Graveland: A Novel Page 2

  She looks around.

  But why would anyone shoot a jogger? Not for their iPod. Not even for their wallet. Not in Central Park. Not these days.

  Not shoot them.

  So who did do it, and why?

  Unless there’s a quick explanation forthcoming, this is a story that’s going to burn up a serious amount of media space in the next few days. There’ll be intense speculation about it, because Northwood Leffingwell is a Wall Street behemoth, one of the Too Big to Fail brigade. But even if it turns out that where Jeff Gale worked had nothing to do with why he got killed, it’s inevitable that where he worked will form a significant part of the narrative.

  Anyway.

  It already has.

  Ellen checks the time on her phone.

  Ratt fucking Atkinson.

  It just annoys her that this feels like a real story, and that she’s right here, where it happened, but that for all she can do about it she might as well be one of those French tourists over there. Ellen’s not a beat reporter, and hasn’t been for many years. What she specializes in these days is longer, slow-burn investigative pieces, and mainly for Parallax. She’s also quite well known, and has a bit of a reputation, built up over years, as a polemical, potty-mouthed, uncooperative bitch. So even if she wanted to report on this, it’s unlikely that anyone—cop, city official, fellow hack—would talk to her.

  But anyway, report on what? The story’s over. She’s wasting her time. Even that camera crew there seem resigned to it and are setting up a generic shot now—East Drive in the background, steady stream of joggers, fine, but not one of them laid out dead on the asphalt.

  Ellen looks at her phone again. She could make it over to Central Park West, pick up a cab, and be home in fifteen, twenty minutes.

  She glances around one last time, then starts walking. But at about the five-yard point someone calls out, “Hey, wait up.”

  She turns back.

  “Ellen?”

  A guy is walking toward her, early thirties, overcoat, shades, mop of curly hair. Could be anyone. She’s actually pretty bad on people—faces, names—unless it’s someone directly related to whatever she’s working on at the time.

  “Yeah?”

  The guy arrives, hand extended. “Ellen, how are you?” Sensing her hesitation, he adds, “Val Brady.”

  Oh.

  Yeah.

  The reason she didn’t recognize him immediately, apart from the fact that they haven’t met in a while, is that he’s one of the few journalists she hasn’t ended up fighting with—this guy, and Jimmy Gilroy, and maybe one or two others. It’s the ones she doesn’t get along with that she tends to remember.

  “Val. What’s up?”

  He nods his head back in the direction of the cordoned-off area. “Just another day at the office. You?”

  “No. I’m … I’m just passing. I heard, though.”

  “Pretty wild, isn’t it?”

  Val Brady is a reporter for the New York Times, and a fairly reliable one. A couple of years ago they shared information on a story, some big-pharma-related thing, as she remembers. He was scrupulous about it, careful, didn’t let his ego bleed into the proceedings.

  She liked him.

  “Yeah. Any clue about what happened?”

  Brady takes off his shades. He looks around, then looks back at Ellen. “He was shot at point-blank range, in the forehead. They didn’t take his wallet, which apparently had a couple of hundred bucks in it, or his iPod. And no witnesses.” He points up at the apartment buildings on Fifth. “The cops are going to check over there, the high floors, see if anyone was looking out of their window. But given the angle and stuff it’s a long shot.”

  Ellen considers this. “Surveillance cameras?”

  Brady shakes his head. “There are a few in the park, but not back there, and they’re mainly used for detecting after-hours activity.”

  “What about the bigger picture, is there anything known to be going on, I mean with Northwood, or…?” She laughs. “Jesus, listen to me. I sound like your editor. Sorry.”

  “You’re fine. It’s an obvious question. And to answer it, no, not that I’m aware of, not yet, anyway.” He pauses, and fiddles for a bit with his shades. “So, Ellen, what are you up to these days?”

  She explains. Presidential candidates and why so many of them tend to implode.

  “Okay, yeah. I read that piece you did on John Rundle a while back, the whole Congo thing, the stuff with his brother. It was amazing.”

  Ellen grunts. “It was pretty spectacular material, you have to admit. Though I kind of feel like I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel now with Ratt Atkinson.”

  Brady laughs. “Ratt. Jesus.”

  “I know.” Ellen pauses. “I actually came down here because it felt like there might be some … action. Is that pathetic?”

  “No, but are you sure you’re remembering what it’s like to be a news reporter? Real action is pretty hard to come by. It’s usually like this.” He indicates behind him. “The afters, yellow tape, endless waiting around.”

  Ellen nods. “Sure. Of course. I remember.” But still. “Sometimes it’s about instinct. You get a hard-on for a story and … I don’t know.”

  Brady smiles. “A hard-on, huh? Nice. Well, let me look into it, ask around, and if anything interesting shows up, why don’t I give you a call?”

  Is he hitting on her? She doesn’t think so. And she’s hardly his type. Small and lean, with shortish dark hair, Ellen doesn’t really think of herself as anyone’s type. But as if to clarify matters, he holds up his hands. “Look, Ellen, I’m a big admirer of yours, have been for years. All those pieces for Rolling Stone and Wired and The Nation, and then your stuff for Parallax? I mean … shit.”

  It’s easy for Ellen to forget that her reputation isn’t all bad, that it can sometimes extend to beyond a roll call of character defects, that she has a body of work behind her, and stuff that someone like Val Brady here might actually hold in high regard.

  “Okay,” she says, going with it, “thanks.”

  In the cab a while later, she tries to do a little rearranging in her head. Ratt Atkinson she can dispose of today, at a push. It’s not a complicated story, all the details have already been fact-checked, and it’ll tell itself, really.

  That’ll give her time tomorrow to read up on Jeff Gale.

  And on Northwood Leffingwell.

  She looks out the window of the cab, Amsterdam Avenue flickering past, and realizes something.

  It’s been a while, but she’s excited.

  2

  “SO, HOW IS THE OLD MAN?”

  Craig Howley watches John Kemp wince a little as he says this, but there’s really no other way for him to put it.

  They both know what he’s asking.

  Howley looks around, surveys the room. At least they’re not talking about Jeff Gale anymore. “He’s fine, you know. Not as young as he used to be. It’s nothing specific, just a gradual…” He pauses, catching himself here. “He’s fine.”

  “Yeah.”

  James Vaughan. Chairman of the Oberon Capital Group. Eighty-four years old, born a week before the Crash. Which turned out to be a good omen actually, at least as far as his old man was concerned, because later that very week the same William J. Vaughan shorted a pool of stocks on a downtick and cleared over a hundred million dollars.

  All these years later and what’s changed?

  “He hasn’t stopped working or anything,” Howley says.

  “Oh sure, of course.” Kemp has a knowing look on his face. “Guess he wants to go out with his boots on.”

  “No, but really, John, I mean it.” An edge in Howley’s voice now. “He’s still chairman and CEO. He’s still running things.”

  Kemp nods along, but doesn’t pursue it. It’s a cocktail party, Saturday evening, East Hampton.

  There’s a time and a place.

  Which is just as well, Howley thinks. Because it’s bad enough to have a little W
SJ prick like John Kemp fishing for gossip about Jimmy Vaughan, but here? With these people?

  He moves along, glass in hand, mingling. Never his strong suit. Jessica is working the other side of the room, tireless as ever in promoting her latest gala benefit for the Kurtzmann Foundation. Howley admires the ease with which she carries herself in any setting. Although he’s now the number two at Oberon, and thus one of the top financial dogs in attendance this evening, he still considers himself more of a Pentagon guy than a Wall Street guy. He could effectively buy and sell half of the people here, but he doesn’t feel like he’s one of them.

  At the same time, and given the rumors about Vaughan’s health, he knows that the question of who will ultimately take over at Oberon is one of the hot topics of the moment.

  And that everyone assumes it’s him. Or at least assumes that he assumes it’s him.

  Which he does.

  So he has to be careful what he says, and to whom.

  Because with Jimmy Vaughan you don’t ever assume anything. You just keep working, making connections, cutting deals, bringing it home.

  Naturally enough, Howley does hope it’s him. Being brought in last year as COO is one good indicator, and a very clear public endorsement, but what he believes should be an even more reliable indicator is his actual working relationship with Vaughan. Complex and of many years standing, it’s a relationship that has benefited both of them hugely, a recent example being that thanaxite supply chain they set up out of Afghanistan. It’s been a cordial relationship, too, and generally free of bullshit, which Howley puts down to the fact that he’s not intimidated by Vaughan, and never has been.

  “Craig.”

  Howley turns.

  “Terry.” Hasselbach. Another little prick, hedge fund guy. “How are you?”

  “I’m good, yo.”

  Howley groans silently, covers it with a smile. He’s twenty-five years older than this guy, just as Jimmy Vaughan is twenty-five years older than him. Which isn’t a problem, not in relation to Vaughan, he doesn’t think about it, but guys like this? Buffed, mouthy Adderall-heads, still in their early or mid-thirties … he doesn’t know, what is it? Anyway, they get talking—stock picks, dream deals—and within minutes two or three others have joined in.

  And Howley realizes something.

  For all their cockiness and walls of money, these guys are looking to him as some kind of an oracle. It’s clearly the Vaughan factor, a sprinkle of stardust from the old man—who you don’t let down, by the way. He drops you into the number two position at Oberon, you’d better believe you’re some kind of a fucking oracle—believe it and behave accordingly. At the Pentagon, it was a little different. There was always room for ambivalence, room for creative ambiguity. And expectations were different as well, less concrete, less performance-driven. In private equity you either make money or you lose it, and that’s it.

  Who has the stones, who doesn’t.

  “Where am I looking?” he says, and tilts his head to one side. “Well, I’ll tell you one area, it’s not the only one, but … health care.” This gets a muted response from the hedgies. What, no inside track on the latest DARPA-funded robotics program or new advanced precision-kill weapons system? Apparently not. Howley raises his glass to his lips, taking his time. Then, “Thirty years ago you know how much of our GDP was devoted to health care? Three percent. Now it’s heading for twenty. Think about it. You’ve got a whole generation of baby boomers coming to retirement age, and remember”—he waves his left hand around, to take in the room, the beachfront, the Hamptons—“this is the wealthiest generation of people we’ve ever seen, not just in U.S. history but in the history of the entire fucking world. So you think they’ll spare any expense when it comes to their artificial hips and knees and whatever? When it comes to, I don’t know, stem cell therapies and assisted living technologies? No? Me neither. It’ll be whatever’s required, and that’s going to mean more and more of GDP getting channeled into health care.” Everyone nodding now. “So in my view, over the next ten, fifteen years, investments in the sector will do pretty well.”

  This isn’t some big secret or anything, but coming from him, with his signature delivery—conspiratorial, almost whispered—it very much sounds like one. It’s certainly enough to please the assembled pack.

  Howley glances over at Jessica. She’s deep in conversation with some chunky, hatchet-faced woman he doesn’t recognize. A member of the board of trustees, no doubt, or the wife of a principal donor. He looks at his watch. He’d like to get out of here soon.

  “So, Craig,” Terry Hasselbach says, “what’s this I keep hearing about an IPO?”

  Howley turns and glares at him. The IPO story isn’t a big secret either, far from it, there’s been plenty of speculation about Oberon going public in recent days—but it’s not something he’s willing to discuss, not with these guys.

  He peers into his glass and swirls what’s left in it around. “Speaking of rumors, Terry,” he says, looking up, “did I read somewhere lately that you were a nosy little cocksucker?”

  No one reacts to this for a moment.

  Howley keeps looking at him.

  Then Terry Hasselbach laughs. It’s a weasely laugh, but it breaks the tension. To move things on, someone brings up Jeff Gale.

  Again.

  The subject has been unavoidable all day.

  “They’re saying he might have been into some mob guys for—”

  “Oh, what, gambling debts? Get out of here. That’s ridiculous.”

  “No, that it was an escort thing, some agency, and that after Spitzer and all they didn’t want to lose—”

  “No way. Besides, a mob hit in Central Park? Fuhgeddaboudit.”

  Everyone laughs.

  Except Howley, who’s looking at his watch again. He knew Jeff Gale—not well, but he knew him, saw how the man operated, could read him like a book, read all his moves. Gambling and escorts? It’s about as far as you could get from a plausible explanation for this.

  That’s what bothers him, the seeming randomness of it, the casualness.

  He glances across the room and catches Jessica’s eye.

  Ten minutes later they’re in the car and on the way to dinner at Mircof’s in East Quogue.

  * * *

  Sitting alone in a booth at Dave’s Bar & Grill, Frank Bishop sips his second Stoli. It usually takes more than one for that exquisite hot-coals-in-the-belly sensation to hit, but it’s coming now, he can feel it.

  Slowly, he takes another sip.

  Blue. Icy. Viscous.

  This is the sweet spot, alright, portal to a brief sun-kissed season of illumination and understanding. It won’t last very long, a few minutes at most, but that’s fine. In a while he’ll order some food—chicken, fries, plenty of carbs, a club soda—because if he orders a third Stoli he’ll only order a fourth and then a fifth and that’ll be it for the night. He won’t eat and he’ll get stupid and sloppy. He’ll end up feeling like shit and be hungover all day tomorrow. Then, before he knows it, it’ll be Monday morning again and he’ll be back at work.

  For now, though, it’s Saturday evening.

  He holds up his glass of filmy liquid.

  To the LudeX console upgrade, and a long, strange day at Winterbrook Mall.

  He takes a sip.

  Frank used to be an architect.

  Up to a couple of years ago, and for a couple of decades—designing office buildings and airport terminals, frozen music, he ate, drank, and slept the stuff. Worked for Belmont, McCann Associates and had an office in Manhattan. But now? Now he manages an electronics store in a second-tier mall in upstate New York.

  WTF.

  It’s not as if he’s the only one, though. A dozen others were let go at the same time, and most of them, as far as he knows, are struggling. The younger ones, still in their twenties, either take it on the chin and go off in an entirely different direction, or they obsessively hone their résumés and send them out to anyone they’ve ev
er come into contact with, co-workers, classmates, contractors, people they meet on fucking Facebook. The older ones, like Frank, mid-forties and beyond, either manage to hang on by trading their experience and skills for much-reduced salaries, or they take anything at all, whatever they can get, retail, driving a cab—it doesn’t matter, really (except for the serious damage this will do to their marketability if they ever want to get back in the game). Frank is one of these, and he figures the damage is already done. The idea of getting back in the game is remote to him anyway, a little intimidating even.

  This job he got as a favor. It was through an old connection, a middle-management guy in Paloma he dealt with when Belmont, McCann were doing their new regional headquarters over in Hartford. And he only got it because it was Winterbrook Mall. If it’d been anywhere else, chances are he wouldn’t have been hired. Like Dave’s Bar & Grill, which is beside it, Winterbrook Mall is a relic of the 1980s, morning in Mahopac, and will very probably not survive this recession. In fact, it’s hard to know what’s keeping the place afloat right now. It’s vast, but more often than not deserted, with a distinctly creepy feel to it, especially at night when you could imagine B-movie zombies emerging from behind the fake backdrops of some of the empty retail spaces to search for stragglers and lost shoppers. However, Winterbrook’s biggest problem lies two miles down the road in the shape of the sparkling and relatively new Oak Valley Plaza Outlets Center.

  That’s where it’d make sense for Paloma to have their store, but if they did, Frank would be out of work.

  He looks into his glass.

  The truth is, he’s hanging on by a thread here. There are over eight hundred Paloma stores across the country, and this is probably the only one he’d be able to hold down a job in. And that’s because—with the exception of today—it’s probably the only one that’s empty most of the time.