Saving Grace (7 page)

“Bitch!” he said, in a carrying voice.

Heads craned over partitions all around them. Ronnie looked smug and nervous, not a pretty combination. “What’s up, Barnaby?”

“You told Roger I’m balling that girl.”

“Aren’t you?”

“Hell, no!” he said righteously.

She studied his face. “But you’d like to be.”

“Why, because she’s young and beautiful?” He laughed derisively. “That’s no crime.”

“It is by me.”

“That’s your problem. Better learn to check your hormones at the office door.”
 

“Asshole!” she yelled as he stalked off. Barnaby didn’t look back.
 

* * *

In size, Barnaby’s cubicle was halfway between Roger’s private office and the three square feet of semi-partitioned desk space allotted to the Probe’s plebeian reporters. The weekly journal had outgrown its facilities years ago, but its steady increase in circulation was no match for the spiraling cost of space in the city. With moving unthinkable, each new addition to the staff reduced the per-capita allowance of space. Thus status at the
Probe
was defined in square feet and the possession of such luxuries as a door. The last inhabitant of Barnaby’s cubicle had died of AIDS. Barnaby launched his campaign for the eight-by-ten glass-enclosed cubicle the day he found out about his predecessor’s illness; he was as relentless in pursuit of the space as his corporate counterparts were of corner offices and executive-washroom keys.

The door also had the functional benefit of reducing the racket to a muffled roar. Barnaby slammed it shut and reached for his phone book. He had told Hasselforth some, not all of the story. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust his editor, it was just his nature always to keep something in reserve.

He dialed the number of the Department of General Services and asked for Arthur Speigel. Speigel was a mid-level functionary in the DGS, one who, like many others in the municipal bureaucracy, owed his job to Fleishman’s recommendation. This made him the journalistic equivalent of a hostile witness. Barnaby, of course, had no power of subpoena. His power was discretionary, vested solely in his troublemaking capacity. Speigel didn’t like taking his calls, but he didn’t dare refuse them. Now he came on with a wary “Hello?”

“Hey, Artie, how’s it going?”

“What is it, Barnaby? I’m busy.”

“Then I won’t waste your time. Have you got those figures I asked for?”

There was a pause. “I’ve got ‘em. But I’m telling you up front, they’re misleading.”

Barnaby uncapped his pen. “So, what is Rencorp paying the city?”

“You can’t look just at the rent. There are a lot of other factors—”

“What are we, playing patticake here? Just give me the goddamn rent and I’ll go bother someone else.”

“A couple thousand a month,” Speigel said unhappily.

Barnaby laughed deep in his throat. “Two thousand? You’re kidding.”

“The building’s in a lousy neighborhood. Before Rencorp took it over, it was occupied by some printer that hadn’t paid rent in months. The place was a wreck. They spent a fortune fixing it up.”

“And the building is how big?”

There was a rustling of paper. “About forty-five thousand square feet. You got to understand that this building is located right in the heart of south Eastborough. Rencorp’s employees weren’t exactly thrilled about the move.”

“So Rencorp’s doing the city a favor,” Barnaby said.

“You could say that. Their move opened up a lot of jobs for the borough; and as a gesture of support for the community, they opened up a day-care facility, which your paper is always bitching we don’t have enough of.”

“That’s very touching, Arthur, considering their savings in rent. Do you know what that kind of space is worth on the open market?”

“You guys are always looking at the down side.”

“And Fleishman approved this sweetheart deal?”

“What are you talking? These things go through a dozen city agencies till they end up here. It’s got nothing to do with party politics.”

Barnaby cackled rudely. “Please, dude. You know and I know that nothing goes down in Eastborough without our friend’s approval.”

“If you know so much, what are you asking me for?”

“Arthur, Arthur,” Barnaby sighed. “Why all the indignation? Now you’ve got me thinking something’s not kosher.”

“What’s not kosher? You know Jonathan. He sees a chance to snag hundreds of jobs and a day-care center for his borough, he’s not exactly gonna spit on it.”

“He’s a prince,” Barnaby agreed. “Did you know that Rencorp got a massive tax abatement when they moved to Eastborough? For the next ten years they’ll be virtually exempt from state and municipal tax.”

“So what?” Speigel said. “Jonathan’s supposed to bring business into the borough. All you’re telling me is that he’s good at his job.”

“He good at something. But I’m sure you’re right, Artie. Jonathan’s personal ties to Rencorp have nothing to do with the company’s good fortune.”

There was a long pause. When Speigel spoke, his voice was hollow. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You don’t know he’s the company legal adviser?”

“That’s no business of mine.”

Barnaby didn’t speak.

“You’re barking up a bad tree. If ever there was a right guy, Fleishman is it.”

“Did he ask for your help on the Rencorp lease?”

“I don’t remember. What if he did? That’s his job. If he pulled a few strings, he did it for Eastborough. Hell, you ought to give him a medal.”

Barnaby said, “Quite a guy, Jonathan.” He thanked Speigel and hung up, rubbing his hands together. The morning’s unpleasantness was wholly subsumed by glee. He was onto Fleishman now. He knew the man’s spoor, recognized his signature, that overlay of altruism. Rencorp was the paradigm, the case that would blow the lid off Fleishman’s scam.

The company fitted the profile precisely: it was a legitimate, minority-owned company that met all the criteria of Eastborough’s set-aside program and had done spectacularly well since moving onto Fleishman’s turf. In 1984 Rencorp was a small electrical contracting firm with billings of about $300,000, located in the Bronx. In 1985 the company moved to Eastborough and was awarded, through the set-aside program, a federally funded subcontract for city rehab projects. Between 1985 and 1986 their billings shot up to 1.7 million.

In 1987, two years after moving to Eastborough, Rencorp expanded into electrical supply. Despite competitive bids from two veteran minority-owned supply houses, it received another set-aside contract to supply lighting and cables to Eastborough’s subway stations. The company seemed extraordinarily lucky. They had only to wish for a job and it was theirs. Their requests for variances met with sweet understanding; and when they outgrew their parking lot, the city conveniently put in a municipal lot next door. Blessed with either a potent guardian angel or an earthly facilitator, Rencorp was currently grossing over seven million.

Barnaby had pored over all the company’s public filings and literature, but found Jonathan Fleishman’s name in only one: a 1984 press release in which he was named as the company’s legal adviser. By the time Rencorp got its first city contract, Fleishman’s name was nowhere to be found. On the list of shareholders, Barnaby found something interesting: one Solomon Lebenthal, whose name had cropped up during his investigation of Michael Kavin. He was a partner of Kavin’s in a print shop that did work for Eastborough. Barnaby made a note to follow up on Lebenthal.

It was long past dark by the time he walked home through a light drizzle. On the stoop of his building, a man lay sleeping in a foul- smelling cardboard nest, a blanket wrapped around him. Barnaby stepped over him and climbed four flights to his studio, unlocked three bolts, and went inside, locking the door behind him. He showered, then sat naked on his bed and rolled a joint. The red message light on his answering machine was flashing, and he played back an incoherent message from Ronnie Neidelman. Drunk again, he thought disapprovingly. He smoked a couple of joints in quick succession. He was horny, but it wasn’t Neidelman he wanted. When he closed his eyes, visions of Gracie danced through his head.

He didn’t like it. Barnaby wasn’t the kind of man to chase schoolgirls. But he had a yen for Gracie, a wicked desire, light- years from the tepid attractions of recent years. Seeing her accosted by that low-life scum had aroused in him something very far from paternalism. Touching her on the carousel made it worse, and then she had to twist the knife. She knew what she was doing, too. Women always knew.

But his hands were tied. There was honor involved, as well as reputation. Barnaby guarded both as jealously as other men guard their daughters—more carefully than Fleishman guarded his—because what else did he have?
 

Men his age, no smarter or more industrious than he, were racking up condos, country homes, cars, and boats. Barnaby rode the subways and lived in a rented fifth-floor walkup in a roach- infested building sandwiched between a parking lot and a sausage factory. The studio was decent enough inside, but he was long past the age of pretending there was anything romantic about his cesspool environment or of taking an inverted pride in his poverty.

Once, years ago, his mother had flown in for a visit. As she walked down the street from the subway stop, her face began quivering with disgust, and as soon as they got inside, she threw up her hands. “This is how you live?” she cried. “Such a smart boy, by now you should have a home, a family, money in the bank. What have you got? Nothing!”

His mother’s name was Selma Reiser Goldfarb. Barnaby had been born Howard Nathan Goldfarb, but took the single name of Barnaby when he moved to New York. Once a year, Howard Nathan Goldfarb rose from the dead and flew to Chicago to celebrate Passover with his parents and sister. But for the rest of the year he was gloriously self-named and self-made, free of chattel.

Usually his poverty didn’t bother him. On principle he despised consumerism; by nature he was not particularly acquisitive. Other forces fueled his fire. The city was infested with corrupt politicians who siphoned off the wealth of the city while people slept in the gutter and children grew up abused, illiterate, and hopeless. Barnaby despised those vermin politicians. He considered himself privileged to be numbered among their exterminators.

No one got rich in his line of work, not if he was honest; but there were other forms of capital, and reckoning by those, Barnaby was a man of substance. The governor took his calls; congressmen courted him. In fifteen years on the job Barnaby had broken more major stories off the city beat than any other reporter in town. He had the respect of his peers and a name that struck fear in the breasts of the powerful and corrupt.

Little enough, but too much to jeopardize for a fling with the poor little rich girl.

5

“WE’VE KNOWN EACH OTHER twenty-five years,” Martha Kavin said, “and during that time I don’t believe we’ve ever met without our husbands. When you think about it, it’s amazing how little we’ve had to say to each other.”

“Still, you came,” Lily said, beckoning the waiter.

“The timing was curious. I wondered what you’re after.”

“I’m not
after
anything. I just thought you could use some moral support.”

“How touching,” Martha said.

They were within months of the same age, but Martha looked ten years older. Her eyes were sunk in a mottled pool of failed concealer and smudged mascara, her skin was pasty, and her graying blond hair cried out for attention. Martha was a senior editor at Simon and Schuster, where she had tarried long enough that the bright young things shooting past her into management were half a generation younger. Too late to change houses; at this point, she’d be lucky to hang on to her job. One of the most dispiriting aspects of Michael’s fall from grace was its effect on her own career. It was a bitter discovery to find that as his stock plummeted, so did hers.

The Japanese waiter came and took their orders. When he was gone, Lily leaned toward Martha. “This must be hell for you. I wanted you to know that if there’s anything I can do—”

Martha cut her off. “You’ve done enough, thank you, you and your husband.”

“What do you mean?”
 

“You know exactly what I mean. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be here.”

“I believe in Michael’s innocence. I came to tell you that, not to listen to you badmouth Jonathan.”

“Not just Jonathan; you’re as complicit as he is. What do you think pays for your fancy estate in Highview, the house in East Hampton, that monstrous boat? You don’t even work. Where do you think all that money comes from, Jonathan’s salary?”

Lily gave her icy look. “I didn’t know you kept such careful track of our expenditures.”

“Ducking the question: Why am I not surprised?”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but Jonathan happens to have made some excellent investments.”

“Oh, really. In what?” When Lily didn’t answer, Martha laughed and said, “You’re such an ostrich.”