There were no buttons to push for the penthouse level; access was by key only. Curry produced a ring of keys, chose one that looked like it was for a bike lock, inserted it and twisted. The elevator rose swiftly enough to make my stomach lurch, and reached the sixtieth floor in less than a minute.
The elevator doors opened directly into a reception area with cherry-wood panelling and the same travertine flooring as in the lobby. The woman behind the desk said, "He's waiting," and reached under her desk to press a button that unlocked the door into the inner sanctum of Simon Birk.
His office wasn't much bigger than a soccer pitch, with windows on two sides offering a fabulous view of the Chicago skyline across the river-the white Gothic stone of the Wrigley and Tribune buildings; the Hancock with its spires like the horns of a gazelle. The third wall had framed photos of Birk's buildings around the world, all taken at night. Surrounding his desk like chess pieces were knee-high scale versions of his best-known towers in Manhattan, Chicago, Los Angeles, Dubai, London, Macau and Rio. Birk could walk among them for inspiration, bestride them like a colossus, all five-foot-five of him.
The man himself was standing behind the mahogany desk, hands clasped behind him, looking out at the city. He kept his back to me as he said, "Chicago is a tough city to build in, Mr. Geller. Toughest in the world. You've seen some of the crap going up in Toronto. I assume you have travelled to other cities. Chicago will not stand for inferior buildings, certainly not among its major projects. Skyscrapers were born here-not in New York, as most people think-and the best architects and developers of our time have come to make their mark here. When you build in Chicago," he said, "you're competing against past and present. And if you wish not only to compete, but to stand out? You know going in that there will be challenges. Hurdles and snags. Every project has them. But this one, Geller… this one has been a trial. Every step of the way, there have been problems. First the old bones. Then the crane falling. Month after month I've had to wait for it to get back on track and now it is, finally. You were there yesterday?"
"Yes."
"Watching it go up?"
"Yes."
"Wishing perhaps it would come down?"
I let that one pass.
He said, "For every visionary who looks up at the sky and says, 'Why not,' there is a small person somewhere who'd rather tear it down. Are you one of those, Geller? Because you have to understand that after everything I've had to endure to keep the Millennium Skyline going, I'm not in a position, not in the mood, to brook any further delays."
He turned to face me. His blue eyes looked like diamond chips: cold, hard, glittering. He wore a grey suit and a powder-blue shirt and a dark blue tie. Understated and seriously expensive. I could probably have paid half a year's rent with the money he'd spent on the outfit, and that wasn't counting the chunky Rolex on his hairy left wrist.
There were two low-slung club chairs in front of Birk's desk, much lower than the leather chair behind it. "Please," he said, pointing to one of them. I sat in it. Curry remained standing, leaving me the lowest person in the room.
"You've been asking about me," Birk said. "First in Toronto, and now here. My job site, the Department of Buildings, the Tribune. Even probing legal circles. Making quite a lot of noise, and all on your first day in town."
Birk was supposed to know I'd been at the Skyline site and the DOB. How did he know I'd been at the Tribune, or when I had arrived in Chicago? How had he known about the lawyers Avi called?
"It's my job to know things that concern me," he said, reading my mind. "And to be frank, Mr. Geller, one thing that's beginning to concern me is you. My work, you have to understand, is highly complex. It requires great attention to detail-from the ground up, so to speak. I'm a very hands-on guy, which means I am involved in every aspect: site procurement and preparation, design and construction, right through to the final fittings and fixtures in every building. I choose the stone, the glass, the lights, the rugs, the fabrics and flooring. I even decide the temperature of the swimming pools. I monitor labour contracts, currency exchanges, legal files, requests for proposals and quotations, gambling statutes, food and beverage trends. The point I'm making, and I do hope I'm making it clearly, is that I have enough on my plate without some pissant private investigator making public scenes and dragging my name through the mud."
"I've inconvenienced you?"
"Yes."
"Not a good idea?"
"No."
"Because you're busy and important and lord of all you survey."
"You should take what I'm telling you seriously," he said.
"Or what? I'll end up like Martin Glenn? Like Will Sterling?"
Birk did a nice job of furrowing his bushy eyebrows as if the names meant nothing. "And who might they be?"
"Corpses now," I said. "Before that, one of them was an engineer on the Harbourview job, and the other found evidence of how polluted that land is."
"And you think I had something to do with their deaths?"
"You said it yourself, you're a hands-on guy."
Birk set his cup down on its saucer and leaned across his desk. I could see a bend in his nose where the home invaders had broken it. "I'll admit I'm not completely up on Canadian law," he said, "but the U.S. system offers people like me considerable protection against libel and slander. Make one more unfounded accusation about me in any public forum, and I'll bury you under a ton of legal paper."
"Isn't truth a defence down here?"
"There is no truth to it!" he said. "None."
"You didn't tell Rob Cantor you'd take care of Glenn and Sterling?"
"What I tell Cantor or anyone else is none of your business, understand?" His face was growing dark with anger. He wasn't used to people talking back to him-suing him, maybe, or playing hardball in negotiations, but not giving him lip in his own office. "None of this is your business. You're a nobody, Geller. Especially in Chicago. You have no standing of any kind here. You're a pipsqueak. You're a shit stain on a sidewalk. I've got six thousand people working for me. I've got enough lawyers to ruin you, your partner, your brother and anyone else who crosses me. So here's the plan. Francis will take you back to your hotel," he said, indicating the man who called himself Curry. "He'll wait while you pack your things and he'll drive you to O'Hare. You'll get on the first plane back to Toronto. You'll stop poking your nose into my affairs and quit making bizarre accusations."
"You haven't even heard them all," I said. "In fact, forget Will Sterling. Forget Martin Glenn. Some of my best accusations are yet to come."
"What does that mean?"
"It means poking holes in your bullshit home invasion story."
He slammed his fist down on his desk, rattling his cup and saucer, spilling droplets of coffee. His hands formed fists and his jacket bunched around his thick arms and shoulders. Francis Curry walked languidly toward me. I think he was trying to look menacing. It might have worked better if he used an eyebrow pencil.
I said, "Don't try me."
"Wouldn't dream of it," he said. He reached into his pocket and dangled his keys. "But you'll need these to get back to ground level. Unless you want to save everyone some trouble and jump out a window."