Even after he lost his job, John still came by the McGrath & Swinburne offices; his presence was odd to say the least, but he had that indefatigable charm. He’d show up early and chat with the receptionist and greet his former co-workers as they arrived for work. He always brought in jugs of Dunkin Donuts coffee or a few dozen H&H bagels. The office admins loved him and they’d always buzz him through. He had a knack for being in the right place whenever Smoky showed up for work each morning: John would smile sweetly, too sweetly, and anyone watching could just tell something was going to happen between them.
I took John out to dinner or for lunch every few weeks in the beginning. I tried to push him into a job as a researcher for another firm. The job was in Midtown, though, and he said he hated Midtown. He said he was fine as far as money and rent went. His severance package had been generous—I had made sure he would have at least that much. “Don’t take much to keep me going,” he said with a stand-offish shrug.
“You shouldn’t get complacent, John. Money only lasts so long.”
John waved his hand dismissively in the air. “That’s all worked out, chief,” he said.
I laughed nervously. “Tell me you’re not calling up any old business partners.”
“Give me a break, Ace. No, actually, it’s your pal Smoky. I got hold of him last week finally and the two of us had a few drinks at a pub in the East Village. I got just what I was looking for.”
“He apologized?”
“He did one better,” John said, “he gave me this.”
He pulled a black velvet pouch from the interior pocket of his coat. He shook the pouch until a small cardboard square bounced into his outstretched palm. I recognized the square as a matchbook. He slid the matchbook across the table like a poker chip. Printed on the cardboard flap was the standard disclaimer that I had seen on other antique matchbooks in Smoky’s collection: CLOSE COVER BEFORE STRIKING. Cool as a big shot casino dealer who’s sure that his opponent is about to bust, John flicked the matchbook face-up. The front of the matchbook depicted a three-color picture of an ocean liner with four smoke stacks. The boat had a famous name written on the bow. I saw the tiny block letters and knew what they spelled but I doubted the word.
“Does that say what I think it does?”
“You bet.”
“I guess a matchbook from the Titanic is worth a lot.”
“A couple grand, chief.”
“That’s a hell of an apology,” I said.
John laughed and put the matchbook back in his pocket. We went back to eating, and I thought happily, well, then perhaps John will work all this out on his own after all. Perhaps we can put all the past behind us. I was pleased, pleased enough that by the end of the meal I began to think about finding another kid like John to mentor. I mean, after all the success I’d had, after the life experience, why not give it another shot?
I didn’t act on this right away, of course. I wanted to coast for a bit on the good feeling. By the time August rolled around, I was feeling almost like myself again; I could even, truth be told, sit in a conference room with Smoky and not feel like he’d somehow tricked me into betraying my better impulses. After the lay-offs, some of his usual bluster had vanished, and he rarely invited people into his office for his bull sessions. The arrogant show-off went into hibernation. Rumor had it he’d lost two million in dot com holdings.
One rainy night after work I left our offices late and walked up West Broadway and turned at Hudson and headed north. I was walking absently, lost in thought about the latest report that we’d filed with the SEC; passing the reflective windows of a Citibank storefront, I realized someone was following me.
I crossed over on Franklin and my follower kept right behind me. He had water in one of his shoes, and I could hear the rubber squish with each step. I glanced back as the man passed a brownstone’s bright wall beacon and I saw a stocky figure with stern face. He wore a long tan coat and a Mets cap pulled low over his brow. He dressed with a studied lack of flair: a dull blue tie, pleated tan slacks, and a wool sport coat.
I walked clear to Canal Street with him in pursuit; finally, in the full light of traffic and late evening tourists, I made my stand. I stared with drummed-up bravery at the man as he closed the gap between us. He had a thick neck and his eyes were set far apart; his clothes fit him but not well, and he seemed resigned to it, as if he were an ex-football player accustomed to never quite fitting into what he wore. His umbrella was only a little wider than his broad shoulders. Once he knew I was watching, he approached me with careful steps as if I were an animal that had slipped its leash.
“Sorry if I gave you a scare,” he said.
I waited, not speaking. Impatient rain tapped the umbrella over my head.
“I’m Detective Harrington,” he said.
He opened a brown leather wallet just enough to let his badge shine in the watery street light. If I’d been the suspicious sort, I would have asked to see it up close. He had been wrong: I did know him, or at least I knew his name. Will Harrington was the neighbor who had cleaned out Mina’s fridge, a lifetime earlier, before she lost her job as a nurse, before he passed the academy exam.
“You’re Horace Mejeur,” he said, “aren’t you?”
“Everybody just calls me Ace,” I said.
He glanced out from under his umbrella. The rain and wind had started to pelt the fabric canopy and its metal arms trembled under the stress. Knowing his personal history was like flashing a different sort of badge at me, and it also proved what kind of person he was more than a tin star would.
He smiled with patience; he had bad skin but a good, genuine smile. “I’m wondering,” he said, “if it would be too much trouble for us to talk somewhere where the rain’s less of an issue.”
Harrington looked less threatening as we settled into torn red booths at the back of an Andrew’s coffee shop. To warm up, I told him that I knew his name. I said that I’d heard about how he knew Mina and John, his past life as a die-maker living in the Fulton Houses, till he got his break with a spot in the detective school at the NYPD. It felt quite strange, in a city as large as New York, to possess such knowledge of a total stranger’s back story. He took all this in stride, as if his reputation often arrived on the scene long before he did.
“Sure,” he said fondly, “I heard about you through Mina, too.”
He ordered coffee and I ordered nothing. As I sat, fidgeting with my watchband under the table, he cupped his large hands around his coffee mug and leaned forward over the table like we were old confidantes. “So here’s the deal,” he said, “I was hoping that we could talk a little bit about McGrath & Swinburne.”
I went awful stiff at that moment. If you work at a financial firm, the last thing you want to hear a law enforcement officer say is that he’d like to talk shop with you. Because that means your company is involved in something awful and huge, and they suspect you’ve got the bad luck to be sitting in the thick of it.
Harrington reached into his coat pocket and brought out a blue ink pen. He turned over a napkin and began to write names. The list quickly became recognizable as a roster of the people who’d been laid off back in March. Harrington wrote the names without consulting a notepad or pausing to think. Despite his chummy ex-jock demeanor, Harrington was no intellectual slouch. His demeanor impressed me enough to tense up, waiting for the sucker punch.
“Here’s the deal,” he said. “On a certain night about six months ago, a certain treasured item disappeared from the offices where you work. For a while there, the head of your firm wanted to keep it secret. But it’s all in the open now, or it will be pretty soon if things go as I predict. So I won’t pussyfoot around. I’m guessing that you know your boss collected matchbooks?”
“Yes,” I said. My voice squeaked a little.
“Did he ever show you the crown jewel of his collection?”
“He showed me quite a few pieces.”
“You’d know this one. It says Titanic on the front.”
After Harrington spoke the word Titanic, his ex-jock oafishness, his aw-shucks conviviality, all disappeared like a coat he shrugged off. He peered hard at me with flinty brown eyes that had enormous, gaping pupils; his dilated eyes looked wide enough to draw in every last facet of true and false. My first thought was that only a pretentious fool like Smoky would leave his matchbooks out for someone to steal. My second thought, of course, was that I had seen the matchbook, but not in Smoky’s office: in vivid detail I remembered how the matchbook tumbled from a black velvet bag and landed in John’s cupped hand. I did what I could to hide both of these thoughts from Harrington.
“Wow,” I said, careful not to overreact, “is a matchbook like that worth a lot?”
“Do you think forty grand is a lot?”
“Forty thousand?”
Genuine surprise broke through my otherwise calm put-on. This reaction set Harrington at ease. He could tell that I hadn’t known the value of the matchbook; therefore, in a reasonable world, one could presume I probably hadn’t stolen it. Never mind that this was just part of the story. Harrington made his decision about me in less than a few seconds: innocent, more or less. He knocked back the last of his coffee and stood up. He straightened his shirt cuffs under his coat and put on his coat. I didn’t understand if I was to follow him, and I fumbled for my umbrella.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Mejeur,” he said, “that’s all I needed.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes,” he said. “You’re not a suspect.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear that.”
“I know who stole it,” he continued. “I just wondered if you did, too.”
I waited for him to tell me the name I knew – the name that I’d first seen written on a pad of legal paper years earlier, after agreeing over the phone to take on a mentor. (How far and unreal that moment seemed, like a mural I’d seen painted on a wall in a foreign country.) But Harrington didn’t name anyone. Instead, he brought a card out of his breast pocket and laid it on the table. “You should call me,” he said, “if you think of anything you think you should tell me.”
I stared at the white rectangle on the table.
“I can’t imagine,” I said, “that I will.”
After we shook hands, Harrington elbowed open the front door, popped his tiny tote umbrella, and strode back into the rain-splintered dark. I watched him disappear down a side street with a sense of some regret. He seemed like a good man, and I hated to mislead him. But good and bad are not elemental qualities; there is a trace of each attribute in all our important acts.
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