Every Man a King

28

Oliya was standing next to the chair, jostling my shoulder.

“It’s ten thirty,” she said.

I sat up, shaking my head.

“Joe,” my newfound friend said again.

“I’m up.”

“We have to go.”

I pressed the heels of my palms against both orbital bones.

“Sure,” I said. “Of course. You go get the car and I’ll make it there on my own.”

Looking down at my forearms and desk, I felt her considering my words. Then she was gone.

I was approaching the Washington Street pedestrian entrance to the bridge about forty-five minutes later. Melquarth was standing at the top of the concrete stairs.

“Joe.”

“Hey.”

We shook hands.

“Wanna grab some chili up in Harlem after we’re through?”

“Okay.”

I walked on.

There wasn’t anything to go over with Mel. He’d attached microcameras overlooking the spot where the meeting was to take place so that he and Olo could watch without being seen. If any suspicious characters got on during the meeting, they’d follow — and respond accordingly.

I reached a spot where Mel had painted a small white X on the outer wall. If I stood there, the hidden, high-resolution camera lens would capture me — and anyone I was with. I also had a voice-activated digital recorder inside an empty pack of Kool cigarettes in my shirt pocket.

It’s better to be early than on time. You can compose your thoughts, imagine the flaws in any plan. With fifteen minutes to spare I considered how an entire lifetime had brought me to that bridge, attempting to save the life and freedom of a man I detested. It felt right to be inside a life based on principle and not selfishness. Standards are all that the descendants of Cain have to keep them upright and respectable.

Over the next eleven minutes a few pedestrians sauntered by. Lovers, loners, late-night joggers, and a tourist or two. A couple of strollers wondered about me, looked back to make sure I wasn’t following. None of them seemed to be on the job.

“He’s on the way, Joe,” Oliya said into my ear. “Alone.”

We’d dug up a photo of Sledge online. He had a round head with a receding hairline and razor-thin mustache. You couldn’t tell his height from the portrait but I wasn’t there for a fight.

A few minutes later I saw him coming from the Manhattan side.

Surprisingly tall, over six feet, he was thin and fit, like a tennis pro. His loose trousers were light-colored cotton, and when he reached me, I could see that his short-sleeved shirt was dark green.

“Mr. Sledge,” I said when he was two and a half steps away.

Stopping on my first word, he looked around — a soldier attuned to any threat.

“Mr. Preston.”

“Nice night.”

“Let’s get down to business, shall we?”

“Okay—” I was about to go into my spiel but Sledge cut me off.

“Before you tell me what you want, I want to know who gave you my name.”

“A man who, even just knowing his name is often fatal.”

“I’m not worried.”

“I am.”

John Sledge measured me. His left eye got very small before he said, “I can be dangerous too.”

“I’m sure you can. You and I both know that life is a losing bet at best. But right here, right now, we have a chance to avoid that fate for a few weeks, or years.”

“Okay. Tell me what you want.”

“The government is pressing very hard to find a way to stop the sale of heating oil for diesel fuel. Neither of us wants them to succeed.”

“What horse you got in that race?”

“The dark horse is Yuri Fleganoff.”

“Who?”

“Come on, man, you know who that is. The guy runnin’ millions of barrels of oil from foreign tankers into a few of your distribution centers. The man who the FBI knows as Alain Freeman.”

“If that’s true, then why don’t they arrest him?”

“Because they’re looking for another name.”

When Sledge licked his upper lip, I knew I had him.

“What name?”

“The one they have is Tava Burkel. The one they want is John Sledge.”

“I don’t know who you think you’re dealing with, brother man.”

I pulled a .38 out of my pocket and aimed it at his left eye.

“I am not your brother,” I said in a civil tone.

The captain of industry kept quiet.

“Fleganoff needs to be out of the picture,” I said, now holding the gun down at my side.

“Why?” The one-word question had all the passion of a Neanderthal fledgling philosopher looking up at the night sky.

“It doesn’t matter why. You put Yuri out to pasture, place somebody else in his harness, and I will fade into the background, never to be heard from again. That’s really all you need to know.”

The lithe corporateer stared at me. After some seconds he began to nod.

“I do this and we’re done?” he asked.

“Absolutely.”

“You won’t mention my name?”

“I only want one thing.”

He pretended to think a moment or so and then said, “You got a deal.”

“You can go now, Mr. Sledge.”

“What’s your name?”

“You don’t want to know.”

Charles’s Chili was a basement joint above 150th Street. Oliya, Mel, and I were chowing down on bowls from different batches. Mel preferred beef while I liked pork. Oliya ordered something I never heard of before — shrimp chili.

“Why’d you pull that gun on Johnny?” Mel asked when we were halfway through the meal.

“I just needed him to know that I was as serious as it gets.”

“I would’a shot him.”

“I need him alive.”

“Why?”

“I’m pretty sure that he’s not the top man. Better to have him alive and afraid than to have his betters lookin’ for me.”

“All right,” Mel said leerily.

“I’m sending you a recording I have of the talk with Sledge. I want you to go back to Vermont and play it for Yuri. I’m pretty sure he’ll make tracks after that.”

“Pretty sure? That good enough for you?”

“It’s the best play I got.”

“So you want me to let him go?”

“Ask him if he needs any help. It’d be great to have Sledge and his people chasing their tails.”

Oliya didn’t utter a word, just kept shoveling in those spicy red-stained prawns.

In the morning I did a little research. When rush hour was over I donned my best suit and headed for New Haven.

Once at Yale I went to the main office and introduced myself as Joe Oliver, the new representative of the Ferris Fund.

“How can we help you?” Trish Geiger asked without demanding documentation.

“Roger is interested in how the school managed its scholarships at the very beginning. He wanted me to talk to people that were here then.”

“That was way back in the seventies,” Underdean Geiger proclaimed. “Anybody who worked here is either retired or dead.”

“Or both,” I allowed. “But there are several staff members today that were students at the time. Mr. Ferris would like to hear their impressions.”

“I guess,” Ms. Geiger said. “If you give me their names I’d be happy to set up an office where you can interview them.”

“I’d prefer seeing them in the environments they work in. If you just point them out on the campus map...”

Lionel Millman was a botanist who worked and sometimes taught in the campus greenhouse. He didn’t remember anything about the murder except that it happened. He didn’t even remember George Laurel’s name.

Charlaine Fogle was giving a lecture to 150-something students about the Peloponnesian War, a memoir by a Greek doctor/philosopher/general’s experience during that monumental conflict. I listened for nearly the full seventy-five-minute lecture and learned quite a bit. This made me hopeful about talking to the aged professor.

“The Ferris Fund, you say?” she asked when I buttonholed her on the bottom rung of the lecture hall.

“Yes.”

“I was told by the last person claiming to represent the fund that there was no interest in the subject of history among the board members. You aren’t interested in me and so I’m not interested in you.”

With that she walked away.

Couldn’t say that I blamed her.

Bexleigh Terrell was the ace I needed to stay in the game. The head librarian was tall, with proper posture and coarse hair dyed copper. She wore a maroon pants suit and sensible shoes. I imagined that she carried a knife and only worried about the health of her cat.

The imposing white woman’s eyes were somehow and mostly colorless.

“How may we help you, Mr. Oliver?”

We.

Approximating a humble demeanor I said, “The board has asked me for information about the crime of a long-ago scholarship student — Sola Prendergast. He killed George Laurel in the dormitory back in—”

“Nineteen seventy-seven,” the librarian said. “In March, as I remember. What on earth would the board need to know about him?”

“I really don’t know. They asked me for information and I couldn’t find a thing. So I thought I’d come here looking for people who were on campus at the time.”

Ms. Terrell’s judging eyes studied me like the proverbial book. I could only hope that my untrustworthy narrator was convincing.

“It was a terrible day,” she said. “George was well liked. I remember crying when I heard he was dead. Now I look back on that time and wonder about it.”

“About what?”

“Nothing. The crying. I mean, I didn’t even know him. I guess I was blubbering over the violence of the murder.”

“Do you know why Prendergast killed him?”

“They said it was jealousy.”

“Over a girl?”

“A woman,” Bexleigh corrected. “The prettiest, smartest, strongest — she competed in the Olympics — and most sophisticated creature on campus. Everyone was in love with her — male and female.”

“A professor?”

“No. A student. Valeria Ursini. Her friends called her Pixie.”

“Was Sola going out with Valeria?”

“Valeria didn’t go out. She would grace you with her company now and then but you just followed after.”

“Did George Laurel follow?”

“Maybe.” There was contempt in the word.

“So was she seeing Sola too?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then why would he kill George?”

“I’m surprised you don’t already know. Valeria and Sola got together sometimes because they were both Ferris scholarship students.”

“I didn’t know that.” Even the untrustworthy could tell the truth sometimes. “So you think that maybe Sola killed George out of jealousy?”

“I wouldn’t know.” Bexleigh glanced to the right, giving me the sign that she needed to get back to work.

“Thank you for your time, Ms. Terrell.”

“You’re welcome, Mr. Oliver.”

My iPhone told me that Valeria Ursini worked as a film archivist at Mandrake College in Yonkers. The urban university was easy to infiltrate. A Black man in a sharp gray suit was accepted easily. I asked around about the film archive and found that it was located on the sixth floor, through the library.

At just about seventy, Valeria would have still given Sophia Loren a run for her money.

She wore a coral-colored one-piece dress that came down to the middle of her calves and revealed a stunning figure — tastefully. She was flipping through film cans on a cart in the middle of a large room where students worked on various machines that examined and restored celluloid.

“Miss Ursini?” I asked the Yale bombshell.

“Yes?”

She raised her head, bringing a hand to her only slightly creped throat.

“Hi. My name is Joe Oliver. I’m the new director of the Ferris Fund.”

Her expression turned from mild interest to definite distaste.

“Oh. How can I help you, Mr. Oliver?”

“The fund is about to celebrate a big anniversary. We’ll be showcasing scholars all along the way. To some of these we’ll be awarding a one-hundred-thousand-dollar prize.”

“And?”

“We were wondering if you’d like to be one of the scholars we celebrate.”

“I haven’t done anything to be recognized for.”

“You’ve restored hundreds of films that would have been lost. And you discovered hitherto unknown works by Alice Guy.” Thank goodness for the internet.

“No one is concerned about her work.”

“But the history of any field of study must include everything if it is to be considered complete.”

Something I said, some emphasis, turned the lady completely against me. Her face hardened and my words drained away.

“Go back to your master and tell him that I will keep my word.”

“You mean Roger Ferris?”

“Leave.”