in search of anything out of the ordinary. He did this every time he entered his room, even when he’d been drinking. Everything seemed to be in order. The place looked fine.
The act of standing near his bed brought on a desire to sleep, but he ignored it and took off his suit coat, zipped it into a black garment bag, and hung it in the back of his closet. He changed into a different pair of pants, a different button-up shirt, and a windbreaker. He wanted to look like everyone else in Chinatown. He found a wool baseball hat in the closet, put it on, and looked at himself in the mirror. He looked old, and this made him depressed.
Xiong pulled two different suits and two shirts out of the closet and set them on the bed. He set four pairs of underwear and socks on the bed next to the suits. He pulled three T-shirts from a dresser, and one pair of polyester sweatpants. There wasn’t much else in his small apartment, but everything that remained would be picked up and disposed of tonight. The place would be scrubbed, bleached, and vacuumed by professionals.
He set his suitcase on the bed, folded his suits into the bottom, and put the shirts and underclothes on top. He then grabbed the Chinese paperback he was reading and slipped it into one of the zip pockets. In the other, he put his toothbrush, toothpaste, and razor. He unplugged his digital clock, wrapped the power cord around it, and placed that in the suitcase too.
After zipping his suitcase closed, he went to his tiny bathroom, filled a glass with water, and watered the two plants on his windowsill. While watering the plants, he heard the distinct sound of the front door clanging shut. He moved to the wall that ran perpendicular to the hallway and placed his ear against it. A flaw in the building’s design allowed him to hear footsteps in the stairway. He closed his eyes and listened. One person, climbing the stairs without haste.
He returned to the bathroom, wet a piece of toilet paper, and after cleaning the dust off the sink, and a few dried drops of yellow pee off the toilet rim, he threw the paper into the toilet and flushed it down. Then he wet another piece and quickly dusted the bedside table where the clock had been.
Rolling the suitcase behind him, Xiong stepped into the hallway and locked his door. He squatted so he could reset the needle, just in case he needed to return. Before he stood back up, his across-the-hall neighbor, a young boy, opened his own door and looked at him. Xiong had always liked the kid. He spoke to him in Chinese: “Remember, if anyone comes looking, you don’t know me.”
“I’ll say, I don’t know you,” the kid said sleepily, like he’d just woken up from a nap.
Elizabeth Carlyle couldn’t sit still. Every time she tried a feeling of panic began to concentrate itself in her midsection. If she stayed seated, the feeling would spread from her guts to her face and pull at her lips and temples. The area around her hairline had become damp with sweat. She didn’t feel well.
She was walking down CDH’s hallway with no particular destination in mind; it took effort to look natural. In her mind, she tried to find some comfort by telling herself that nobody could see the way she felt. As she walked, her eyes scanned the beige carpets; they were perfectly vacuumed, but that didn’t bring the sense of comfort it sometimes did. Neither did the Corbusier furniture. The place looked dead to her.
Right then, Jennifer Jennings, a young associate, stepped up beside her and began filling her in on one of their other cases. “Sujung said she’ll finish the motion by four p.m.,” said Jennifer, as though they were already in the middle of a conversation. “Judge McEwan’s clerk is waiting for it—thank God. Oscar Lim and Mary Ellen are doing cross prep and claim they’ll be ready by Monday.”
“Perfect,” said Elizabeth, nodding her head and pursing her lips. Perfect, she repeated in her mind. She understood what the younger lawyer was saying but more by tone than by content. Jennifer drifted away and entered another office. She was replaced by another young associate, Vishal Desai. He was dressed in shirtsleeves.
“On ABSOL, the judge has continued the hearing until the fourteenth and says—”
“Why?” asked Elizabeth, not stopping, but turning her head and looking at the lawyer.
“He says he has a personal family event that will interfere with—”
“And we objected?” asked Elizabeth. This she understood. She felt her temperature rise another degree.
“Strenuously,” said Vishal, looking appropriately nervous.
“So, there is nothing else we can do,” said Elizabeth. For half a second she allowed her mouth to form the approximation of a smile. She was done with this conversation. Vishal was smart. He fell back as the other attorney had and entered his own office.
Elizabeth brushed her hair back with both hands. She did it once, twice, three times. Her mind bumped around what the two attorneys had just told her, and then it drifted back to Chris Cowley and his lost phone. Instead of visiting him, she continued walking to the north side of the building where Michael D’Angelo kept his office.
His door was closed. She knocked on it softly with the back of her hand like she was shaking dice.
“Come in,” said the investigator.
She stepped in and let her eyes sweep over the place. It was devoid of any signs of a personal life. No family photos, no art, no plants, not even a calendar.
“Let me show you something,” he said. He looked down at his computer, then made a pained face at the door. “Sorry, do you mind closing that?”
She closed his door, then walked around his desk to see the monitor. A nervous feeling bloomed in her belly. It felt like she was invading his space. She couldn’t help sniffing the air as she stepped behind his desk—it smelled like soap. The man had a thick head of salt-and-pepper hair, which she examined, looking to see if he had dandruff. She didn’t see any.
“Valencia’s guy sent us the tape,” he said.
She wiped at the corners of her mouth. “Excellent.”
“Okay, so—” A silence fell over them while he backed up the video. She wondered if anyone had seen her go into his office. Her eyes went to his shoulders and she felt a fleeting sexual attraction. What would he do if she reached out and massaged him?
“So, look at this,” he said.
She leaned closer to the screen.
“That’s him,” said D’Angelo, hovering his cursor over the paused image of Chris Cowley. He pressed play. Elizabeth squinted and watched as Chris proceeded down a hallway inside Grand Central. She watched him bump into a man and saw both men continue on their way. The investigator backed it up again. “What’d you see?”
“He picked his pocket?”
“Sure, but what else?”
“A talented thief?”
“What else?”
Her patience was running thin. “That they bumped?”
“Exactly,” he said.
Elizabeth frowned. “Play it again.”
They watched again, and she asked what he was suggesting.
“That they’re looking at each other.”
“Play it,” she said.
He hit play. They watched the bump, and then he backed it up again to the same spot where Chris appeared to look at the man he was about to bump into; the man looked at him.
“Just tell me what you are suggesting,” she said.
“That you should fire him.”
Her mind replayed the calculations she’d already made. For the time being, Chris Cowley was more dangerous outside the firm. The math, once you removed the emotions, was simple. For now, she’d take him off the Calcott case and put him in a place where he couldn’t do any more damage. They’d watch him. As soon as the case was concluded, they would fire him. But she didn’t say anything; she just shook her head and frowned.
The investigator hit the space bar and the video played again. They watched the two men bump and then go on their way. “Would you ever bump into someone like that?” he asked.
“There are a million things I wouldn’t do,” said Elizabeth.
“Okay Billy, today your name is Morgan D. Hallinan,” said Valencia, passing an FBI badge and photo ID forward to Billy. The photo on the identification card showed Billy’s face and Morgan’s name. The name Morgan Hallinan, if anybody checked, would trace back to a real agent with that name. “Foley Square. You remember him, right?”
“Sure,” said Billy.
They were in the SUV. Milton was driving, Billy rode shotgun, and Valencia sat behind them in the middle row. She’d sent Chris Cowley back to his office, telling him to sit by his desk phone and not talk to anybody. Wally Philpott had his own car and was going to meet them in the Village.
She handed another badge forward. “And Milton, you are Alonzo J. Jones, Newark office, on special assignment with Special Agent Hallinan. Got it?”
“Lonzo Jones,” said Milton, glancing in the rearview mirror.
They were driving under the large, middle-class tenement buildings on Third Avenue. Pedestrians standing at crosswalks watched them pass. Valencia cupped her hand, smelled her breath, and looked at an NYPD van parked on Thirty-First Street. She put two fingers on her left wrist and measured her pulse, a leftover childhood habit.
“We have fresh paperwork from Danny Boy,” said Valencia, turning and reaching for a stack that had come out of a printer in the back of the SUV. “It looks decent. Signed, stamp, judge, blah, blah, warrant, obstruction—you know the deal.”
She handed the forged paper work to Billy. “Anybody asks, you show them that. We’ll start on Bleecker and head west from there.” She was leaning forward now, with both of her hands resting on the back of both men’s seats. “You’ll take the first shop on the northwest corner, I’ll jump forward one block, and we’ll continue leapfrogging until we find a deviation.” She looked at the traffic in front of her, leaned back in her seat, and breathed deeply.
Right then, her cell phone rang. It was Roger Dewey, an old associate from her government days. He worked for the DEA now, a high-level position. She’d left a message for him ten minutes ago. “Roger, how are you, my darling?”
He told her he was fine and laughed in a familiar way.
“Listen, I got a real situation here,” she said. “I mean a real one. Remember Abu Dhabi?”
She heard the sound of an exhale, a mix of grunt and laugh. He asked if this would make them even.
“Even-steven,” she said. She dropped her voice to a seductive level: “You guys are set up with a StingRay in Grand Central, right?” she asked.
He confirmed they were. He sounded a little uneasy with where this call might be headed.
“Okay, I need a list of all the cell phones that travelled from the 6 train platform—”
He cut her off and told her he couldn’t get platform-specific information in any kind of timely way.
“Fine, so Grand Central, from 8:05 a.m., to the 6 train, Bleecker Street stop exit, 8:26 a.m.”
He cursed and told her she was literally talking about Grand Central at rush hour.
“I know,” she said. “Ha, ha, right?” She looked at the two men in front of her and raised her eyebrow theatrically for Billy, who had turned in his seat.
Roger Dewey then informed her there could be thousands of numbers.
“I’ve got someone to sift through all that,” said Valencia. “When can you get them to me?”
Again he asked if they’d be even for Abu Dhabi—Valencia confirmed they would—and he told her he’d get the list to her within ninety minutes.
“Thank you,” she said. “Hi to the wife.”
After ending the call, she looked out at the street in front of them, shook her head, and said, “That guy, Jesus Christ.”
Yuri Rabinowitz and his brother Isaac had been negotiating in Avram Lessing’s office at the American iPhone Repair shop for ten minutes. Their friend Moishe was downstairs on West Forty-Seventh Street watching their bikes, which were parked in a no-parking zone.
“Why would I do that?” asked Avram.
“Because my uncle is not going to buy some shitty piece of paper without reading it first,” said Yuri. They spoke in English.
His Russian friends were criminals, but he had no intention of being bossed around. Avram let his lips jut out—an expression he employed when he wanted to look serious.
“Look,” he said, turning his monitor to the brothers. “New York Times.” He scrolled down to the picture of Elizabeth Carlyle. “You know her?”
The brothers shook their heads no. “Listen to me, this woman is major.”
He let that sink in. “I’m saying five thousand dollars. Come on—your uncle is going to think twice about five thousand dollars? Yuri, be reasonable.” His eyes went to Isaac to try to appeal to the younger man. Isaac, impassive as always, didn’t respond.
“Is it reasonable to buy a suit without trying it on?” asked Yuri, sounding tired, like they’d been negotiating all day. “Do you go to the market and buy tomatoes without squeezing them? Do you buy a car without—”
“I mean in some situations, yes,” said Avram, cutting him off. “If I buy a suit online, I don’t try it on. Sometimes in the store, I just grab tomatoes, no squeezing, especially if it’s a good store, you don’t squeeze at my dude’s place. A car from an auction? How many cars have I bought at auction?” He pretended to count on his hand. “You know what they call this?”
“Save it,” said Yuri.
“Listen, Yuri, I brought this to you because you are my friend. Because of that I will offer these documents to you and your uncle for five thousand dollars.”
“This is one of the worst offers I’ve ever heard,” said Yuri. He turned and glanced at his brother, who was sitting with his eyes closed.
“And because I respect your uncle, I will offer you—and him, mind you, and him—a money-back guarantee on these papers. You pay me, I give you the thumb drive. If you don’t like what you see, you get your money back.”
To show how generous he was being, Avram frowned and held both hands up. “But with this special guarantee that I offer you now, today, because you’re a friend, then I must say, if your uncle ends up liking what he sees, you give me another twenty-five hundred.”
Yuri had to keep himself from smiling. He could take the thumb drive, burn a copy of whatever had been on this so-called top-secret phone, and tell Avi he didn’t like what he saw. Americans were so simple-minded. “This is how you negotiate?” he asked.
“With the special money-back guarantee, yes, the price goes up,” said Avram.
“Money back,” repeated Avram, defeated.
“Okay, we have a deal,” said Yuri.
Avram sniffled, wiped his nose with the back of his fingers, and opened his desk drawer. He shuffled things around for a moment and then produced a small thumb drive. With a bent back, he stood and held it out for Yuri.
Yuri grabbed the small device and examined it as though he could read the data with his naked eyes.
“My house is made of money, and my house is made of bricks,” rapped Avram, wanting to appear less nervous than he felt.
After dropping the phones off at American iPhone Repair, and eating a cup of noodles at a bodega where a friend worked, Youssouf Wolde had started back toward Washington Square Park. He rode slowly and kept his earphones around his neck. Before he got to the park he stopped at a coffee shop on East Twelfth Street. He stayed on his bike and looked in the window. When he saw his friend Lonnie, he knocked on the glass lightly until she looked up from her book.
Lonnie was a nineteen-year-old NYU student. She was from Minnesota, a state he knew about because one of his cousins had settled there. She dressed like an American hippie, in baggy pants, handmade hats, and string necklaces with shells. They’d met in the park. She’d just walked up to him one day and started talking. She was the only non-crazy white person that had ever done that to him in the six years he’d lived in New York.
She hugged him when she came outside, and said, “Dude, where have you been?”
“Got sick,” he said, touching his stomach.
“Poor Poobie,” she said. That was her nickname for him. She rubbed his shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell me? I would’ve brought you soup.”
“You can’t bring soup to the Bronx.”
“Why not?”
“’Cause it would get cold on the subway.”
“You’re hella stupid,” she said. She punched him on the shoulder. “You ready to get high?” she asked.
“I gotta go give my partner something,” he said.
“Look at you,” she said. “All gangster: ‘Gotta give my partner something.’”
“Nah,” he said. “I’m a delivery boy.”
“Let’s go,” she said.
Lonnie was always down to hang, and she smiled all the time. He liked her for that. She didn’t care that he was poor. She didn’t care that he came from Africa. She liked to smoke weed and listen to music, just like him.
While they walked toward the park, Lonnie told him about her struggles with teachers, and how they weren’t grading her properly. Youssouf listened, nodded when he thought he should, made his face sympathetic, elbowed her in the arm and laughed when she said something funny. But his mind was distracted. A sad feeling had settled over him. He wanted to be her boyfriend. He wanted to move back to Minnesota with her. Move into an American home. Buy a car. It was all a fantasy, though. She didn’t want that. He was just a delivery boy, and not even a real one at that.
“What’s Malik’s deal?” asked Lonnie.
“With what?”
“With what he’s got you doing?”
“Just running shit.”
“You get paid for that?” she asked, with her head bent in a slightly flirtatious way.
“He’ll give me twenty,” said Youssouf, pulling on the handlebars of his bike to pop the front wheel in the air. “Wish I was old enough to be an Uber driver, though. My cousin could make like a hundred dollars in one night. No boss. Just drive around, listen to the radio, smoke weed. Pick up girls. I’d get rich that way.”
Lonnie’s face became serious. “Uber’s messed up, though.”
“They all are,” said Youssouf. “But you gotta work. Can’t just be out here running phones for dudes.”
“You should deliver weed.”
“I’m Somali! Cops’ll be all over me. They checked my bag on the train last week. Terrorist shit. Look at me, I’m brown skin—African man.”
“It’s not fair,” said Lonnie. She rubbed his back. “We’ll get you a real job. A safe job. I’ll hire you as soon as I start my business.”
“What business?”
“A plant store.”
“That’s wassup, though,” said Youssouf. “That’s it. We can do it in Minnesota.” He looked at her. Her face looked like she’d just heard bad news. Youssouf’s face became hot. His mouth became dry. Too much, he thought.
“I’m never moving back there,” she said.
“Why?”
“’Cause it’s fucking boring, and everyone’s white.”
“Okay, so we’ll start it here,” said Youssouf.
“Yeah, in Chinatown. We’ll call it Poobie’s Plants.”
Less than half a mile away, Milton Frazier was backing into a parking spot on Mercer Street. Both Billy and Valencia had turned in their seats and were watching to see if he’d bump the car behind them; it was a Porsche.
“Do you want me to jump out?” asked Valencia.
“I got it.”
And he did. He swung the car in, pulled forward, backed up, and they were good. Less than six inches on either side. Milton had long ago conquered his most obsessive traits, but he still couldn’t help taking a moment to remind himself that the vehicle was off, the lights were off, and it was fine to leave the car.
The three of them walked to Bleecker Street without much talk. They made a left and walked two blocks to the subway’s exit. A jackhammer on Broadway pounded away at the pavement. A bearded man selling paintings of what appeared to be graffiti watched the three of them pass.
It had been almost five hours since Milton had eaten his oatmeal and breakfast sausage. He had two hard-boiled eggs, a packet of salt, and two oranges in the SUV. He hadn’t eaten them because he knew Valencia wouldn’t like the smell of the eggs, and she’d love to tell him all about it. But he cursed himself for not bringing them with him. He shook his head while they walked.
“Danny said he got out right here,” said Valencia, nodding toward the exit. “8:26 a.m.” They all took a moment to look around. “Let’s assume he knew where he was going and start this way.” Valencia pointed west on Bleecker in the same direction that the exit flowed.
They walked west, each of them scanning buildings for obvious cameras. On the next block, they came to a designer clothing store. Above the door, and on the corner of the building were two security cameras. “All right,” said Valencia, nodding at the store. “I’ll keep going.”
As she walked away both Milton and Billy stared at her for a moment, and then looked at each other.
“Stupid job,” said Billy, raising his eyebrows.
“It’ll keep the lights on,” said Milton. “You ready?”
Billy took a breath, and told him he was. “Let’s do this,” he said.
The store was a fancy place: the floors and walls were white, the light was muted, and house music played quietly from hidden speakers. There wasn’t a single customer. Two female employees, both African American, stood in the back and watched the two men approach. If my daddy could see me now, thought Milton.
“Hello,” said one of the women, in a singsong voice.
“Are you the manager?” asked Billy.
“Yes, I am,” she said, offering a fake smile. “Can I help you find something?”
“Yeah, we need to see the video from that camera,” said Billy, pointing outside.
“I’m sorry, it’s not public,” said the manager.
“I’m sorry, we should’ve introduced ourselves,” said Milton, stepping forward. “I’m Special Agent Lonzo Jones, FBI.” He showed his badge. “This is Special Agent Hallinan.”
Billy smiled, showed his badge.
“We’re not going to copy anything, but we need to see it,” said Milton.
The manager’s eyes narrowed. A clock inside Milton’s head continued counting how many seconds had passed since they entered the store. He turned and looked at the street behind them, a hint that he wanted the woman to make haste.
“Donald, can you help these men?” said the manager, calling to a suited guard standing near the door. The guard walked toward them holding his chin up as if he’d been challenged.
“Video,” said the guard. “Come on.” He led them to a door in the back of the store. Behind it was a hallway with clothes hanging on movable racks. A plastic trash can sat overflowing with take-out boxes. At the end of the hall was a small office containing a desk with a computer on it. Donald hit the light switch and the room became bright. “Do you need me to do it?” he asked.
“I think I can handle it,” said Milton. He stepped to the computer, pulled out the chair and sat down. He moved the mouse and the monitor came alive. There was dust on the keyboard, and he had to restrain himself from cleaning it. He looked at the home screen and found an icon for Sony 7X00. He was familiar with that system. “Okay, let’s see,” said Milton, talking to himself quietly.
“Computers,” said Billy, shaking his head, playing the role of the friendly one.
A live feed of the store appeared on the screen. Milton compared the time on the feed to his cell phone’s clock and noted that it was a minute and twenty-two seconds slow. “One twenty-two,” he muttered to himself.
He punched in 8:25 and clicked the a.m. icon on the search box. The computer worked for a moment, and then the screen changed, and he was looking at nine camera views, four of which were blank. He clicked on the one that was above the door, then clicked on the one he’d seen on the corner of the building. The corner camera provided a better view. He let it play for a moment, and then sped it up so it played at double speed.
The security guard, Donald, stood above him watching with his hands on his hips. He seemed happy to help the FBI. Billy stood near the door with the manager, who looked worried she might get in trouble for something.
“Bingo” said Milton. “There he is.”
He stopped the tape, backed it up, watched it. Walking down the sidewalk, moving directly toward the camera, was a thin man in his thirties or forties. He wore sunglasses and a dark suit. His hair appeared to be gelled back. The man walked straight toward the camera, but—and Milton appreciated him for this—kept his face angled away from it. He paused the video. 8:27:52 minus one minute and twenty-two seconds would put it at 8:26:30. A peaceful feeling came over Milton; the perfect roundness of the numbers made him feel like the universe had clicked into its rightful place. He stretched his neck and studied the man on the screen.
He pulled out his own phone and looked at the picture they’d received from the MTA surveillance in Grand Central. Neither picture was perfectly clear. In the earlier shot, the man hadn’t yet put on his sunglasses. Milton’s eyes, like a computer, compared the two images and looked for any deviations that suggested it was a different person. He looked at the man’s hairline, his skull-to-body-proportion, the width of his shoulders, the cut of the suit’s lapel, the length of the suit coat, the length and fold of the newspaper. Nothing suggested this wasn’t the same person. Milton felt 99 percent sure it was.
After that, he performed a quick series of commands, his fingers striking the keys and moving the mouse. He clipped the video and set the clip on the computer’s desktop. Then he pulled a small thumb drive from the inside breast pocket of his coat, and without asking permission, plugged it into the computer and copied the file onto it. Approximately four minutes and fifteen seconds had passed since they’d entered the store.
He pulled out his cell phone and called Valencia on speed dial.
“Talk to me,” she said.
“We have visual confirmation, 8:26:30, headed west on Bleecker.”
“Perfect,” said Valencia. “Skip two blocks west.”
Yuri Rabinowitz, his brother Isaac, and Moishe Groysman were just arriving at Daba’s Teahouse, a Russian restaurant on the boardwalk in Brighton Beach. They’d been told their uncle Yakov Rabinowitz was having lunch there with a few of his friends. A cold wind blew in from the ocean and all three men walked with their faces turned away from it.
The restaurant had an open-air dining patio that stretched along the boardwalk. Just then it was completely free of customers. Moishe sat at one of the tables, pulled out his phone, and began looking at Instagram. The two brothers left their helmets and told their friend they’d be right back.
Upon entering the restaurant, Yuri felt self-conscious about his clothes. He pulled at the collar of his leather jacket as though that would somehow transform it into a suit. He stole a glance at his younger brother, who as always, seemed perfectly unbothered.
A broad-shouldered host, wearing a black jacket and bow tie, raised a hand, smiled, and let his head dip in greeting. Beyond the host’s station was the restaurant proper. It wasn’t particularly fancy, and at this hour, apart from their uncle and his associates sitting toward the back of the room, there were no other diners.
In the space between their uncle and the host’s station, sitting at a table alone, holding a cell phone to his ear, was their uncle’s protector, Grigory Levchin. Crag-faced and massive, he pulled himself up from his seat when he saw the two brothers, covered the phone with his hand, and said in Russian, “Your mother was looking for you.”
“Tell her I was at your mother’s house,” answered Yuri.
Grigory grumbled, patted a heavy hand on Yuri’s back, and then leaned in and kissed both him and Isaac on their cheeks. He held his hand toward their uncle’s table, allowing them to pass. His breath, Yuri noticed, smelled like cough drops.
Their uncle Yakov Rabinowitz sat facing them. Seventy-one years old, skinny, bald, Jewish—he didn’t look like a gangster at all. He had a benevolent face and dressed in casual and comfortable clothes appropriate for his age. The other three men seated at the table, all roughly the same age as him, were dressed slightly more formally in jackets and ties.
“You boys look like Saturday Night Fever,” said their uncle. His eyes then shifted to Grigory. “Grab chairs.” He looked back at his nephews; his eyes went up and down their outfits. “We’re Jews, we don’t ride motorcycles,” he said. “What is all this?”
The brothers walked around the table, shaking hands and patting the older men on their backs. “Uncle,” said Yuri, glancing at the other men, “we have to tell you something.”
“They want to hear what you’ve been doing with yourselves,” said their uncle. The other men at the table nodded and shifted in their seats as if someone was squeezing past them. The two brothers sat.
There was a bottle of vodka in the middle of the table. It was almost unheard of for their uncle to drink during the day. Yuri figured it must be one of the other men’s birthdays. He looked around but couldn’t tell which one.
“We’ve been given some documents,” said Yuri, turning back to his uncle. “Corporate stuff. Secret material. It’s been sold to us. We think the law firm would pay us to return it.”
Their uncle looked like he’d just heard a bad joke. “What document? Why would they pay for it?”
It was Isaac’s turn to speak up. His eyes, as he did so, had a humorous glow that captivated his audience. “Uncle, we looked it up online. This is a very big case.” He smiled at one of the men to his right. “There are newspaper stories. Lots of money. The Southern District, a civil case. Big banks suing each other. We wanted to bring it to you. See if you think Katzir should look at it. If Katzir says it’s worth money then, well, we proceed.”
Yuri heard the sound of clanking dishes coming from the kitchen. He felt suddenly foolish. “Uncle,” he said, “this is something we thought we should ask your permission before doing. That’s why we came here with it—”
Isaac cut in: “And of course we will give you a piece of what we make with this deal.”
Their uncle smiled, looked at his friends. “These boys—don’t let their clothes fool you. They are good boys!”
After swapping out her low heels for a pair of black running shoes, Elizabeth Carlyle set out on foot for lunch. There was a place on East Thirty-Fifth and Lexington that served salade niçoise in the style she preferred—composed and drizzled, not dressed and tossed. The walk would do her good. She could breathe deeply and stretch her legs. The restaurant was just far enough away to guarantee no chance encounters with any colleagues. The last thing she needed was more talk.
As she walked, she began to imagine newspaper stories related to the missing documents. The New York Times would cover it. She wrote the headline in her mind: “Rise and Fall of a Great Lawyer.” The Wall Street Journal would be all over it: “Calcott Brought Down by Own Law Firm.”
The stock market would react. Pensions would be lost. There would be whispers in Chappaqua, where she lived. Gossip at the country clubs. Pointing, talking, muttering.
She pulled out her phone and checked for missed calls. There were none. After slipping her phone back into her pocket she watched two young women—wearing heavy makeup and dressed like they were going clubbing—walk right toward her. They were deep in conversation. “I would lie to protect her,” said one of the girls. “But that doesn’t make me a liar.”
The two girls made Elizabeth think of her own two daughters, both of whom lived in California now. Elizabeth had hoped they would return to the East Coast after college. Neither did. With each passing year, the chance of them moving back became less likely. But Elizabeth didn’t want to think about that. Instead, she repeated the phrase, But that doesn’t make me a liar, and turned it into a joke: It makes me a lawyer.
Right then a young man in a suit walked past. Her mind returned to Chris Cowley. Hadn’t someone recommended him? Who? The hiring committee had settled on him without much debate. Why? What had been so special about him? The other candidates had been perfectly capable.
She remembered one Yale graduate, a young woman, who had seemed smart. Why hadn’t they gone with her? Her mind jumped back to Chris Cowley—he’d been born, grown up, gone to college, gone to law school, looked at all the jobs in the world and settled on her firm. How many chances to deviate from that path had there been? He could have done a million things that would have kept him out of her life. Instead, he had applied to her law firm, been selected, done his background research, showered, shaved, gotten dressed, and come in for an interview.
She’d interviewed him—that was the worst part. It hurt to think about. She’d had a chance to stop him, and she’d missed it.
Right then, a taxi driver leaned on his horn, and a chorus of other cars joined in. Elizabeth looked toward the next intersection. She told herself that she would keep pitying herself until she reached the near corner—after that she’d have to start pulling herself together.
At the restaurant, the waiter, a Frenchman, recognized her and made a show of leading her to a table near the window. After she’d taken her seat, a look of concern appeared on his face.
“Where have you been?” he asked.
“Working,” she said.
“Maybe a glass of wine?”
A glass wouldn’t be enough. She wanted a bottle. She wanted more than that. She wanted the waiter to pull her by the hand, lead her back into the kitchen, and kiss her. “Just a salade niçoise,” she said. “And an espresso. Bring the espresso first, please.”
“Of course, madam,” said the waiter.
Left alone, sitting near the window, watching the pedestrians on Lexington Avenue, Elizabeth took a deep breath. You’ll be fine, she told herself. She noticed a strap of muscle around her belly gripping and she consciously tried to let it unwind. You’ll be fine.
Her thoughts shifted to Valencia—specifically to the first time they met. It had been at a gala for a breast cancer charity about eight years ago. Elizabeth had noticed Valencia standing near the bar. There was something about her that drew the eye—the way she carried herself, a kind of confidence. She was laughing loudly and telling two men some kind of raucous story. Elizabeth looked her up and down and ran through the first of what would become a regular series of comparisons. Elizabeth was white, the kind of white that didn’t age well.
Valencia, on the other hand, once described herself to Elizabeth as “ethnically vague.” She could have been Arab, Jewish, Italian, Turkish.
They were roughly the same age, at least the same generation. Elizabeth kept herself in good shape, but she’d always been a slim woman. Boney shoulders. She had dull skin, too, even back then. On the other hand, Valencia had beautiful skin and shiny hair; she wasn’t skinny. She was filled out in the right way. The only flaw that Elizabeth could find in Valencia was her crooked teeth, but even that added to her charm.
Whenever they met, Elizabeth always ran through the same comparisons, and she always came to the same conclusion: she was simply genetically inferior. She was less attractive. There was nothing she could do about it.
Her mind stayed on that first night: A friend of Elizabeth’s husband pulled both women together and drunkenly insisted they meet. Standing there—holding Valencia’s hand in her own—Elizabeth turned to the man and asked, “Why must we meet?”
“Two strong women,” said the man.
They squeezed hands.
“I’m very pleased to meet you,” said Valencia.
The man then took great pleasure in leaning his big head between them. “C-I-A,” he whispered, nodding at Valencia.
“Is that so?” said Elizabeth.
“Ex,” said Valencia. “I’ve been—”
“Biggest lawyer in town,” said the man, interrupting, and now nodding in Elizabeth’s direction.
“I know who she is,” said Valencia.
And Elizabeth, at the time, had accepted that. She’d allowed herself to be charmed by it. Thinking about it now, eight years later, it seemed absurd. Elizabeth wasn’t yet known outside her legal circles. Not like that. Nevertheless, she allowed herself to be charmed. Two weeks later she invited Valencia for coffee. Four months after that, she hired Valencia for the first time.
That first job involved an antitrust suit brought by the DOJ against a Silicon Valley software company represented by Elizabeth’s firm. At the center of the government’s lawsuit was an engineer who had left the company under unhappy circumstances. Elizabeth brought Valencia on board to look into him. A few weeks later, Valencia told Elizabeth that she thought the man was emotionally unstable. Elizabeth asked what she based this on. Valencia smiled, and said, “a feeling.”
At the time, Elizabeth suspected Valencia was trying to tell her, without saying it, that she’d read his emails, or listened to his phone calls. The truth was, Elizabeth didn’t want to know. She told her to keep going.
Two months later, the government dropped its lawsuit. The engineer had stopped cooperating. Over dinner and drinks that night, Valencia explained that she’d just leaned on him a little. She’d had him followed in a way that would be discovered. She wanted to make him uncomfortable.
Then she sent one of her guys to dig in his trash. “It’s legal in California,” she said. They didn’t care what was in the trash; they just wanted to get caught doing it. That was all it took to make the witness change his mind.
Was it legal thuggery? Perhaps, but it worked.
A friendship formed between the two women. They’d see each other every few months for lunch, or the occasional after-work cocktail. She’d hire Valencia to do something, and Valencia always got it done.
Sitting there in the restaurant, Elizabeth again considered what she found so intriguing about Valencia. It wasn’t work related. It was something more personal than that. It was the way she kept herself from being bothered. The world never seemed to touch her. The waiter placed the cup of espresso on a saucer in front of her and interrupted her thoughts. Elizabeth stared at the drink and told herself she needed to cultivate that kind of equanimity herself.
“You know what,” she said, looking up at the waiter. “I will have that glass of wine.”
* * *
Valencia Walker stopped under the awning of a pizza place on Bleecker and looked at a camera perched above the doorway. These cameras were often just for show, but this one had a wire tacked and running along the wall for a few feet until it disappeared into a drilled hole. Valencia’s eyes shifted to the window of the place and she read the words Dante’s Pizza Pie Zone, written in white cursive. After taking a deep breath, she pulled the door open and stepped in.
Inside, a slump-shouldered college kid stood shaking Parmesan onto his slice. Rock music played from a small radio. Behind the counter two Latino cooks shuffled pies from here to there. Beyond them stood the manager, a man Valencia guessed was Palestinian. He wore a white T-shirt and white apron and seemed to know something was up. “Can I help you?” he asked, suspiciously.
Valencia stepped to the counter, locked eyes with him, stood perfectly straight, and said, “I need to see the video from that camera.” She turned and pointed toward the camera.
The manager’s eyes went from the camera back to Valencia. “What happened?”
Valencia put her left hand on her heart, leaned closer. “Something important was stolen,” she said. “I’m trying to find it.”
“When?”
“Earlier today.”
The manager didn’t push back, but the muscles in his face told her that he suddenly felt nervous. In response, Valencia offered a small smile and blinked in a way that allowed her eyelashes to be admired. The manager had a rag in his hand, and he placed it over his shoulder, shuffled to the counter, and lifted it for her. When she got behind the counter, they had to perform a quick dance to let him get in front of her so he could lead the way.
Beyond the front room was a hallway that smelled like bleach. The manager led her to a back room, opened the door, and turned on a light. Valencia leaned her head in and saw unfolded pizza boxes and large white plastic vats of tomato sauce stacked on a metal shelf. Toward the back of the room was a desk with a computer on it. The manager moved toward the desk and pulled the chair out, set it at the side, and offered it to her.
“What time?” he asked.
“If you could start at 8:25 this morning, please,” she said.
The manager bent over the desk, fussed with the mouse, and then, keeping his eyes on the screen, stood back up. They both waited while the computer dredged up the video file. Valencia listened to the computer humming and an air shaft blowing air.
Four separate camera views popped onto the screen. Valencia saw that there were two cameras outside.
“There we go,” said Valencia. “Thank you.”
The manager bent down, clicked the mouse, and the images began moving. Valencia leaned forward in her chair and pointed at the view from one of the outside cameras. “Is that Bleecker Street?”
“Bleecker, yeah.”
“Can you enlarge that one, please?”
The manager clicked on it and the view from the camera above the door filled the screen. They watched for about fifteen seconds until someone entered the frame.
“Stop,” said Valencia. The man paused the tape. “Is that pointed east?”
“East? Toward Lafayette? Yeah, yeah, east,” said the manager.
“Okay, play it.”
They continued watching.
A person entered walking west. “Stop,” said Valencia.
He pressed a button on the mouse and the video froze. Valencia leaned forward and examined it. It was a woman. “Okay,” she said. The video rolled.
“Stop,” she said. Another person walking west. Valencia leaned in and looked at the image. The footage was blurry, but she saw that the man was dark-haired; he wore the same dark suit. She pulled out her phone and looked at the image Danny had sent her. She looked back at the screen. “Play it, please.”
The manager pressed play and they watched the man exit the frame.
“Can we see the other view?”
“Yeah, yeah,” said the manager, clicking over to the other outside camera.
“Is that LaGuardia?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Right on LaGuardia? Toward the park?”
“Yeah, over toward Washington Square.”
That’s him, she thought; a warm feeling filled her chest. She breathed in deeply through her nose, felt her stomach expand, and exhaled. “Thank you, that’s all I need,” she said.
Valencia dialed Milton before she’d even made it to the front of the place; he answered just as she stepped back onto the street. “He went to Washington Square Park,” she said, looking in that direction, when he picked up. “Meet me at the little NYPD shack on the south side of the park.”
Just then, two German-looking tourists on Citi Bikes rolled by. Valencia watched them and made sure they weren’t looking at her. Surely, somebody was watching her, she thought. Somebody had eyes on her, she was sure of that. She called Wally Philpott, her NYPD detective, and told him to meet her at the same place.
For a moment, as she made her way to the park, she felt a kind of rage build in her chest. She saw the man’s ugly face in her mind. You’re going to tell me what to do? He was insane.
Milton and Billy were already standing near the NYPD trailer when she got there. They had similar expressions on their faces—they looked like they were expecting bad news. When she joined them, Milton nodded to the west. She turned and saw Wally Philpott walking toward them with a coffee in his hand.
“What? You wanted one?” Wally Philpott asked.
“Our target came to the park between 8:25 and 8:30 this morning,” she said, turning and looking at the trailer.
“All right.” The detective pulled up his pants and stepped to the trailer. When he got there, he knocked loudly on the door. A moment later the door swung open and a young uniformed officer poked his head out. Wally nodded, shook hands with the cop, and said, “Let me in, kid.” The cop glanced at Valencia and her two associates, then opened the door.
Valencia crossed her arms, reminded herself to be patient, and resisted the urge to tap her foot.
Since returning from Grand Central, Chris Cowley had been in his office with the door closed. His tie was loosened, and his coat hung in the closet. Elizabeth Carlyle had already removed him from the Calcott case, but so far she hadn’t fired him.
He’d moved a large binder of discovery for one of his other cases to his desk. It sat there unopened.
His palms were sweaty and every few minutes he wiped them on his pants.
He’d spent the past half hour clicking through various news sites, not looking for anything more than a way to distract his mind. Now he was shopping. He was looking at expensive coats. He knew his Internet activity would be monitored, but he didn’t care. If he hadn’t been fired yet, surely they wouldn’t fire him for doing a little shopping. It might even make him look more normal.
Right then somebody knocked on his door. Before he could say anything, the door opened and Stewart Hillier, another junior associate who’d been hired in the same class as him, peeked his head in.
“Dude, do you have those Plymouth briefs?” asked Stewart.
Chris didn’t have any idea what he was talking about. He didn’t know what Plymouth was. He frowned and said, “No.”
“What’s up?” asked Stewart, stepping into the room, closing the door almost all the way, crossing his arms, and leaning against the wall in one awkward movement. Stewart was tall, brown-haired, big-boned and soft-bodied. As dumb as he was, he could still sense something was wrong, and a look of concern—whether genuine or not—appeared on his face.
“Nothing, I’m just burnt,” said Chris. His eyes became teary and he used all his mental energy to stiffen up and make that stop. Stop, you fucking piece of shit, he told himself in his father’s voice. “Need a vacation,” he said. Then, he put his hand on his forehead, pretended to yawn, and wiped at his eyes.
“You see that new paralegal?” asked Stewart, dropping his voice lasciviously.
“Dude, I’m gay,” said Chris.
“You can still see, though, right?”
“She’s not into guys like you.”
“How do you know?”
“Because she carries herself with pride,” said Chris. His hands—for a moment—went to his pockets again and patted for his phone. “Besides, aren’t you engaged?”
“A player gotta play, though—am I right?” said Stewart.
Chris leaned back in his chair and turned his eyes to his computer monitor. He wanted this encounter to end. He closed the window he was on and turned his eyes back to his intruding guest.
“How’s Calcott coming?” asked Stewart.
So, this was it? His long introduction, the Plymouth brief, the new paralegal, it had all been a lead-up to this. Rumors were circulating. Someone had probably seen Elizabeth walking him down the hallway. Her face would have been noticeably mad. That would have been enough to get people talking.
Chris looked at Stewart. “It’s going,” he said.
He took another big breath and nodded toward his computer, but his guest had taken out his cell phone. Using both thumbs, he was frantically typing a message. The droning white noise in the office seemed to have gained in volume. “Anyway,” said Chris.
“Ying’s motion had like five typos in it,” said Stewart.
“That’s crazy,” said Chris. He opened up his email and began pretending to respond to a message. Please go away, he thought.
“Do you think Ying uses Adderall?”
Chris ignored the question and continued to act as though he was emailing. Stewart, finally receiving the message, muttered, “All right,” and drifted back out of the room.
When he was gone, Chris went to the door and quietly closed it. The effort he’d spent trying to control his emotions had made his head hurt. He rubbed his temples, but that did him no good. Everything is temporary, he told himself. All these problems will end.
He walked to his closet, opened it, reached into his jacket pocket, and made sure he still had the thumb drive. Would that be enough? Would the thumb drive be enough? This thing was never going to end. He was fucked.
Showing no signs of hurry, Wally Philpott made his way toward Valencia. He’d been in the NYPD trailer for fifteen minutes. He carried a few sheets of paper in his hands and read from them while he walked. The uniformed cop who’d helped him also stepped out and now gazed across the park as if he were looking for someone. Valencia, arms crossed, watched both men. In an effort to appear friendlier she smiled.
“Ask and ye shall receive,” said Wally. He handed her the first page. On it Valencia saw a printed screen grab from the surveillance system that monitored the park; it showed their target, the Asian man, in high definition. The shot had come from above, as if the camera had been positioned on some far-off balcony. It wasn’t a great angle on his face, but she could see clearly that it was their man. A time stamp on the page read, 08:36:42. Below that, printed on the paper, was the NYPD insignia.
Valencia felt Milton approach her and look down at the picture in her hand. Something about him being so close made her feel slightly uncomfortable, and she noticed she had stopped breathing. She handed the page to Milton and shifted a half foot to her left.
“All right,” said Wally, “our guy goes up and sits with a dude they know on the west end over there.” He nodded toward the west end of the park and handed Valencia another piece of paper, this one showing the mug shot of a black man. The name, Malik Abdul Onweno, was printed on the top-left of the page. Below his name were various statistics about his size, his coloring, his DOB, and other identifying information.
“Dabbles in stolen goods now and again,” said Wally, lifting his eyebrows and scratching his scalp. “But they say he’s a good kid, some kind of chess master. They say dimes to dozens he’s over there right now.” Wally looked at the younger cop, who nodded his head. “You want a uniform with you?”
Valencia looked at the cop too. “Yeah, sure,” she said. “But keep back.”
They split into three distinct groups: Valencia in the lead; Billy and Milton behind her; and the two cops about twenty feet behind them.
The fountain in the middle of the square sprayed water into the air; Valencia looked at it as she walked and made vague promises to herself about vacations and romance. Beyond the fountain stood the arch; it always made her happy to see the arch. Scattered all over the park were college-aged kids who clutched book bags and looked at cell phones. An older man sitting on a bench facing the fountain played the guitar and sang loudly. He looked like a hippie who’d cut off all his hair and shaved his beard. He kept his eyes on Valencia as she walked.
When she reached the path that led to the chess players, Valencia made a subtle circular motion with her fingers up near her ears; Milton and Billy understood she was telling them to split up and cover the north and south side of the area. They separated without speaking.
When she got closer to the chess players, Valencia stopped for a moment and turned away from them. She waited for Wally and the cop to join her. There were eight games going on, and at least half of them involved black players. “Malik is the one at the second table?” she asked the cop.
The cop looked that way and nodded. “Yep,” he said. “Dark dude in the blue hoodie, with the little dookies.”
“Thank you,” she said. As she made her way to the tables, she kept her eyes on Malik Onweno. The game engaged his attention completely. Her training kicked in. She’d been taught to pretend to know the stranger she was approaching. Not to act on that knowledge at all—she wasn’t going to pretend they had a shared history or be friendly—but to carry herself with the knowledge that she already knew whomever she was approaching.
Even when she got within fifteen feet of him, he kept his eyes on the board. Players of varying ages and races occupied the other tables. They played speed matches and smacked their little timers after every move. A couple of African men, who weren’t playing, watched Valencia.
She walked right up to the table and stood behind Malik’s opponent. Malik moved his bishop, captured one of his rival’s pawns, and smacked the timer. He glanced up at Valencia and looked back at the table.
“Mr. Onweno, I need to speak with you,” she said, feeling proud of the way her voice sounded.
“As soon as we’re done,” said Malik, without looking back up.
If he’d wanted to piss her off, he’d succeeded. She stepped around his opponent and was about to knock all the pieces from the board, when she changed her mind, and instead, leaned forward and pushed Malik’s king off the table. It landed on his lap.
“Are you done?” she asked.
The man reacted like she’d poured water on him; he looked shocked. Valencia thought for a moment that he might cry. She could feel the men around her stiffen up like fighting dogs. The air became electric.
“Let’s go,” she said, nodding toward a more private area, and sucking in a deep breath.
Malik raised his hand to his opponent, as if asking him not to interfere on his behalf. The opponent, an older Polish or Russian-looking man, hadn’t responded in any way. He just sat there with his mouth open, staring up at Valencia in disbelief.
Valencia looked back at Malik and focused all her mental energy trying to send a nonverbal message to him: It’s urgent. Do not resist. This can only get worse for you. The man made a face, stood, and together they moved toward a bench about thirty feet to the north of the chess games. Without being obvious about it, she matched her posture and stride to his.
While they walked Valencia tried to summon her most empathic self. She told herself that this man—this African immigrant—was probably scared shitless to see a woman wearing a pantsuit come and ask for him by name. That was fine—in fact, it was exactly what she wanted him to feel. It was perfect. A flock of pigeons flew over their heads.
Up the path, Valencia saw Milton sitting on a bench watching them. Just then, another African immigrant walked by and seemed to ask Malik with his eyes if he was all right. Malik ignored him.
When they got to the bench, Malik gestured for her to sit, as if they were in his office. She straightened her pants and perched herself on the edge of the bench. Malik joined her, sitting down slowly, like he had a stiff back. Valencia saw Wally and the uniformed cop standing about sixty feet away. She didn’t look for Billy, but she could feel him to her right. The hum of the city’s traffic filled the air around them.
“So what is this?” Malik Onweno asked, in an accented voice Valencia guessed was Nigerian.
With her hands resting in her lap, Valencia stared into the man’s face. His eyes had gone to the ground. He had long, beautiful eyelashes. It looked like he was busy trying to figure out what he had done.
She let the silence stretch on for a moment, and then finally said, “I’m looking for a phone.”
“I don’t deal in phones,” said Malik, shaking his head. His eyes stayed on the ground. He’d already come up with that line, thought Valencia. He’d been practicing it while they sat there.
Valencia could see a tiny vein pulsing near the man’s temple. “Look at me,” she said. He turned and looked at her. She touched her own cheek with her hand. “Look at my face. Look at who I am. Do I look like a cop who chases after stolen phones?”
Malik pursed his lips and shook his head a little.
“Do I look like a cop at all?”
“No,” he said.
She took a moment to let him think. Then she said, “I’m after a particular phone. It has passed through your hands. I’m not asking about it. I’m telling you.”
“Still, sister, I’m being honest, I don’t trade in phones.”
Valencia reached into the inside pocket of her suit coat. She pulled out a baggie that held about twenty gel-capped pills filled with brown powder. It was her melatonin. “This is heroin, Malik. It’s uncut. Do you want me to put it in your pocket and have those cops search you?” She nodded toward Wally and the uniformed cop.
Malik looked at the bag, then over at the cops, who were now openly staring at him. He stayed silent.
“A Chinese man came and sold you a phone today,” said Valencia.
Malik looked back down at the ground and continued making his calculations.
“Last chance,” said Valencia.
Malik, when he spoke, sounded sad. “A Jewish guy in Midtown, in the Diamond District.”
Valencia turned toward Milton Frazier, snapped her fingers once, and waved him to her.
Leo Katzir’s law office wasn’t fancy at all. It was on the ground floor of an ugly sixties office building in Sheepshead Bay. The walls were paneled in fake wood. Against those walls, leaning and sagging, were stacks of cardboard boxes filled with case files. Two bedraggled-looking Russian immigrants sat in the makeshift lobby waiting for counsel on their DUI cases. Mr. Katzir’s secretary, a twenty-two-year-old Russian woman, sat behind her desk with headphones on, watching YouTube videos and snapping gum.
Yuri Rabinowitz, his brother Isaac, and their friend Moishe Groysman had been in Leo Katzir’s office for ten minutes. They’d brought the thumb drive and they wanted the lawyer to have a look. Katzir—with his lips moving over words—clicked through various documents and read them. He didn’t seem to like what he saw; in fact, each new file seemed to upset him more than the last.
The lawyer was fifty-two years old; he wore a burgundy cardigan over a white shirt with a black tie. He was bald, soft in the stomach, and wore a yarmulke. “Would someone be willing to pay for their safe return?” he asked, leaning back and tapping his pudgy fingers on his desk. “Yes, they would. Do I advise you getting mixed up in this kind of business? No. No—listen to me, boys, I’m serious.”
He looked at each of the three younger men. “And I’m not saying that to cover—to legally cover—my own ass. I wouldn’t do that. I’m saying this sincerely. Do not go down this road.”
Yuri sat and listened. He tried to parse the man’s English for some kind of deeper meaning. His eyes went from the lawyer’s face to the plants on the windowsill behind him. They needed water. The office was very warm; the plants definitely needed water.
“You’re a lawyer, though,” said Yuri’s younger brother. “This isn’t lawyers’ work.”
Yuri raised his left hand to his brother, an impatient, Be quiet gesture. He despised it when his brother interrupted him. When he looked back at the lawyer, he saw that his expression had settled into a frown. “What if we asked for less?” tried Yuri.
“It’s not the amount that bothers me,” said Katzir. “It’s the fact that this is a federal crime. The FBI will investigate it. What do you think your uncle will do if you bring the attention of the FBI onto him? Can you imagine?”
“We told him about it,” said Yuri.
“And he blessed it,” said Isaac.
Katzir’s frown turned into a smirk. “I highly doubt that,” he said. The lawyer then looked at Moishe Groysman, in hopes that the more mature of his three visitors would talk some sense to the two younger brothers.
“He did,” said Moishe, with a shrug.
They were interrupted by Katzir’s secretary, who opened the door and stepped inside. “Sophia Kamenka,” she said.
“I’ll call back in five minutes,” said Katzir.
Yuri watched his brother turn in his seat and look the young secretary up and down. She returned the look with a small smile, stepped back out, and closed the door. The smell of her perfume hung in the air. Annoyed, Yuri dropped his gaze to the floor and reminded himself that there were more important things in this world than the ability to flirt. But he didn’t feel convinced.
“Boys, you wanted my opinion, and I gave it to you,” said the lawyer, Katzir.
“But if our uncle calls, you’ll tell him the documents are worth money?” asked Isaac.
“I’ll tell him what I told you—do not go down this road.”
Valencia stepped through the door of American iPhone Repair and looked at the four men sitting at their worktables. “Can I help you?” asked the one seated furthest from the door. After Milton and Billy followed her in, he rose to his feet. He didn’t say anything more; he just stood there blinking.
Valencia’s eyes swept over the other three workers. They all appeared to be under thirty, and they looked like they lived with their mothers. “I need to speak to your boss,” said Valencia.
The standing man shook his head. “He’s not in.” The other three stayed in their seats and watched with their heads held back. They all looked nervous.
Valencia stepped farther into the room. “Open that door,” she said, pointing at the second door.
“I’m sorry?” said the man who was standing.
“I need you to open that door,” she said.
Milton pulled out his fake badge, and he held it up for the men to see. Valencia could feel the energy in the room shifting; she watched the standing man’s eyes go from the badge back to her. He then raised both hands like he was pleading. “You guys are gonna need to come back with—”
Billy stepped past Valencia toward the closed door. He set his duffle bag down on the floor, and then took a moment to examine the door, paying special attention to the hinges. He tried the handle and confirmed that it was locked. The standing man had withdrawn a few steps and seemed to be considering taking out his cell phone. Billy then bent over, unzipped his bag, and pulled out a two-and-a-half-foot battering ram—an ATF-style doorbuster.
By the time Billy had straightened up and taken his backswing, the man said, “Okay, okay, we’ll call him.”
Somewhere, someone buzzed the door; Billy pushed it open slowly and peeked his head in. He stood in the doorway for a moment assessing the second room. Then he turned to Valencia and gestured for her to go first.
She counted six men when she entered. When she walked in, half of them stood. The room was organized in two rows of worktables. There were no windows, and no visible cameras. On the tables were iPhones and iPads in various states of disrepair; the tables were equipped with tripod lamps and magnifying lenses. There were a few Asian workers and the rest, Valencia guessed, were Israeli. They seemed confused and looked scared; one of them smiled sheepishly, as if he’d been caught doing something stupid.
Valencia felt Billy step past her. She watched him walk around the tables on her left. “I need all of you men to please stand on that side of the room,” he said, pointing toward the south wall.
Valencia turned and saw Milton shepherding the men from the first room toward her. She then walked past them to the office’s front door and confirmed that it was closed and locked. She returned to the middle room.
“Sir, put your hands on the wall and stay there,” said Milton, talking to one of the men. The man complied. Milton stepped back and kept his eyes on the group.
Billy, meanwhile, had picked his doorbuster back up; he was approaching the third door when it opened from the inside.
Valencia watched a bald man in a Giants hoodie step out. He wore glasses and loose pants. He had his hands up near his face like an old person assaulted by too much noise. “Everyone, please,” he said. This was the boss, Valencia was sure. “What is this?” he asked. “What is this?”
“Frisk him,” said Valencia.
Billy pushed him face-first against the wall.
“What is this?” Avram Lessing repeated.
Billy patted him down roughly. He checked his ankles and pockets, squeezed under his genitals, swiped between his buttocks. “He’s clean.”
“Hold him there.” Valencia turned and looked at the rest of the workers again, and held her finger to her lips, raised the finger in the air, and told them, “Gentleman, please, everyone remain calm, and you won’t be arrested.”
She entered the boss’s office, a medium-sized room with a window that looked out on an enclosed space between buildings. The room smelled like canned soup. A large, framed poster with directions on how to help choking victims hung on the wall. She walked around the back of his desk, bent down, and made sure nobody was hiding behind it. She tried a door on the far side of the office and found it locked. She looked around for cell phones but didn’t see any.
After stepping to the window, looking out, and then lowering the shade, she called out, “Bring him in.”
Billy ushered him into the room, a hand on the man’s back.
“What is this?” Avi Lessing asked again. “You can’t just charge in here. This is bullshit, we have civil rights. I have a lawyer. You’re gonna want to deal with him.”
Valencia stepped within arm’s length of the bald man, and looked into his eyes. He was terrified. She stayed silent for a moment, savoring his fear. “An African kid brought you some phones today,” she finally said, speaking quietly.
“What?”
“A boy named Youssouf sold you some stolen phones today.”
“I don’t buy phones, I repair—”
“Let me explain something to you,” said Valencia, cutting him off. “I’ll make it clear. We’re only going to do this once. I’m not going to go back and forth with—”
“Excuse—”
“I’m not going to argue,” she said. “I skipped my lunch, my blood sugar is low, my feet hurt. If you think I’m interested in your pathetic little stolen phone operation, you’re mistaken.”
She looked as deeply into his eyes as she could. “I don’t care about that,” she said. “I care about a particular phone, a phone you received today. One phone. An iPhone. Did you receive any phones today?”
He looked down. “Yes.”
“How many phones did you receive?”
“From Youssouf?” he asked. “Six, he gave me six phones.”
“Where are they?”
“Right here.” He nodded toward a tote bag in the corner of the room. “Right here. No problem.”
“Get them, and set them on that desk,” said Valencia.
After pulling his pants up, he retrieved the phones and set them down on the desk slowly. Then he turned to her with an aggrieved expression. He looked like an upset teenager.
“Get on your knees, and put your hands on your head,” said Valencia.
“What?” asked Avram Lessing.
“Break him,” said Valencia.
“Okay, okay, okay,” said Avram, getting down on his knees and putting his hands on his head. Valencia glanced at Billy, who closed his eyes and nodded once, admiringly.
Valencia then stepped to the desk and looked at the six phones. They were all iPhones. She picked up the first one and pressed the power button. She then went through the other five phones and turned each one on. While she waited for them to boot up, she went to the door and checked on Milton again.
All ten of the workers still had their hands against the wall; they stood with their heads turned toward her. Milton, sitting on the edge of one of the tables, brushed at the space between his eyebrows. He had the room under control.
Valencia stepped back into the office and picked up the first phone. It was passcode protected. She picked up the second phone: passcode protected. On the third, she clicked the home button, and on the home screen saw the painting of a swimming pool that had been in the packet of info given to her by Elizabeth’s investigator. She clicked on the email icon and scrolled through the emails until she saw one from a lawyer at Carlyle, Driscoll, and Hathaway.
She then held it out for the man to see, gave it a little shake. “See, no big drama, no big fuss.”
“Take it,” he said.
“I will,” she answered. She stood there for a moment looking down at the phone. “I have to ask you something, though.” She waited for the right amount of tension to develop between them. “Did you snoop around on this phone at all?”
“No, just to see if they work. I don’t look, I just turn them on, see if the screen works.”
“Did you take anything from this phone?”
“What am I gonna take? No, I’m selling it, I didn’t take anything.”
She turned and looked at Billy. He raised his eyebrows, let them drop. Valencia stepped toward the man’s desk. “Listen to me—we are going to examine the phone forensically. We will be able to see if any files were removed from it. I’m going to ask you one more time, did you take anything from it?”
“No. No, I didn’t take anything from it,” said Avram, looking to Billy, like he might offer some kind of help.
“All righty then,” said Valencia. “Thank you.” She clicked the phone again and checked the time.
At that same moment, Ren Xiong was in the middle of taking care of some last-minute details before leaving town. He’d just visited his girlfriend Wan Kin Yi. He told her he had to go on a business trip and that he’d be gone for a few weeks, maybe longer. They had sex in her bed, which had white sheets and a white blanket and pillows and seemed altogether more luxurious than anything else in the rest of his life. Before he left, he gave Wan Kin Yi an envelope with a thousand dollars in it, explaining that he wanted her to be comfortable. She made a funny face but she didn’t refuse the money.
He didn’t know if he’d see her again, which made him feel sadder than he expected. He spent most of the walk back from Alphabet City thinking about her. Now he looked at his phone, saw it was almost four p.m., and sped up his pace.
He’d left his suitcase at a mailbox store in the hands of a Chinese worker he was friendly with. When he picked it up, the worker asked where he was off to. Xiong told him Los Angeles, and the two men joked about him becoming a famous actor. “I won’t forget you when I’m rich,” Xiong said.
Upon entering the laundromat he took off his baseball cap. He’d lost the receipt and he wanted the old woman to recognize him. She greeted him in Chinese, and he apologized for not having the ticket. She disappeared in search of his shirts, and Xiong looked around the place and felt saddened by the dirty floor. Didn’t the owner have any family who could help with sweeping and mopping?
The old woman returned with his two shirts, and Xiong paid without making any more small talk. Then he set his suitcase on the floor, opened it, and put the two clean shirts—still wrapped in plastic—inside. After zipping it closed, he stood, smiled at the woman, and rolled the suitcase to the door. Before leaving, he looked at his phone again—4:10 p.m.
The laundromat was on Baxter Street. Xiong had been instructed to walk north on Mulberry. If he wasn’t contacted by the time he got to Broome Street he was to get into a taxi, head to Penn Station, take the train to Philadelphia, then jump in another taxi to Camden. In Camden, he’d go to a safe house on Norris Street. He’d been once before; it was a place without charm. The television didn’t pick up any Chinese stations, and the nearest pool hall was a half-hour bus ride away.
Xiong got to Mulberry and rolled his suitcase north. He passed a fish store and looked at some sea bass laid out on ice. The smell coming out of the place was enough to stop him from breathing through his nose. He walked on and scanned the street for signs of irregularity.
His eyes settled on a Chinese man with a paper bag walking toward him. The man stood out because of his athletic build. He carried the bag from the bottom, as though it might break from its load. If the man had a gun, Xiong thought, he could keep it in the bag and fire without pulling it out. As the gap between the men closed, Xiong reminded himself that if his old bosses from Anquan Bu—the Ministry of Security—ever sent someone, they would come from behind. He would never see them. It would be merciful that way. Still, Xiong kept his eyes on the man, and they passed each other without incident.
Two blocks later, just after Grand Street, Xiong noticed a black SUV parked on the west side of the street in front of him. When he got within ten paces, he saw the back window lower. Xiong leaned down and looked in. Riding in the backseat was his American boss, Jonathan Redgrave.
“There he is,” said Redgrave, smiling like a wolf.
The driver’s door opened, and Manny Vega stepped out. “You all right?” asked Vega, holding a hand out for a shake. He always had dark circles under his eyes, and today was no different. He was roughly the same age as Xiong, somewhere in his forties. He had small scars on the right side of his face, the remnants, seemingly, of an explosion. He looked dangerous, but he’d always been friendly. They shook hands and Vega patted him on the back.
We’ve lived our lives and now we’re here, thought Xiong, standing on this street. For a moment his mind jumped back to the sea bass he’d just seen, the single skyward eye looking like it was shocked at the predicament it found itself in. One moment alive in the sea, the next dead and on ice.
Manny Vega took Xiong’s suitcase from him, and the back door popped open. “Come on,” said Jonathan Redgrave, waving him in.
Xiong reminded himself to be calm and got into the back.
“There he is,” repeated Redgrave. They shook hands, and they didn’t say anything more until Manny Vega finished loading the suitcase, and the back door slammed shut.
Jonathan Redgrave, as far as Xiong could guess, was somewhere in his forties or fifties. It was harder to tell with white people. His face looked older; it was sallow and pitted. He was skinny, had dark hair and a receding hairline. He looked like the kind of man who exercised regularly but remained unhealthy. He was, Xiong thought, ugly both inside and out.
“That was good work today. You should be proud,” said Jonathan. Manny jumped into the driver’s seat and the vehicle began to move.
Xiong licked his lips, nodded, but he didn’t feel anything. He’d been smuggled away from China, away from his family, his life, to work for this man. It brought him no joy. A former Anquan Bu operative, Xiong had been compromised by accepting money from the Americans. They’d given him a choice: fake his own death and come to America and work for them, or be exposed. He agreed to work for them. Because of his family in Tianjin, he couldn’t run away. His entry into America had been undocumented. There was no record that he existed. In China he was dead. Now Jonathan Redgrave had a man without documented fingerprints, DNA, iris scans, or a known facial pattern. He could do jobs for them. He was a tool in their toolbox. They kept him, he imagined, for some bigger job in the future. Not for these little jobs. Someday he would really be needed, and afterward they would throw him away.
“We’re gonna put you in Camden, and then move you to Baltimore in a week,” said Redgrave. “Just sit tight.”
Xiong nodded again, and then looked out his window at the people walking on Broome Street. He looked at their jackets, backpacks, and hooded sweatshirts. Sit tight, he thought—that means sit without moving. His mind shifted to Baltimore—he thought about his gambling options there. The pool hall downtown had games. He could find a new girlfriend. He could start exercising, get back in shape.
“Manny said the kid played it right?” said Jonathan Redgrave.
“Is it a question?” said Xiong.
“I’m saying, Manny said the kid played it just right. Do you agree with that assessment?” said Redgrave, sounding annoyed.
“He seemed sad,” said Xiong.
“You hear this?” asked Redgrave, looking at Manny Vega in front. The driver shook his head.
“May I ask a question,” said Xiong.
“Please,” said Redgrave.
“What are you going to do with him?” asked Xiong.
“He’s a good kid. He’s played it straight so far,” said Redgrave. “Shit, you know better than anyone, once you’re in the field … you are in the field.”
Xiong glanced at Manny in the mirror. The man nodded. They were all in the field.
“So, it is now 4:39 p.m. I told you I’d have the phone back by the end of the day,” said Valencia Walker, sounding cocky. She slid the missing iPhone across the table to Elizabeth Carlyle, and then turned her attention back to Chris Cowley. He looked appropriately wrung out.
“Technically, you said ‘a few hours,’” said Elizabeth.
“Nonetheless,” said Valencia.
“Should I tell him how much you cost?” asked Elizabeth.
“I don’t think that would be appropriate,” said Valencia.
Chris shook his head and a pained look passed over his face. “I want to thank you,” he said, raising his hand and tapping the table with his fingertips. “I don’t even know what to say.”
Right then the door of the office opened and Elizabeth’s assistant, Andy, poked his head in. “Ms. Carlyle, there is somebody downstairs at security who wants to speak to you.”
“Take a message,” said Elizabeth.
“They say it’s urgent. About a phone.”
“One person?” asked Elizabeth.
Valencia stood, pulled out her own phone, and began texting her men. She didn’t know exactly what was happening, but she knew her night was far from over.
“One man, yes,” said Andy.
“Tell security to personally escort him here. Tell them, under no circumstances should they let him go,” said Elizabeth.
Valencia and Andy went straight to the elevator and got there before it arrived. When the doors opened, Valencia was surprised to see an Indian or Pakistani man sandwiched between two of the building’s suited security staff. The man wore a stained beige shirt, and a loose maroon tie. He had jet-black hair and a black mustache, but appeared to be in his sixties. He was clearly very nervous.
Valencia thought about checking him for weapons but decided against it. “This way,” she said, motioning in the direction of Elizabeth’s office. She let the guards lead the way. Andy followed behind.
Chris and Elizabeth were both standing when the group arrived.
“Thank you, please wait outside,” said Elizabeth, dismissing the guards and Andy. The door closed and the four of them were left alone.
The man raised his hands apologetically. “I’m a delivery man. I don’t know what this is. I got a call for a delivery. I met them, they give me paper, that’s it.”
“Tell us what you’ve been asked to deliver,” said Elizabeth.
“I don’t want to get in trouble,” said the man.
“I can assure you—you are not going to get in any trouble,” said Valencia. She stole a glance at Chris Cowley. He appeared to be as confused by what was happening as she was.
“I’m not with them,” said the man.
“We know,” said Elizabeth. “Now tell us what you’ve been told to say.”
“They gave me two hundred and twenty dollars. They say, tell them, ‘we have the Cal …’” The man searched his mind for the word.
“Calcott files?” asked Elizabeth.
He nodded.
“What else?” asked Valencia, in the friendliest voice she possessed.
The man took a folded envelope out of his pocket, unfolded it, and with some difficulty tore it open. From inside he pulled out a plain white page with black handwriting on it. He began to read from it: “They say ‘You have until tomorrow, five p.m.’ They say ‘Seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars cash.’ They say ‘We’ll be back in communication with you.’”
The man looked up from the page, which was shaking, and swallowed. Valencia nodded at him to continue. He looked back down.
“They say otherwise they go to Emerson lawyers. They say, ‘We know their address.’ They say, ‘1604 Broadway,’ and then they go to New York Post, New York Times, CNN, everywhere, news. Emails.” He looked back up and took a deep breath.
“What’s your name?” asked Valencia.
“Juahar.”
“Juahar, we’re gonna need the two hundred and twenty dollars that they gave you. We’ll replace it with fresh bills.” She took a step closer to him. “Did they write that note, or did you?”
“I didn’t write it. They wrote it. Not me.”
“The envelope and paper? Did they have the paper?”
“Fine, why don’t you set that note and envelope down right there.” She pointed at the table. “We’re also going to need to take a statement from you, get a little bit more of the details fleshed out. Are you okay with that?”
“Yeah, but …” said Juahar. He frowned, shrugged, turned his palms up.
“Don’t worry,” interjected Elizabeth, her face showing exactly how angry she was. “You’ll be paid for your time.”