She noodled around on the board for a while, trying out scenarios. They needed to find out what Vinson’s hedge fund was doing, and whether it was perhaps behind the broker making the bid on the Met. Needed to investigate all Vlade’s employees in the Met. It was a relief to think that neither Charlotte nor Vlade had a good reason to be involved in the disappearance, but Gen was suspicious of her relief. Feelings like that caused one to miss things. On the other hand, it was an intuitive business.
Suppose the two missing men had dived into Alban Albany’s dark pool while they were working there, then set up the access needed to make the flash bite in the CME. That might explain the quick response suggested by their disappearance on the same night. In high-frequency trading terms, an hour was like a decade.
Or, suppose Vinson was behind Morningside’s offer on the building, and Rosen and Muttchopf had found out about it, or somehow interfered with it. Might be standard at Alban Albany to stovepipe any corporate decisions on Rosen directly to Vinson; might be his people had instructions to keep an eye on the boss’s cousin. A black sheep patrol, that was called; many families had to have them, including families in the NYPD.
As she noodled away randomly at the whiteboard, Sean and Claire regarded her fondly. The inspector was so old school. To her young assistants it was partly cute but partly impressive, in a mysterious and possibly even frustrating way. She often got results from this whiteboard maundering, useless though it appeared. Although from time to time Sean would shake his head, even raise his hand. “This is exactly what it isn’t,” he would complain. “It isn’t a diagram, it isn’t mappable. You’re confusing yourself with this stuff here.”
“A thread through the maze,” she would reply. “The maze was always four dimensions.”
“But think six dimensions,” Sean would suggest.
And she would shake her head. “There’s only four dimensions, youth. Try to keep your head on.”
And he would shake his head. So old school! his look would say. Only four dimensions! When there are clearly six! Which Gen would refuse to ask him about. She didn’t want those two extra dimensions, so clearly fictional, explained to her. Let the youth navigate that realm.
Now she asked them what they had managed to dig up on the black sheep front. The two cousins apparently had lived in the same house for a time, after Jeff’s childhood home got inundated in the Second Pulse. This might have led to fraternal feelings or to lifelong hatred. Fifty-fifty on that, but only after starting with another fifty-fifty split, as to whether the cohabitation had produced strong emotions or complete indifference. But even that suggested a twenty-five percent chance that later on Vinson would be keeping tabs on his black sheep coder cuz.
And yet he had hired him twice for jobs. One of these hires, well after Rosen had recused himself while Vinson was being investigated. Keep your friends close, your enemies closer? Keep the black sheep in the pen? Then comes a flash bite on the CME. Trust among traders easy to lose, hard to regain. So, put the black sheep out to pasture, somewhere far away.
“Too many theories, not enough data,” she said, at which observation her assistants looked relieved. But she had a sense that the explanation might be somewhere on the whiteboard, no matter Olmstead’s objections. Garbled no doubt, but the players were there. Maybe. If it was a case that made sense; sometimes they just didn’t. “See if you can crack Morningside Realty’s confidentiality.”
Olmstead wrinkled his nose. “Hard without a warrant.”
“We won’t get one. See if you can suborn someone there.”
Her assistants snorted in tandem.
“Come on,” she protested. “Are you NYPD or not?”
They looked at her like they didn’t even know what that meant. She sniffed at them. Might have to find out some of these things by herself, on the side. Use her Bacino Irregulars. Or her friends in the feds. Or both. People still living in 3-D.
Off the two youngsters went. Soon it would be lunchtime. Her to-do list was barely dented. Eat at the desk, as so often.
Then she worked. Departmental biz. Wasted hours. Then it was almost four, and she decided it would indeed be good to visit her friends at Mezzrow’s. Time to go native, dive back down into the deep depths of home. For she too had once been the black sheep of a family.
Lieutenant Claire joined her down on the narrow long dock outside their building on Twenty-first, and they waited for Sergeant Fripp to show up in his cruiser, a narrow hydrofoil, standard now as the water police’s usual speedster.
“You really want to go there again?” Fripp asked as they boarded. White teeth in black beard; Ezra Fripp liked going to Mezzrow’s, or anywhere else that put him on or under the water, poking at the chaos.
Gen’s cynicism about the amphibious and their speakeasies and bathhouses had hardened in recent years; too many things had changed, too many crimes committed, but she could reach down to that kernel of nostalgia for the old days if she tried hard enough. “Yes,” she told Fripp.
Fripp purred up Second to Thirty-third, turned west, and glided to a halt near the old subway station. The intersections were crowded with boats following the old adage take turns when taking turns. The narrow dock on the west side was full, but police had some of its ancient prerogatives still, and Ezra nosed in without being too obnoxious about it, but without wasting too much time either. He tied off the painter to a dock cleat and they hopped up, leaving the speedster guarded by a dronecop.
On the north end of the dock they dropped down stairs in a big tilted graphenated tube that descended at a forty-five-degree angle into the submarine warren that had once been a subway station. The speakeasy door at the bottom of the stairs was in the classic style, and Gen rapped on it using the old code for the submarine gang she had been part of over in Hoboken, thirty years before. An eye appeared in the Judas window, and after a moment the door opened and they were escorted in.
“Ellie is expecting me,” Gen said to the doorman, which was not true except in the sense that it was permanently true. She and Ellie went back forever.
Soon Ellie showed up and waved them into a back room, which was dominated by an ancient but immaculate pool table, with booths against the walls. Lights were dim, booths were empty. It was early for Ellie’s place.
“Have a seat,” Ellie said. “What brings you here? Want anything?”
“Water,” Gen said, to be annoying. Ezra and Claire asked about using the pool table, and when Ellie nodded they set to, clacking balls around the table without much sign of dropping them in pockets. Ellie sat down at her corner table and Gen joined her.
“So,” Ellie said.
She was still very stylish. Swedish, and so white-blond she was rumored to be albino, which many submarine people of color found funny, in the redundant or how-can-you-tell category of jokes. Five nine, 120 pounds, well distributed what little there was of her. Glamorous. She stretched her fingers on the table as if to display them. Always she made an attempt to overawe Gen with her etched pale beauty, and Gen had to allow that it took an effort to keep this from working. Of course it was easy to stay slim on the little thread of fentanyl Ellie was on, easy to stay relaxed. Gen knew all that and yet it was still hard not to feel a little frumpy. Like a cop. Like a big black female cop wedded to her job. Ebony and ivory, chess queens black and white, the supermodel and the glump, the capo and the copette, on and on it went. But mainly old friends gone separate ways.
That was the way it had been for many years. And knowing Ellie was here meant Gen knew what was going on underwater. She knew that the dealing that got done here was small time, like regular businesses, at least compared to what could have been. Taking care of the amphibious ones meant knowing who was bringing in what to where, and developing relationships, and using the relationships when possible. This was true for both of them.