for a second time—in case Victorian Homes had magically been replaced by Sports Illustrated—a middle-aged
man with a short haircut and mustache entered the waiting room. His eyes settled on us, and I caught him taking
a deep breath. He wasn’t making any secret that he didn’t
want to be talking to us, and resented the fact that we were
even here.
I stood up, assumed Jack would do the same. When he
didn’t, I looked at him. He didn’t seem to have noticed there
was someone else in the room; either that or he didn’t care.
“Mr. O’Donnell?” the man said. Now Jack’s eyes
perked up. He didn’t say a word, waited for the other man
to speak. “Bill Talcott. How can I help you?”
Jack stood up. Gave Talcott a once-over, sizing him up.
Talcott shifted as he stood there, eyes meeting the floor.
Jack was trying to make the guy nervous, take him out of
any comfort zone he might have. It didn’t look like Talcott
had much of one when he joined us, but I guess Jack
wanted to break his spirit completely.
“Thanks for finally joining us,” Jack said.
“My apologies for the wait.” He glanced at Iris with a
condescending, apologetic smile, as though blaming her
for the delay. Iris didn’t look up from her desk. This did
not paint Mr. Talcott in an impressive light.
“Actually Iris was quite helpful,” Jack said. I noticed
Iris’s face look up slightly. “You have no need to embarrass her. Or yourself.”
Talcott’s face went pink, and he stammered. “Of
course, I didn’t mean to put anybody down. We’re all
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under an enormous amount of stress these days, as you
can imagine. And if I can say so, without embarrassing
myself again, I’m a fan of your work, Mr. O’Donnell.”
Jack nodded, but did not respond to the compliment.
“Should we go somewhere more private?” he said.
“Is this an issue that requires privacy?” Talcott said,
confused.
“I’d say so.”
Talcott nodded, said, “Right this way.” We followed
him down the hallway behind the reception desk. The
corridor was filled with gray metal filing cabinets. A few
people stood by, filing, rifling through papers with a
quickness that said they’d done it for years. On the walls
hung pictures of buildings. Some residential, some commercial, obviously the properties Orchid Realty managed.
We passed by a small kitchen and a large conference
room, and eventually were led into Talcott’s office. He
ushered us in and closed the door. There were two leather
chairs in front of a heavy marble desk. The desk, as well
as the windowsills and bookshelves, were lined with
snow globes from around the world. The man had literally hundreds of them.
“I buy one in every city I set foot in,” Talcott said
proudly. “Three hundred and forty-eight and counting.”
Jack and I sat down. Talcott seemed disappointed that
we weren’t impressed. We took out our notepads and pens
as Talcott sat down. He waited a moment to see if we might
compliment his collection. When it was clear we weren’t
going to, he said, “So, gentlemen. What can I do for you?”
“First off, Mr. Talcott, this is my associate Henry
Parker. My apologies for not introducing him earlier.”
“Parker,” Talcott said. “Where have I heard that name
before?”
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“It’s a pretty common surname,” I replied.
“Any relation to Peter Parker?” Talcott asked.
“You mean Spider-Man?”
“Is that the character’s name? I could have sworn I
knew someone else named Parker. In any event, your
name does ring a bell.”
I looked at Jack, hoping we could move on. He seemed
to get the nod.
“Mr. Talcott,” he said, “do you manage the property at
sixteen-twenty Avenue of the Americas?”
“I do,” Talcott said.
“Are you aware of a company called 718 Enterprises
that, up until recently, occupied space in that building?”
Talcott took a moment before responding, “No.”
Jack’s eyebrows raised. “You’re saying there was
never a company at that location with the name 718 Enterprises, or anything similar to that?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Yes, there was a company, or yes there was not?”
“There was no company with that name at that location.”
Jack turned to me, shifting his whole body. I realized
Jack had never seen the sign for the company, he hadn’t
witnessed the young men marching in and out of the
building with full bags. I was the only witness, at least
the only one who was on our side.
“Mr. Talcott, do you read the news?”
“Of course I do. I’m quite fond of Mr. O’Donnell’s
work, as I said.”
“Do you read it regularly?”
“I would say so.”
“Well, then do you recognize the name Stephen
Gaines? Or a company called 718 Enterprises?”
This time Talcott’s “no” was hesitant. There was rec-68
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ognition on his face, but he wasn’t about to incriminate
himself.
“Let me give you a little backstory. Stephen Gaines
was murdered a few weeks ago. Shot in the head in a
dingy apartment in Alphabet City. It was in the news
quite a bit, especially after the primary suspect was
cleared.”
“That does ring a bell,” Talcott said. “So much strife
in the news these days, who can remember a name? But
the case does sound familiar. Boy’s father was accused
of the crime, wasn’t he?”
“That’s right. Want to know something else?” I said.
Talcott seemed unsure of how to respond, so he simply
said, “Sure.”
“Stephen Gaines was my brother.”
“I—I’m sorry to hear that. My condolences.”
“See, my brother worked with those two guys, Scott
Callahan and Kyle Evans. And my brother confided everything in me.” This part was BS. We’d had one conversation lasting thirty seconds and I didn’t even know he
was my brother at the time. “And he told me that Scott
and Kyle were employed—that’s a loose term—by 718
Enterprises. Who worked out of your building. Now, if
you still don’t remember them I can get you the documentation and you’ll see it at the same time we print it.” I
looked at Talcott’s desk. Saw a photo of him with a
woman and young boy on a beach, all three beaming. “I
don’t know how I’d explain to my son why Daddy’s
picture is all over the news.”
Talcott turned a ghastly shade of white, and rocked back
in his chair. The chair, unfortunately, did not lean back with
him, and he nearly toppled over before righting himself.
Talcott cleared his throat before suddenly leaning
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down to rummage under his desk. I felt my fingers gripping the sides of the chair—was he going for a gun?
My n
erves quieted when I saw what Talcott was reaching for a bottle of Glenfiddich single malt, aged twentyone years. Slightly less dangerous than a gun, though
from the shaking of his hands my guess was that after we
left, Talcott would drink enough to make him sleep like
he’d been shot.
He brought up a small tumbler, filled it to the brim, and
downed it, closing his eyes. He looked at us, slight embarrassment on his face. Then he pushed the bottle toward
us.
“No thanks,” I said. “I didn’t have breakfast.”
Jack looked right past the bottle. I watched his reaction, but there was none.
Talcott coughed into his fist. His eyes were a little
watery. I got the feeling he didn’t particularly enjoy the
scotch, but needed it enough to get around that small detail.
“You don’t know what it’s like out there,” he said.
“Out where?” said Jack. “What are you talking about?”
“The economy is in the toilet. The dollar is barely
worth the paper it’s printed on.”
“I cash my paychecks,” I added. “We know this.”
“But companies…they’re getting hit the hardest. There
aren’t as many customers to go around, and the customers that they do have, well the money they pay doesn’t
buy what it used to.”
“What’s your point?”
“Sixteen-twenty Avenue of the Americas, we’ve lost
a dozen tenants from that building in the last two years.
Two years! And you know how many tenants have moved
in? One. That’s a few hundred grand that we used to be
making that just disappeared in the wind.”
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Talcott paused, eyed the bottle.
“We needed the extra money.”
“And…” I said.
“That company…718 Enterprises…they never leased
the property,” Talcott said. “They were never officially on
our ledger. They never paid us a dime.”
“Then why did you say…” I replied, but Jack cut me off.
“So what does that mean?” Jack said. “They didn’t pay
for the space? How did you bring in money?”
“The company itself didn’t pay us,” he replied, eyes
looking at the bottle like it was a well-aged steak. “There
was a law firm.”
“Kaiser, Hirschtritt and Certilman,” I said. “They
occupied the floor above.”
Talcott nodded, his eyes red. He bit his lower lip. Hard.
“Go on,” Jack said.
“The law firm leased one floor. Eighteen. About a year
after they leased it, our tenants on seventeen moved out.
We needed money bad. So when Brett Kaiser came to us
and made a proposition, we had no choice. The tenant that
occupied that floor had left three months earlier. We
couldn’t afford to take another hit without recouping
some of our losses.”
“What was the offer?” I said.
“Somebody would occupy the seventeenth floor. Only
for legal purposes, the firm would be listed as the leaser.
They would take care of monthly payments for both
floors. That was that. We treated it like a tenant was
simply occupying two floors.”
“So who was on seventeen?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Talcott said. “That was part of Kaiser’s
deal. He said the people on seventeen would never need
anything from Orchid, and we should never ever contact
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them for any reason. I never went to that floor, and they
never even hired a cleaning crew as far as I know. One
time, though, one of our maid services told me she accidentally got off on the wrong floor, got lost. She said the
offices were closed, and had some sort of security system
she’d never seen before. Like something out of the space
program, she said.”
“Doesn’t sound like something a law office would
employ,” I said to Jack. He didn’t respond.
“There’s something wrong with that company. I don’t
know what it is, but I had a feeling that some day
somebody would ask me these questions. I never wanted
to know what they did. But I had to lease as much space
as possible or the building could have gone under.”
“I’m sure Kaiser knew that,” I said. “And knew you
wouldn’t ask questions as long as the checks arrived on
time.”
“I never needed to or wanted to ask questions,” Talcott
said. “There are plenty of tenants whose businesses I’m
not fully acquainted with. As long as they’re running a
legal operation and paying on time, they have their right
to privacy.”
“And you have a right to know where your money is
coming from,” I said.
“What if,” Jack said, “you had a choice between getting
paid and having a tenant running a legal operation?”
“I’ve never had to make that choice.”
“Never had to, or never wanted to think you had to,”
Jack replied.
Talcott said nothing, but that bottle of scotch was practically gravitating toward his hands.
“One more thing,” Jack said. “Do you have contact information for Brett Kaiser?”
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“Sure,” Talcott said. “Cell phone, home phone and
e-mail address. Will that be all?”
“Just the contact info,” Jack said. “And if there’s anything else you can think of, here’s my card.”
Jack handed it to him. Talcott stared at it like it might
“Not a problem.” Talcott took a piece of letterhead
from his printer and scribbled the information on it. His
handwriting was sloppy and careless. My guess was that
Iris was responsible for his “personal” notes.
When he finished, Talcott folded the page and inserted
it into an Orchid Realty envelope. Jack took it and stuffed
it inside his jacket pocket.
“Pleasure meeting you,” Jack said, pointing at the
bottle of liquor. “Now we’ll leave you two alone.”
9
Morgan Isaacs kept one hand on his BlackBerry, which
was nestled snugly inside his front pants pocket. To
anyone on the street it looked like he might be playing a
game of pocket pool, but this Chester guy was ten minutes
late and Morgan didn’t want to miss a phone call. He considered leaving. I mean, who in the hell meets about a job
on the street? And Morgan didn’t like to wait. In his
previous job, people waited for him. He shared a secretary, a cute piece of ass named Charlotte he could have
had at any moment. Sometimes he would send her out for
coffee just because he could. When she came back, he
wouldn’t even thank her, just go into his office, pour the
cup into the bottom of his fake plant, and pull out a can
of Red Bull.
But this guy was late. Just a few short months ago,
Morgan wouldn’t wait for anybody. Some asshole wanted
him to wait five minutes? Screw you, let’s reschedule.
Now, Morgan didn’t know when he’d even find work
again. And with bills piling up he needed to earn scratch
&n
bsp; no matter what the cost. So if he had to suck up his pride
for a little while, so be it. A necessary evil. And whoever
this jack-off was who had him wait, well, if the company
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Jason Pinter
was good enough, Morgan would be running it within a
few years anyway. Then he’d be the one making people
late.
He felt a sense of anger rise within him as he
watched hundreds of people walking down the streets,
oblivious to him, unknowing and uncaring of what he’d
been through. Men, women, dressed in natty suits with
the finest accoutrements, they had no idea that in the
time it took to snap your fingers they could be out of
a job just like him. They had no right to be so confident, so careless, while Morgan stood there, his immediate future resting in the hands of a recommendation
of Ken Tsang and the charity of some guy he’d never
met before.
In the cab ride over—he would have preferred the bus
to save money, but Chester didn’t give him a whole lot
of time—Morgan wondered whether or not he’d take the
position if one was offered. Then he chided himself. Now
was not the time to be prideful. The bills would continue
to come, the debt would continue to mount. Even a modest income would provide a stint for the bleeding, and at
least he would have health care. Time to suck it up for a
few months, Morgan had told himself. Guys with his
talent and drive didn’t grow on trees. And every bumpy
road led to riches down the line.
Morgan squeezed the cell phone—thought he’d felt
it vibrate.
“Mr. Isaacs?”
Morgan turned around to see where the voice came from.
Standing directly behind him, almost inappropriately close,
was a tall, well-built man with close-cropped blond hair. He
had on a pair of rimless Cartier sunglasses, must have run
at least five hundred bucks. Not too shabby. His gray suit
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75
was stretched over a lean frame, and Morgan could tell the
guy had enough strength in those biceps to crush a tin can.
Morgan didn’t blink. Never show weakness, never
show admiration. He was never rude, but on a job interview you wanted to appear confident, not too eager. Like
they would be lucky to have you work for them.
“And you are…Chester?” Morgan said.
The man smiled and took off his sunglasses, folding
them and tucking the pair into his breast pocket. He held
out his hand. “Nice to meet you. Thanks for coming on