Elevator Pitch

Even though the bald guy was standing back of the mayor and trying to be invisible, Barbara was sizing him up. Trim, over six feet, skin the color of caramel. Of the three men standing before the assembled media, this guy had the most style. Long dress coat over his suit, leather gloves even though it wasn’t that cold out. Looked like he’d stepped off the cover of GQ.

A looker.

She thought of the people she knew in City Hall, the ones who regularly fed her information. Maybe one of them could tell her who this guy was, what the mayor had hired him to do.

Then again, she could just go up and introduce herself, ask him who he was. But that would have to wait. NY1’s correspondent, a man Barbara knew to be in his fifties but could pass for midthirties, led things off.

“How do you respond to allegations that you strong-armed the works department to hire an independent construction firm owned by one of your largest political donors for major subway upgrades?”

Headley shook his head sadly and smirked, like he’d heard this a hundred times before.

“There is absolutely nothing to that allegation,” he said. “It’s pure fiction. Contracts are awarded based on a long list of factors. Track record—no pun intended—and ability to get the work done, cost considerations, and—”

The NY1 guy wasn’t done. “But yesterday Manhattan Today printed an email in which you told the department to hire Steelways, which is owned by Arnett Steel, who organized large fund-raisers for your—”

Headley raised a shushing hand. “Now hold on, right there. First of all, the veracity of that email has not been determined.”

Barbara closed her eyes briefly so no one would have to see them roll.

“I would not put it past Manhattan Today to manufacture something like that. But even if it turns out to be legitimate, the content of that message hardly qualifies as a directive. It’s more along the lines of a suggestion.”

In her head, Barbara composed her next piece.

“Headley alleges the email uncovered by Manhattan Today could be phony, but just to cover all his bases, says that if it turns out to be the real deal, it’s not that much of one.”

In other words, suck and blow at the same time.

“Everyone knows that Manhattan Today has an obsession with me,” Headley said, waving an accusing finger in Barbara’s general direction.

He’s spotted me, she thought. Or one of his aides alerted him that she was there.

Headley’s voice ramped up. “It’s been involved in a relentless smear campaign from day one. And that campaign has been led by one person, but I won’t give her the satisfaction of repeating her name before the cameras.”

“You mean Barbara Matheson?” shouted the reporter from the CBS affiliate.

Headley grimaced. He’d walked into that one, Barbara thought.

“You know who I’m talking about,” he said evenly. “But even though this vendetta is being led by a single individual, I have to assume this kind of character assassination is approved from the top. Maybe the opinions of this journalist, and I use the term loosely, are slanted the way they are because of direction from upstairs.”

Barbara yawned.

“That’s why I’m announcing today that I will be filing a defamation suit against Manhattan Today.”

Oh, goodie.

Textbook Headley. Threaten a lawsuit but never actually file. Act outraged, grab a headline. Headley had threatened to sue every news outlet in the city at some point. He’d used the same tactics back when he was in business, before he embarked on a political career.

“Furthermore,” he said, “I—”

Headley noticed Valerie waving her phone in front of Glover, who winced when he read what was on her screen. The mayor leaned her way as she turned the phone so he could see it. While he was reading the message, there was a stirring in the crowd as some received messages of their own. The NY1 guy and his cameraman were already on the move.

“Sorry,” Headley said. “We’re going to have to cut this short. You’re probably getting the same news I am.”

With that he continued on down the steps, Valerie, Glover, and the bald man trailing him. They all got into the back of the waiting limo, which was only steps away from Barbara. But she had her eyes on her phone, attempting to learn what it was everyone else already seemed to know. She was vaguely aware of the whirring sound of a car window powering down.

“Barbara.”

She looked up from her phone, saw Glover at the limo window.

“The mayor would like to give you a ride uptown,” he said.

Her mouth suddenly went very dry. She glanced quickly to both sides, wondering if anyone else was witnessing the offer. Matt, to her left, was smiling.

“I’ll always remember you,” he said.

Barbara, having made her decision, sighed. “How kind,” she said to Glover.

She made as though she was turning off her phone, but set it to record before dropping it into her purse.

Glover pushed open the door, stepped out, let Barbara in, then got back in beside her. The limo was already pulling away as he pulled the door shut.

Two

The stairwell on West Twenty-Ninth Street that led up to the High Line, just west of Tenth Avenue, was blocked off with police tape, a uniformed NYPD patrolman standing guard.

Detective Jerry Bourque parked his unmarked cruiser directly under the elevated, linear park that at one time had been a spur of the New York Central Railroad. He got out of his car and looked up. The viaduct was only about one and a half miles long, but it attracted millions of people—locals and tourists—annually. Lined with gardens and benches and interesting architectural features, it had quickly become one of Bourque’s favorite spots in the city. It cut through the heart of lower Manhattan’s West Side, yet was a ribbonlike oasis away from the noise and chaos. When it first opened, Bourque jogged it.

Not so much these days.

There were half a dozen marked NYPD cars, some with lights flashing, cluttering the street. As Bourque approached the stairwell entrance he recognized the patrolman standing there.

“Hey,” Bourque said.

“They’re expecting you,” the officer said, and lifted the tape.

Bourque still had to duck, and the tape brushed across his short, bristly, prematurely gray hair. He was a round-shouldered six foot three. When circumstances demanded he stand up straight, he pushed six-five. He started up the stairs. Halfway, he paused for several seconds, a slight wave of anxiety washing over him. It was still hanging in there, this sense of unease before he reached the scene of a homicide. It hadn’t always been this way. He reached into his pocket, feeling for something familiar, something reassuring, and upon finding it, he carried on the rest of the way to the top.

When he reached the High Line walkway, he looked left, to the north. The path veered slightly to the west, where the High Line crossed West Twenty-Ninth Street. A gently curved bench hugged the walkway on the left side, with a narrow band of greenery between the back and the edge.

This was where everyone—police, the coroner, High Line officials—were clustered.

Bourque walked on with a steady pace, his head extending slightly ahead of his body, as though tracking a scent. There was no need to run. The subject would still be dead when he got there. Bourque had turned forty only three months earlier, but his creased and weathered face would have allowed him to pass as someone five or ten years older. A woman had once told him he reminded her of those trees that grow out of the rocks up in Newfoundland. The relentless winds from the ocean caused them to lean permanently to one side, the branches all going in one direction. Bourque, the woman said, looked like someone who’d been worn down by the wind.

As he got closer, another detective, Lois Delgado, saw him and approached. Seeing her, his anxiety receded some. They were more than partners. They were friends, and if there was anyone Bourque trusted more than Delgado, he couldn’t think who it might be.

And yet, he didn’t tell her everything.

She had an oval face, the way she let a curl of her short dark hair fall across her upper left cheek where she had a port-wine stain about the size of a quarter. Bourque understood why she tried to disguise it, but he found it one of her most beautiful features. She pulled her hair back on the right side, usually tucking it behind her ear, giving her face a kind of lopsided quality. She was a year older than Bourque, but unlike him she could have passed for someone younger.

“Well?” he said.

“Dead male,” she said. “No ID on the body. If I had to guess, late forties, early fifties. Early-morning jogger noticed something behind the corner of the bench that turned out to be a foot.”

Bourque looked around. The High Line wound among countless apartment buildings. “Somebody must have seen something,” he said.

“Yeah, well, that part of the bench is up against a nearly windowless wall on the left, and an open area on the right, and then there’s the rink just up there, so …”

Delgado shrugged, then continued. “Had to have happened in the middle of the night when there was no one going by. Tons of pedestrian traffic up here through the day. Thousands of people walk along here.”

“High Line closes at what, ten or eleven?”

“Yeah,” Delgado said. “They roll down the gates at all the access points then. Opens up again at seven in the morning. Wasn’t long after that that the body was discovered. You couldn’t do this to someone during the open hours.”

Bourque gave her a look. “Do what?”

“Easier if you just come and see for yourself,” she said.

Bourque took a breath.

I’m fine.

As they approached the bench, he saw the dirty white rubber sole of the shoe the jogger had spotted.

“We think he got dragged into the tall grasses and that was where it happened,” Delgado said, pointing to all the vegetation at the edges of the walkway that made it such a popular place for people to stroll. “I guess, just before they close the High Line and security does its walkthrough, someone could hide in the grass and not be seen.”

A couple of other officers made some room for the two detectives, who stepped off the main part of the path and into the greenery at the left edge. Bourque knelt down close to the body.

“Jesus,” he said.

“Yeah,” said Delgado.

“Did a real number on the face.”

“Hamburger,” Delgado said.

“Yeah,” Bourque said, feeling a tightening in his chest.

“Check the fingers. At least, what’s left of them.”

Bourque looked. “Fuck me.”

The fingertips on both hands were missing.

“All cut off,” Bourque said. “What would you need for that? Small pruning shears? The kind you use in the garden? Who walks around with one of those, unless it’s one of the people who maintains this area.”

“Don’t think he used pruners,” Delgado said. She parted some grass to reveal a rusted ribbon of steel, one of the original tracks when the High Line was used to bring rail cars into the heart of the city. “See the blood?”

Bourque slowly nodded. “He holds the guy’s fingers over the rail, using it like a cutting board. Could have done it with a regular pocket knife, although he’d have had to press hard to get through bone.”

“Our guy would have to have been dead by then, Jer,” Delgado said.

“Would make it a tad easier,” Bourque said. He paused to take a breath. “You cut the ends off ten fingers, you’re going to get some objections if your guy is alive.”

They looked back from the bloody rail to the body.

“Why?” Delgado asked.

“Hmm?”

“I’ve seen a finger get cut off as a way of getting someone’s attention, of making them talk, of punishing them, but why cut ’em all off after he’s dead?”

“Identi—”

“Of course,” Delgado said. “So we can’t take fingerprints. And the smashed-in face keeps us from knowing who he is.”

“Maybe the killer’s never heard of DNA,” Bourque said, pausing to take another breath.

“You okay?” Lois asked. “You comin’ down with something?”

He shook his head.

Delgado said, “DNA takes time. Maybe whoever did this wants to slow us down. Or maybe our guy here isn’t in the database.”

“Could be.”

“Why not just cut off the hands? Why all the fingers? Why ten cuts instead of two?”

Bourque thought about that. “If he just had a simple knife, cutting through fingers was easier than sawing through wrists.”

Delgado nodded. “Yeah.”

Bourque raised his head over the top of the bench and looked down the walkway. “You walk off with ten fingertips, maybe you leave a blood trail.”

“It rained around five this morning,” Delgado said.

He sighed, looked at the body again. He took out his phone and started taking pictures. His gaze wandered farther down the body. The man’s tan khakis had inched up one leg far enough to reveal his socks.

“Check it out,” Bourque said, his voice barely above a whisper.

They were novelty socks, imprinted with several images of the shark from Jaws.

“Daaa-duh, daaa-duh,” Delgado said.

Bourque took some close-up shots.

“I’ve seen those for sale somewhere,” he said.

“Lotta places sell novelty socks these days,” Delgado said.

They both stood. Bourque gazed along the High Line, first to the north, then the south. “So if this happened after hours, and this is all locked up, how’d our killer get away?”

Delgado said, “Before you got here, I walked a block in each direction. One or two places, if you were really brave, you could jump onto a nearby roof. There’s some rooftop parking up that way. Get onto a roof, or a fire escape, work your way down.”

“Like Bruce Willis in Die Hard,” Bourque said. The words came out in a whisper.

“What?”

Bourque repeated himself, louder this time.

“Yeah, could be done,” Delgado said. “If you’re in good shape.”

Bourque coughed, cleared his throat. “I don’t ever remember a murder on the High Line. Nothing bad happens up here.”

Delgado said, “It’s lost its cherry.”

Bourque put a hand to his chest, indicating he had a call or a text coming in. “Give me a sec,” he said.

He took the phone from his pocket, glanced at it, put it to his ear as he came out from behind the bench and walked a few yards up the High Line, still within the area that was taped off, but free of police or any other city officials.

Bourque nodded a couple of times as he walked, as though responding to whatever his caller was saying. But there’d been no call, and no text.

And Bourque was not talking. He was wheezing. His windpipe had started constricting at the sight of those fingers with the missing tips.

When he felt confident he was far enough away from the murder scene to not be seen, he reached back into his pocket for that familiar object.

He brought out the inhaler, inserted it into his mouth, and inhaled deeply as he depressed the top of the tiny canister. A barely de-tectible puff of medicine entered his lungs. He held his breath nearly fifteen seconds, exhaled, and repeated the process.

Bourque tucked the inhaler back into his pocket. He took a few breaths through his nose, waiting for his air passages to open up again.

He turned around and walked back to have another look at the man with no fingertips.

Three

Barbara sank into a leather seat opposite the mayor and Valerie. Glover and the good-looking bald guy made space for her in the middle, so her feet had to straddle the driveshaft hump. Even though the car was roomier than most, she found her shoulders squeezed by the two men. She was picking up a cheap aftershave scent from Glover. But the bald guy was giving off something subtler, an almost coffee-like scent. Barbara wondered whether it was an actual cologne, or if he’d been in the Starbucks line for too long. Either way, she kind of liked it.

She turned her head to face the bald man. “You’re new.”

He smiled.

“I’m Barbara Matheson, but I’m guessing you know that.” When he didn’t say anything, she looked at Headley. “Does he talk? Stomp his foot once for yes, two for no?”

“That’s Chris Vallins,” Valerie said. “Say hello, Chris.”

“Hello,” said Chris. Deep voice. If brown velvet could make a sound, Barbara thought, this would be it. “Nice to meet you.” He snaked a gloved hand around in the tight quarters and offered it.

“A pleasure,” Barbara said, shaking it. “And what do you do for His Holiness?”

“Part of the team,” he said. “Whatever the mayor needs.”

Barbara didn’t see her new friend Chris as much of a chatterer, so she turned her attention back to those sitting across from her. She wondered whether to make anything of the fact that Valerie was sitting next to the mayor. There was a foot of space between them, but Barbara tried to read the body language. If Valerie found her boss as unappealing as Barbara believed she should, she’d be pressing herself up against the door. But there was a slight shoulder lean toward Headley.

Maybe she was reading too much into it. And what did it matter, anyway? If Headley wanted to screw the help, and the help was okay with it, then what business was it of Barbara’s? Valerie was a grown woman capable of making an informed choice. Surely she had to know the mayor’s background, what a shit he reportedly had been to his late wife, Felicia. Everyone knew that, ten years earlier, the night Felicia died in their uptown brownstone after a long fight with cancer, Headley was fucking the brains out of one of her caretakers in a room at the Plaza. It was a young Glover who called 911 to report that his mother had stopped breathing.

Headley was already one of the most famous, if not most notorious, businessmen in the city, so when the media picked up an emergency call at his address, a couple of TV vans were dispatched to the scene. What ended up on the news was a shot of a weeping Glover, his father nowhere to be seen and not reachable by phone. Headley claimed later he had muted his cell because he’d been meeting with a possible investor whose name he was not at liberty to reveal. No one believed it for a second.

Barbara had wondered if that was when Headley’s relationship with his son had soured. The boy had humiliated him. Unwittingly, of course, but that was what he’d done. Headley had been on the cusp of a mayoral bid way back then but delayed it, hoping that as time passed his reputation would be rehabilitated. When he finally did announce his candidacy, he had created a myth about himself as the sad widower who had raised his teenage son on his own.

Felicia had been a looker in her day, a onetime model who worked her way up to a senior editor position at Condé Nast. Valerie had some of Felicia’s attributes, at least those the mayor valued. In her late thirties, she was younger than him by more than a decade. Long legs, busty enough without being too obvious about it, dark, shoulderlength hair. Probably bought all her clothes at Saks, went to some trendy salon like Fringe or Pickthorn to get her hair done. Unlike Barbara, whose salon was the bathroom sink, did quite well pulling together a wardrobe at Target, and whose makeup budget was a pittance compared to what she spent on pinot grigio.

More than once, at political events, when Valerie was looking the other way, Barbara had observed the mayor checking out his communication director’s ass as if it harbored some mystical secret. Not that hers was the only one.

But now, in the back of this limo, Headley had a very different expression on his face as he sized up Barbara. He was scowling at her, like she was a teenage daughter who’d ignored curfew for the fifth night in a row.

“So what’s happened uptown?” Barbara asked, looking out the window. The driver had found his way from City Hall to the FDR and was making good time heading north.

Beside her, Glover said, “Some kind of elevator accident.”

Barbara was underwhelmed. Elevator accident, crane collapse, subway fire. Whatever. It was always something in a city this big. It’d be news if something didn’t happen. If Headley felt a need to attend, it had to be more serious than usual, but still. Headley liked being seen at catastrophes. Say a few things for the evening news, give the impression he knew what he was talking about, show his concern.

Barbara was willing to cut him some slack on this. It was something all mayors did, if they were smart. A mayor who couldn’t be bothered to show up when New Yorkers endured something particularly tragic would be pilloried. Rudy Giuliani had set the standard, way back on September 11, 2001, as he walked through the rubble, holding a handkerchief to his mouth. Say what you wanted about the guy’s shenanigans since, you had to give him credit for his service back in the day.

Barbara doubted Headley had it in him to be that kind of mayor. She just hoped he—and the city—would never be tested like that again.

“They’re saying four dead,” Valerie said.

Barbara nodded again. It wasn’t that she didn’t care. But industrial accidents, car crashes, drive-by shootings, apartment fires, these just weren’t her thing. She covered city politics. Let the youngsters chase ambulances. She’d cut her teeth on that kind of stuff, and it was valuable experience, but she’d moved on.

“Nice of you to give me a ride, but this isn’t the way to my place,” Barbara said to Headley, who was still looking at her through narrowed eyes. “So, what? Am I grounded? Being sent to bed without my dinner?”

“Barbara, Barbara, Barbara,” Headley said, looking weary and disappointed at the same time. “When’s it going to stop?”

“What?” Barbara asked. “Your love of quid pro quos or my love of writing about them?”

“You think you can keep poking the bear and never get a scratch,” he said. “You’re not untouchable.”

Untouchable. Interesting choice of word.

“Well, you told everyone you’re suing me and Manhattan Today. So I guess I’m not untouchable. But while we’re on that issue, how’s the suit against the Times for saying you were registered to vote federally in three different districts? And how long’s it been since you threatened to sue that actress who said you had performance anxiety?”

Valerie shot a glance at Barbara but said nothing.

Headley forced a smile. “Well, I think we know which of those accusations was the more ridiculous.” The smile faded. “Anyway, these things take a while to work their way through the courts.”

Barbara settled into the leather seat, taking advantage of the headrest. Don’t let them rattle you, she thought. Sure, there were four of them, not counting the driver, who was getting off at Forty-Second Street and heading crosstown. The one Barbara really wanted to know more about was this Chris dude beside her, who looked like he could get a job playing a Bond villain’s bodyguard if he lost his City Hall gig. Not that that was necessarily a knock against him. He was a handsome piece of work. Was being surrounded supposed to put her on edge? Did they know how much she was actually loving this? If Headley and his gang ignored her, gave no hint of how annoyed they were with her, well, that would be unbearable.

“I honestly don’t know why you seem to have it in for me,” Headley asked. “Why so angry?”

“I’m not angry,” Barbara said. “I just have this thing about hypocrisy.”

“Oh, please,” the mayor said. “Hypocrisy is the fuel that keeps the world running. Let me ask you this. Be honest. Have you ever had a source who did something bad, something worth writing about, worth exposing, but you looked the other way because they had good intel that gave you an even better story? Something that would give you an exclusive? Are you going to sit there and tell me you’ve never done that?”