Couples
Chapter 64
Rick gapes. "Your mother's back?"
"She just showed up in my unit," Kate confirms.
"I don't know whether to be terrified or relieved," Rick admits. "It's comforting that she gave you a heads up, but the reason she's here sends chills down my spine. Is she with us now?"
Kate glances around. "Not that I can see, although she didn't always become visible before. I hope our agreement with her still holds about – you know."
"Kate, the last thing I'm worried about right now is whether a ghost is observing our amorous activities. I'm more concerned with keeping you from prematurely reaching the Father's upper realm."
"Which means I have to find out who was behind that murder and setting the dogs on me so that I can put him behind bars. When I do that, I'll be fine."
"So what did you find out about the boutique's lurker?" Rick inquires, barely mollified.
Tori came up with a match from the DMV. Only the address was a phony. But now we've got a photo to go with the sketches. We almost don't need one, with Sela's skills, but we can't run a drawing through facial recognition. Tori set the program up to run overnight so that I may have a hit by tomorrow morning."
"Any other clues?" Rick asks.
"I hope I won't need any. But if nothing shows up on facial recognition, I may have to canvass shoemakers. Sela said the suspect was wearing orthopedic footwear."
"If he needs that, he probably has a podiatrist too," Rick figures. "Would that be covered under doctor-patient confidentiality?"
"I don't know," Kate confides. "I hope I don't need to find out."
"How about the guy your mother saw at City Hall? How much of the staff there wear Italian Oxfords?"
Kate's teeth find her lower lip. "That's a good question. But I'm not sure how to ask it without giving myself away."
"I have an idea. It's political fundraiser season. Eli's due for one soon, but there's always a cocktail/get-the-check party going on. Those attract a lot of the ambitious in city government. They exchange information over drinks today and ask for support tomorrow. I supported Bob Weldon, and you and I are both supporting Eli. We could infiltrate the circle," Rick suggests. "I get a lot of emails inviting me to those gatherings. I usually send them to my trash folder. There may be a few in there keeping Oscar company."
Kate guffaws. "Oscar the Grouch lives in a trash folder?"
"Lily saw the icon on my big screen and said, 'ouch.' Close enough, I'll take her word for it."
Kate rolls her eyes. "I think she's got your imagination."
"As long as she also inherited your legs, not a bad combination," Rick declares. "And while she continues to speed her pedicab around the corral, I can get my laptop, and we can root through the trash. I know Meryl is free nights for a while. She can watch Lily. If we find something promising, and if you're not too tired from dodging sanitation trucks and chasing your suspect, we can go."
"OK, let's have a look," Kate agrees.
Kate gazes around the Marriott's mid-sized ballroom – not the one overlooking Central Park, the cheaper one. The hors d'oeuvres aren't bad, and the swizzle stick and cherry in her club soda make it look like she's there for fun. Rick's drinking a real Scotch, but only one, and she'll be driving. Her problem is that about half the men there are wearing Italian shoes. She'll have to make the rounds and see if she hears anything to put her on the right track. Rick will be using his unique brand of investigation, claiming to solicit stories as background for his books. Sometimes Kate's amazed at what people are willing to tell him.
Rick catches Kate's gaze, inclining his head toward an expounding man. She casually strolls over to Rick and takes his arm. "What are you doing, Babe?"
Rick nods to the man giving forth. "Denny here was just telling me about a development in the block between 82nd and 83rd on Broadway. Can you repeat what you said for my beautiful wife?"
Denny takes a generous sip of bourbon, neat. "Of course. It's a great block, you know? Not far from Maroni's and Zabars. My girlfriend used to send me up that way all the time for bagels with a shmear. There are a bunch of apartments over little stores and boutiques. Some of those buildings date back at least to the thirties. Anyway, there's a developer who must think he's Victor Barron Junior or something, although I don't know that anyone would want to be in Victor Barron's shoes right now. So this developer, Kushman, intends to buy up everything. He plans to turn the apartments into condos and the stores into an elite shopping area.
"The people in that block don't want any part of it. A lot of them have lived there and run their businesses for decades. Some of those apartments are still rent-controlled. Can you imagine those people trying to afford a condo? They'd have to move out to the middle of nowhere to find a place to live at the same rate. And they wouldn't have the shopping or the transportation or anything. So the tenants and the business owners, a lot of old ladies, got together to wage a protest.
"They took it to the City Advocate, Letitia Jones. She issued a statement condemning Kushman and put something together to take to court, but you know how those things are. The case is waiting for a spot on a very full docket. So the protesters decided to take their beef straight to Kushman. They made signs and gathered in front of his building on Fifth Avenue, the one with the spooky address. One of the boutique owners, I can't remember her name, something like a watch…"
"Bulova?" Kate interjects.
"Bulova, that's right! Good guess. Anyway, Mrs. Bulova stood in front of that building for 24 hours. Eyewitness News took pictures and everything. Kushman was so pissed off that he marched to 1PP and demanded her arrest."
"If she was on public property, like the sidewalk, and wasn't interfering with commerce, she couldn't be arrested for a peaceful demonstration," Kate points out. "Nobody could."
Denny's head bobs vigorously. "That's what the cops told him. But Kushman wasn't done. He tried City Hall. Of course, he got nowhere with Jones. She gave him a look like he was something to scrape off her shoe. But he has some buddies in the zoning commission, and they finagled him a hearing with the City Council. They pushed through an ordinance to protect the area in front of the Kushman building, but Kushman wanted more. He wanted a law taking away the rental protections of the tenants. And he got one of the big-shots, another condo builder, on his side. But Jones blocked any action for as long as Bulova and her protest group hang on for the court case. Everything quieted down after that, except I heard there was some trouble in Bulova's store. But apparently, any investigation into that got quashed. Still, Jones, Bulova, and her band of grannies keep fighting the good fight. I'm pulling for them."
Rick claps Denny on the shoulder. " So am I. That's a great story. You wouldn't know the name of Kushman's champion, the other developer, would you?"
Denny takes another sip of bourbon. "I sure would. Joseph Ross Flatt."
"The one they call "The Flattener," because he knocks down old neighborhoods?" Rick asks.
"That's him. He and Kushman are a match made in heaven," Denny adds.
Kate bites her cherry off its stem. "Maybe it's time for a divorce."