“No,” I say, taking the cigar out of my mouth. “I’m not the one you have to worry about. But there are some people out there who’ll think just getting killed is a pretty good deal.”
42
“I’M GOING FOR A JOG,” Lexis said to her maid. She was dressed in a velour sweatsuit and sneakers with her hair tied into a ponytail.
The girl nodded without looking up from her work. Instead of taking the elevator, Lexis quietly opened the door to the stairs, looked behind her, then started down. She let herself out through the maintenance door in the back and jogged down the alley. When she came to the street, she looked before turning right and heading toward the stench of the Third Avenue subway station.
On the platform, she watched the stairs. When the number five train came, she waited until the last second before getting on, the doors nearly closing on her foot. She stood swaying in the car, scanning the faces until she got off on 77th Street. Traffic was heavy. The last remnants of rush hour. Even the sidewalks were crowded with people, and it was a slow-going jog until she reached the park. She snaked her way south, staying off the main paths, looking over her shoulder from time to time.
Tree leaves rustled overhead in a sweet breeze. A duck quacked on the Pond, taking off into the dusk, and its sound echoed off the stone face of the wall bordering 59th Street. Lexis looked behind her at the shadows that had grown thick. She knew Frank liked to keep an eye on the people who were close to him. When she swung her head back around, a jogger coming the other way startled her.
The Plaza Hotel showed its white face through the trees, illuminated by lights that made its green roof practically glow. Lexis smelled the horses and thought of the times she’d taken Allen for long carriage rides through the park. They’d take one every birthday until he turned fifteen and brought a girl of his own. A tradition between the two of them. She thought of others. Reading before bed at night. Museum exhibits on Saturday afternoons. Early breakfasts at E.J.’s while Frank slept in.
A young carriage driver wearing a stovepipe hat looked down from his white carriage and rattled his leather reins.
Cornell Ricks’s long stooped back jumped out at her. He sat at the Oak Room bar, bent over a martini, stirring it absently with a straw, and glancing to his right and left. In front of him on the dark wood was a bowl of mixed nuts. Like most of the people, he was dressed for business. His suit was gray and the thick burgundy and blue stripes of his tie were punctuated with a Harvard pin.
“Thank you for coming,” Lexis said, when she was directly behind him.
His pale cheeks flushed and she felt her stomach knot up.
“I’m sorry for the secrecy,” she said.
“Not at all. Please,” he said, sliding his stool over her way. “Sit.”
Lexis looked around at the crowd and said, “Do you think we could get a booth?”
“Of course,” he said. He made his way to the hostess and bent over, speaking into her ear for a moment. She nodded and took two menus, pushing through the crowd and seating them in a leather booth right away. What light there was seemed to be absorbed by the dark wood panel that surrounded them.
“I bring the governor here when he’s in town,” Cornell said to Lexis with a toothy smile as they slid into the booth. “So I’m good for business.”
Lexis forced a smile, but it quickly faded. Cornell leaned over the dark wood table and she could smell the gin.
“So, what can I do?” he asked in a throaty voice.
“I know Frank is a very big contributor,” she said, looking down at her hands and nodding to herself.
He nodded right back and said, “And that’s why I’m here.”
“Can you help me, though?” she said, looking up and lowering her voice. “Without saying anything?”
“Like… a favor that Frank doesn’t know about?” Cornell said.
“Yes.”
He leaned back and, smiling, said, “In politics, when someone wants you to have a cup of coffee it’s because they want to ask you something easy. A drink lots of times will mean something shaky. But then you’re not in politics, so I wasn’t sure.”
“Everything with Frank is shaky,” she said. Her hands were cold and damp and she slid them between her legs and the leather seat. The murmur of conversation around them was interrupted by a woman’s high-pitched cackle.
“Not you, though,” he said. “You’re not shaky. You’re just the mystery.”
“There’s nothing so mysterious,” she said, biting the inside of her lower lip and raising her chin.
“I didn’t mean anything,” he said, raising his hands before he took another drink.
“Of course I can help you,” he said.
Lexis drew in a breath and let it out slowly. When she was finished, she spoke in a rapid burst of words.
“There was a man we all knew. Frank. Bob Rangle. Me. It was twenty years ago. He got life without parole for killing a woman. A stripper. I want to find out what happened to him. Where he is. If he’s still even alive. Can you do that and tell me?”
“That’s it?” he said.
“Yes. That’s it.”
“What was his name?” Ricks said.
“His name was Raymond White,” she said. “It was 1984. Up in Syracuse.”
Ricks shrugged and said, “That’s not even hard. If he got life without parole, he’s sitting in a jail somewhere.”
Lexis pinched her lips and nodded. “Just make absolutely sure-”
Ricks held up his hand and said, “Please. The governor trusts me for a reason. Any information I get is just for you.”
43
UPSTATE NEW YORK in the summer is beautiful in many ways. Its waterfalls and the cool clear water of its lakes. The ancient mountains that make up the tail of the Appalachian chain. Rolling fields of yellow wheat, emerald alfalfa, and rustling stalks of corn. Vineyards. Stone mansions. Lonely farmhouses with ancient shade trees and towering views. But to me, none of it is more impressive than God’s view.
As my G-V banks to the north in its approach to the Syracuse airport, I can see the glimmering copper strips of the Finger Lakes stretching west toward Buffalo as they reflect the setting sun. I can see Ontario, the big lake with its oceanlike tides and its icy depths, perfect for cooling the nuclear reactors that pump out plumes of white steam into the blue sky. And from here, through the sleepy orange haze, the quilted farm fields and the carpet of hardwoods in full bloom look like the perfect place for a giant-or God himself-to lie down and nap for a century.
I turn to Bert and see him craning his neck for a view of something outside the window on the other side of the plane.
“What are you looking at?” I ask.
“Home,” he says. “I think.”
“It’s out there,” I tell him.
“Like a rabbit pen,” he says, shifting his massive frame in the leather seat and wrinkling his nose. “We used to own it all.”
“You’re talking like a white man,” I tell him. “Maybe you shouldn’t have cut your hair.”
Bert feels the blunt ends of his black hair that now falls no farther than his collar.
“You know what I mean,” he says. “I know no one can own the land, but if anyone is going to say they own it, it should be the Akwesasne.”
“Speaking of our people,” I say. “Tell me about our brave friend Andre and the reformed Russo. You said you had news about the two of them, but we never talked about it.”
“Because you were busy,” he says, slitting his eyes, “like a chief getting ready for war, a chief who keeps no counsel but his own.”
“Bert,” I say, “I think you’re jealous.”
Bert scowls and says, “I just liked it better when it was you and me and not all these white men in suits with briefcases and sunglasses and those wires sticking out of their ears.