Hell Gate

THIRTY-FIVE

I waited in the car with the heat on high while Mike called the CSU. He wanted the guys to come up, to photograph and measure the metal structure of one of the shopping carts so Dr. Kirschner could compare the markings.

The sleepy cop in the guardhouse at the mansion confirmed that the carts were a frequent sight, both at the house and on the park grounds. Food deliveries arrived in them throughout the day and evening, and as in other parts of the city, teenagers often made off with them for sport, rolling them through the streets and playgrounds.

I called the shelter to make sure that Olena and Lydia had an uneventful evening. I learned they’d eaten dinner in their apartment, come down to the lounge, and stayed up past midnight-mesmerized by the shows on the large cable television screen-and overslept their morning call. They still managed to go off with the federal marshals at ten.

Mike got back in the car and started the engine. “Where to?”

“Hot chocolate?”

“Sure. You called Battaglia yet? Tell him about last night?”

“Don’t be a nag. I’ve got to have something good to give him before I call him to say I was tagged and we don’t know who did it yet. He’s liable to ground me.”

“They sell those GPS gadgets in every electronic store and on-line site. We’ll be lucky to trace yours in a month. By then, someone may have shot you in the ass with a dart and tagged you for real. Make life easier for all of us.”

“P. J. Bernstein’s Deli makes really good hot chocolate. Drop me at home and I’ll order up.”

“Tell you what. Take a ride with me. Let’s stir the pot a bit.”

“I guess I’m in your hands. Where to?”

“City Hall.”

“It’s Saturday afternoon. Who do you expect to find?”

“The city never sleeps. And Statler said he was going there after a stop at Madison Square Garden.”

“Waste of time.”

“Look, Coop,” Mike said. “Battaglia rattled their cages Thursday night with that sudden indictment of Kendall Reid and the other councilman, and the story of phantom funds. You don’t think you got people cleaning out desks and computer files and all their other garbage? I’m dying to see my tax dollars at work.”

We made a slight detour to pick up a sandwich and hot drink, then Mike got on the drive for the quick ride downtown.

The Civic Center, hub of all the government offices, municipal building, city, state, and federal courthouses, was usually pretty empty on weekends. We parked on Chambers Street and walked in from the west, past the yellow tape that bordered the hole that the reporter had described at the start of the press conference.

“Is that the crater you made?” Mike asked.

“No, mine’s around back on the far side. Just more of the same sad relics, though. They blocked this one off, too, when I broke through the other tarp.”

We climbed the steps and stopped at the metal detector in the lobby. Mike and I both showed our IDs and the cop on duty let us through the gate.

“Which way to Kendall Reid’s office?” Mike asked.

The cop gave us a room number on the second floor. “You have an appointment with Mr. Reid? Want me to call up?”

“No, thanks. Just dropping by to talk about an old friend.”

“You don’t value my life at all, do you?” I asked, laughing at Mike’s apparent plan. “That’s Tim Spindlis’s case. I can’t walk in on Kendall Reid. He’s just been indicted.”

“Hey, did old Spineless stab you in the back once last year? Or was it twice? I have no interest in Kendall Reid stealing cash from widows and children and the great unwashed. In our case, he’s just an ordinary witness. I need to talk to him about Ethan Leighton. And about Salma. Educate me, blondie, how many councilmen we got?”

Mike was charging up the staircase ahead of me.

“There are fifty-one members of the council. The speaker’s a woman, so mind your manners. Fifty-one council districts throughout the city. Reid stepped into the seat that Leighton had before he ran for congress.”

“What do they do here? I mean the council.”

I was trying to catch up to Mike, but he was taking the great worn marble steps two at a time. “It’s the lawmaking body of the city of New York. It governs, along with the mayor. The City Council has the sole responsibility for approving the budget.”

“What does that run a year?”

“About sixty billion.”

“So a few hundred thou in a shoe box would hardly be missed?” Mike asked.

“I guess that’s the theory.”

He stopped at the top of the landing. “What do you know about Kendall Reid?”

“What was in the Times yesterday morning. Your age.”

“Our age?”

“I’m not thirty-eight till spring.”

“Yeah, well, you better be lights out a little earlier tonight. You got so many circles under your eyes, they’d match the ones that ring a two-hundred-year-old redwood.”

“There isn’t enough concealer in the world to cover these,” I said. “Reid grew up in Harlem. Black mother, white father who abandoned them when Kendall was four or five. Very smart kid. Stuyvesant High School. Full scholarship to NYU. Law school there after that. Worked for Bloomberg, then for Moses Leighton, until he became Ethan Leighton’s aide.”

“Where does he live?”

“One of those renovated brownstones. Sugar Hill,” I said, referring to an area with some of the finest buildings uptown, part of the Harlem Renaissance.

“Sweet. He must have been sucking up to Moses to get enough money for that.”

“Yes. Moses Leighton put him in some deals before Reid went to work for Ethan.”

“What kind of deals?”

“Leighton’s had some export-import companies, and a lot of real estate.”

“Is Reid married?”

“Single. He’s supposed to be a real player.”

“Could be your moment, Coop.”

The second floor hall was almost as busy as on a weekday. I didn’t recognize most of the people around, but there were dozens of casually dressed men and women who were scurrying about or stopping to talk in small huddles.

The door to Reid’s room was ajar. He was on the phone at his desk, and it looked like his office had already been emptied of file cabinets, in all likelihood a result of a search warrant executed after the unsealing of the indictment.

He covered the receiver with his hand. “Who you looking for?”

Mike flashed his badge again and said his name.

Reid didn’t even say good-bye to whoever was on the phone. He hung up, stood, and began shooing us out of the small room. “Nothing left for you guys. Be gone.”

“I’ve got nothing to do with your arrest, Mr. Reid,” Mike said. “I’m here about your friend Ethan Leighton.”

Kendall Reid looked at us quizzically. “You’d best talk to my lawyer.”

He was about five foot nine, muscular and well-built, with short-cropped curly hair and very light brown skin.

“We just left Ethan.”

“Left him where?”

I introduced myself to Reid. “Just an informal meeting.”

“Lemuel Howell know about it?”

“Lem was a mentor of mine in the DA’s Office. He made it happen.”

Reid was giving each of us a thorough once-over. “How’s Ethan doin’?”

“That’s exactly what I was going to ask you,” Mike said. “You’re his buddy.”

“Well, we’ve both been a little bit busy. I haven’t seen him.”

“How strange is that? The congressman told me that just yesterday-”

Kendall Reid got the point. “Forgot that I ran into him right outside. Dammit. Right on the front steps. I had no idea he’d be around here. Come in, come in, Detective. Sit yourselves down.”

Reid walked behind us and closed the door. Then he parked himself on the edge of the desk, facing us. The monogram on his shirt pocket matched the pale blue lines in his black striped suit, and his gold fountain pen was clipped neatly in place.

Mike told Reid that we were investigating the murder of Salma Zunega, and that so far, Ethan Leighton had been cooperating with us.

“You’ve known the congressman for quite some time, haven’t you?” Mike asked.

“Sure have. Sure have. I actually met him through his father. It was Moses Leighton who hired me away right out from under Mayor Bloomberg. I was just two years out of law school, working on legislation for the City Planning Commission.”

“You and Moses Leighton became close?”

“Yes, we did. Man is like a father to me. Took a chance, liked what he saw, thought he could teach me a few things. I owe a lot to him.”

I’d guess he owed at least the monogrammed shirt and the vintage Montblanc, not to mention the well-addressed town house, to the senior Leighton.

“Was it through working at Leighton Enterprises that you got to know Ethan?”

“Yeah. I’m an only kid, Detective. No sibs. So Ethan liked to take me under his wing, show me the ropes.”

“Has politics always interested you?” I asked.

“There’s two ways out of the ghetto, Ms. Cooper. Politics and business. The gangsta route? You can make money and live just as well that way, though not likely as long. It’s still a ghetto lifestyle, no matter how high the rent. And there’s always the risk of prison bars. No, I was focused early on. Politics and business.”

I didn’t want to say that this week’s news made prison bars a strong possibility for Councilman Reid.

“I’m guessin’ I can read your mind, Ms. Cooper. How can I talk about being better than criminals when your office just came gunnin’ for me?” Reid reached behind him and grabbed the weekend edition of The Wall Street Journal. He swatted his hand a couple of times with it as he spoke. “I’m just a scapegoat for this practice that’s been goin’ on in this here city council for more than twenty years.”

“I really don’t want you talking about that to us, Mr. Reid,” I said.

“You read this yet?” he asked, offering the newspaper to me. “I’ve got nothing to keep from you. Like the Journal says, it was a bookkeeping maneuver that dates back to 1988. I don’t even know who the speaker was then, but he set up these fictitious groups, just to pool the money till it was distributed to council members. Nobody’s takin’ a piece of Kendall Reid’s hide for this. That money’s goin’ to the community, just like I promised. Read this editorial.”

I took the paper from him and put it on my lap. “We’d just like to ask you some questions about Ethan Leighton,” I said, “and about Salma.”

“Such a pity, such a tragedy.” Reid was shaking his head back and forth.

“You were the first person Ethan called after the accident early Wednesday morning, I understand.” I had read that in the police reports.

“I told you, ma’am, he’s like my brother.”

“You got to the scene before anybody could find the congressman. You were willing to take the weight for him?”

“Now, don’t you be puttin’ words in my mouth. There was a lot of confusion at that car wreck. I was just doin’ my level best to help sort things out. I had no plans to take no weight for anybody, you hear?”

“He’s not that heavy,” Mike said. “I thought-like-he’s your brother.”

“Good try, Detective.”

“What exactly did you tell the police when you got to the scene of the crash?”

“That paperwork those boys were so busy fillin’ out? I bet everything I said is as clear as day. I don’t want to be saying different things to you. Won’t help Ethan any.” Reid winked at me and went on. “Besides, I know how y’all be crisscrossing us up on the witness stand, you prosecutors. Bet you’re good at it, ma’am.”

Mike and the councilman were squaring off with each other. Reid had the habit of bouncing back and forth between a very crisp accent that matched his educational opportunities, and the g-dropping lingo of the streets. I could tell Mike was getting the sense that Kendall Reid was more flimflam than substance.

“Why don’t you tell us when you met Salma Zunega?” I asked.

“Dates and me, we just don’t get along too good.”

“Roughly, Mr. Reid. About what year?”

“Goodness, I would have been working for Ethan at the time. Three, maybe four years ago.”

“Do you remember where?”

“Does Ethan remember?” Reid tilted his head and pointed a finger at me.

“Yes.”

“I’m kind of afraid to say. Don’t need to mix him up none.”

“Take your best shot,” Mike said. “A speech, a party, a funeral, a Bar Mitzvah. Some other rubber-chicken dinner where you politicians hang out?”

“I’m quite sure it was a fund-raiser. That would be it.”

“That’s what Ethan said.” Mike was luring the councilman along, opening his steno pad to pretend he was confirming Reid’s answers with what Ethan Leighton had just told us an hour ago. “So you remember who brought her too?”

“Oh, Lordy, yes,” Reid said, scratching his head. “That could have been ugly.”

Mike flipped pages as though he were trying to find the name, even though Leighton had claimed it was no one memorable. “Yeah, the congressman said he dodged a bullet on that one.”

“Salma came in with Rod Ralevic,” Reid said. “Am I right?”

“You got it.”

“He was a state senator at the time, before he became lieutenant governor. It was a big-ticket Democratic fund-raiser. There was Salma, looking so sweet, just getting on her feet after-you know her background, right?”

“We do,” I said.

“Well, she was really fragile and vulnerable. And there’s that fool Ralevic, so much hair on the guy’s head he’s looking like he’s wearin’ a mop instead of a hairpiece.”

So Salma Zunega had already graduated to the political scene before she met Ethan Leighton.

“But she couldn’t have been too wrapped up in Ralevic,” Mike said, “if she made such a play for the congressman?”

“Rod? He was just in town for a few days from the boonies. Goin’ hog wild over women and wine and whatever other people’s money could buy him,” Reid said. “He didn’t care about the girl.”

“How do you think Ralevic met her?” I was trying to get back to the common thread among the trafficked women.

“I couldn’t begin to guess.”

“Pay for play?” Mike asked.

Kendall Reid stood up straight and stretched his neck back. “Maybe so. That’s before Salma found her way. Fell in love with Ethan.”

“Ralevic never got mad when he learned about Ethan and Salma?”

“Learned what, huh? That affair was a better kept secret than my grandmother’s recipe for monkey bread.”

“No rivalry there? It has nothing to do with Ralevic rushing in to pull the strings on replacing Ethan’s congressional seat?”

“Where you think Ethan’s goin’, dude?” Reid asked. “Sure as hell you don’t know Moses Leighton if you think anybody’s got a plan to take Ethan’s seat away. The lieutenant governor ain’t got no chance against Moses. That’s for sure.”

“What can you tell me about the little girl,” I asked, “-about Ana?”

Reid’s mouth tightened and he closed his eyes. “No way.”

“But, we’re terribly worried about what’s become of the child.”

“And I want to know who’s the baby’s father,” Mike said. “Couldn’t be the lieutenant governor, could it?”

“You know what?” He started to walk around to sit at his desk. “Let me get Ethan on the phone. Let me hear from him that he wants me to talk to you about all this, okay?”

“Try Lem Howell’s office,” Mike said, getting up and closing his pad. He knew Reid was about to end our interview. “My guess is that’s where your brother is.”

“Don’t be goin’ all holier-than-thou on me, Chapman. You want to know about Ethan meeting Salma? Ask your friend Baynes.”

“Donovan Baynes?” I asked, shocked to hear his name in that context. “The head of the task force?”

Donny had denied from the first moment the news broke that the congressman had been having an affair.

“Yes, ma’am. He’s part of the club.”

“Club. What club?”

“You’re all so high-and-mighty, don’t you think? I find it nice myself when there’s something you just don’t know.”

“What club?” I repeated.

“A gentlemen’s social club, Ms. Cooper. By invitation only. I don’t think you’d really be welcome.”