“Where can I reach the mayor?”
“He’s out on private business tonight. Would you like to leave him a message?”
“I have to speak to him urgently. Something happened that he should know about.”
It was very unusual for the otherwise arrogant McDeere to stammer so sheepishly.
“Did something happen to Zuckerman?” he asked and opened his eyes.
“Yes, God damn it! He’s dead. We had fifteen men in the freaking hotel!”
“My God!” Frank jumped up so violently that he hit his knee on the desk drawer. “You’re kidding, right? Was it suicide?”
“No,” McDeere said meekly. “He was shot—with a suppressed forty-five.”
“Shit.” Frank sank down on his chair and rubbed his hurt knee. His thoughts raced. Nick had put all his hopes on Zuckerman’s testimony. He was sure that he could finally get Sergio Vitali with the help of this man. Zuckerman’s initial arrogance wore down during his months in jail. He’d virtually fallen apart over the past weeks. Last night, he had made the surprising decision to testify in front of a grand jury. He announced that he would reveal everything about the corruption scandal case surrounding the construction of the World Financial Center, which had fizzled out due to a lack of evidence. Zuckerman had rambled about bribery and extortion, falsified building applications and plans, excessive cost calculations, and price fixing. His testimony would have been more than unpleasant for Sergio Vitali. At the first grand jury hearing in November of last year, Zuckerman had taken his lawyer’s advice and pleaded the Fifth Amendment. Although this was considered a clear admission of guilt, the US Attorney’s Office closed the investigation. Kostidis’s anger went through the roof. He did everything he could to keep Zuckerman locked up and to reopen the case. He’d succeeded in appointing a new investigation committee to make absolutely certain that Vitali wouldn’t be able to get away this time. There was no doubt that Nick would be devastated to hear of Zuckerman’s death.
Just two days before, Zuckerman had been transferred from the Metropolitan Correction Center to a hotel in a cloak-and-dagger operation while guarded by fifteen FBI agents. Their job was to keep him completely shielded before his testimony. And now he was dead. Shot dead. It was quite clear that Vitali had found out about Zuckerman’s decision to cooperate with the authorities, contracted an assassin, and duped the FBI. Frank sighed. He would have liked for his boss to spend a quiet evening with his wife, but he had to deliver the bad news right away before the mayor read about it in the morning newspapers.
“I’ll inform him right away,” Frank said to the FBI officer. “Thanks for calling, Truman.” He hung up and rushed out of his office.
“Fucking bullshit,” he muttered on his way out the door.
A half hour later Frank was standing with his boss. He had been expecting a fit of rage over the FBI’s stupidity, but instead Nick Kostidis merely acknowledged the news with a resigned nod of his head. He let himself sink onto one of the benches outside Central Park’s Delacorte Theater and rubbed his eyes wearily.
“Vitali is behind this, there’s no doubt,” he said in a somber tone.
Muted voices and applause could be heard from the theater’s fully occupied semicircular pavilion.
“I’m really sorry,” Frank said quietly. In the bright light of the park lanterns, he noticed the wrinkles and dark shadows on Kostidis’s face, and saw that the fire in his eyes had gone out. Kostidis looked as if he had aged years in the past few minutes. His energy and enthusiasm had vanished. Kostidis stared at his closest staff member for a moment and then sighed.
“Sometimes I wonder whether I’m doing the right thing or making big mistakes because I’m too zealous.”
“Mistakes?” Frank was taken aback. He didn’t think of his boss as someone who doubted himself.
“Yes.” Kostidis leaned back and closed his eyes. “Zuckerman would still be alive if I hadn’t insisted on keeping him locked up for so long until he came clean. Now his wife is a widow and his children are fatherless. He’s dead, and we still haven’t made any progress.”
Frank was shocked.
“Vitali is stronger than me,” Nick Kostidis continued. “He’s stronger because he’s ruthless. Because he has no conscience and doesn’t give a damn about human lives. What have I done?”
“But Nick,” Frank objected, “we did the right thing. How could we possibly know that Zuckerman would be murdered? With his testimony, we could have killed ten birds with one stone.”
“Do we really have the right to risk someone’s life in the name of justice?” Kostidis opened his eyes. “I’m not so sure about that anymore. I used to think that I was doing the right thing.”
His boss’s doubts and dejection affected Frank more than any fit of rage could have, but he couldn’t think of what to say to console him.
“Go home, Frank.” Kostidis placed his hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “You’ve more than earned your time off after work.”
Frank nodded. “I didn’t mean to spoil your evening, but I thought that it would be better for you to hear the bad news from me than the radio.”
“Yes, you’re right. Thank you.” Nick Kostidis sat up straight, now that the first spectators poured out of the open-air theater. “Call Jerome Harding and Michael Page. I’d like to meet them tomorrow morning at ten o’clock in my office.”
“On it,” Frank nodded. He said goodnight to his boss and headed home with much on his mind.
Mary Kostidis slowly flowed with the crowd and searched for her husband. Once again, something so important had happened that it couldn’t wait until morning. She hadn’t been able to follow the rest of the theater performance because she wondered what was going on. When she finally caught sight of him, his facial expression said everything.
Mary had known her husband for thirty-two years. She had always supported him and admired his dedication, but she observed with concern how hard he fought. The wrinkles in his face had grown deeper, and the first gray strands had begun to appear in his thick dark hair. As the mayor, he was more vulnerable than ever before. He was always in the public eye, and any small mistake he made was greedily seized upon and mercilessly exploited by his enemies. He had been so tense the past few weeks that he didn’t often really listen to her. Something occupied his mind, but she knew that pushing him for information was pointless. He would tell her if he deemed it necessary. On the outside, Nick appeared as strong and fearless as ever. His circumstances and the grueling years of fighting had made him hard as granite, but on the inside, he remained a sensitive and compassionate human being who suffered when his efforts failed.
Mary was often worried about her husband because he antagonized many powerful men. He had never been afraid. She still loved him as much as when they first met in the reading room of the New York Public Library. Mary admired his ambition and straightforwardness and loved his ability to admit defeat gracefully. Time and again, he foiled other people’s business with his plans. He had been at the receiving end of many death threats, hostile newspaper articles, and anonymous phone calls. But none of this ever deterred Nick from doing what he thought was right. Mary was worried, but she never bothered him with her concerns. If there was anyone who knew what he was doing, it was Nick. She’d support any actions he took to fulfill his lifetime dream of improving the quality of life for the residents of New York.
“What happened?” she asked when she reached her husband.
“David Zuckerman, the man who agreed to testify in front of the investigation committee, was shot,” Nick said after they had been walking for a while. “Frank was here and told me.”