Banquo's Ghosts (32 page)

Giselle patted her arm, woman to woman. “What can I say, Ms. von Hildebrand? A lady
never
tells. In any case, he’s not British; he’s a Gaul.”
And the two women laughed. From what Johnson saw the smooth Frenchie Banker didn’t mind the admiration. But something in his ex’s eyes pinged in Johnson’s brain. He’d seen that look before. Aw, c’mon, Mrs. Robinson. Naw—no
way
. Not with Giselle’s boyfriend. But there were bigger fish in the room, Johnson himself being the biggest, at least for today.

Before the first glass of Chardonnay was half way down a crowd had gravitated to him and his brood in an elaborate magic circle. Johnson had been on TV a lot, and people wanted to talk to him. Touch the hem of his robe. Of course, he let them. He glanced across the room to the artist—Blaire standing nearly alone near his flag-choked flushing toilet—and if the jealous fellow could have poisoned this unwelcome guest right now, he would have done it in a Lucrezia Borgia heartbeat.

Jo von H left early for another event, and later Johnson waved Anton and Giselle away in a cab. They were off to the Frenchman’s renovated townhouse on Grove Street. Silently he watched the cab bounce over the cobblestones of the Soho street, catching the first traffic light and turning a corner. Then, unhurriedly, he walked after the cab; the exercise would do him good. Fifteen minutes later found him across the Village on Grove Street standing opposite Frenchie’s stoop. The lights were on in the top-floor bedroom, and Johnson tried not to think about it. Instead he looked up and down the street. From what he could tell, nothing unusual, just parked cars wedged in too tight for comfort. He methodically walked down one side of the street heading west. When he got to the corner, he turned around and walked back on the other side.

All the time keeping his eyes on the opposite rooftops, looking for any sign of something out of place. The line of townhouse balustrades—some in red stone, some in white, some in brown—were an almost unbroken line in the Manhattan sky. On one directly across the street from Anton’s steps Johnson thought he saw something. No movement, but some sort of wire or pole hanging over the balustrade that didn’t
seem to belong. A shotgun mike? A very thin video lens? Impossible to tell. But it looked as if it was aimed directly at Anton’s lit windows.

He walked across the street toward the suspicious building. The townhouse door was locked, of course; bolted, locked, alarmed, and a private residence to boot. No chance one of a dozen tenants might come home and open the vestibule. Nope. This was a very desirable Manhattan address, and somebody rich lived there, even if they weren’t aware that a long, strange wire protruded from their balustrade.

He wondered: Was there a Robert Wallets guy at the other end of that wire? Johnson plopped his behind on the stairs of the stoop to think. “Can we help you?” A metallic voice from a speaker. “No loitering, please.” Of course, a security camera and a voice box over the stone stoop. But it wasn’t a real person, just an automatic recording. Relieved, Johnson got up and shuffled away. He didn’t like spying on Giselle or looking up at the apartment; his action felt all Othello-Desdemona. Halfway back to Broadway, he felt a stroke of mild genius. At one of the last corner payphones in all of New York, he dialed 911 and, when the operator answered, said, “Man with gun, Grove Street.” Then hung up.

A mere ten minutes later an NYPD squad car rolled down Grove with its bubble lights flashing, lighting up every building, but no siren. The squad car rolled the length of Grove and slowly turned the corner.

But Johnson wasn’t interested in that flashy show. At the roof of the townhouse right by the strange wire, shotgun mike, or narrow video lens, a man’s head cautiously peered over the balustrade at the flashing lights below. And Johnson whispered to himself, “I see you . . .” A Robert Wallets man, if ever there was one. Watching Anton’s pad.

Comforting to know Banquo kept an eye on her, but what stung him was how neither Giselle nor Anton bothered to come to the window to stare at all the pretty flashing lights. His ears burned, yet he banished the thoughts from his mind. Stop, Othello.
Stop.
It’s about him and his pals, not
him and her.

A short block back toward Seventh Avenue. Johnson found a coffee shop on the corner of Grove and Bedford and went inside with half a mind to wait out the night. From a well-placed window booth he could
see Anton’s stoop. The upper light in the bedroom windows was out. He had bought a half-dozen newspapers from a newsstand and ordered a club sandwich, wondering how long he’d have before crawling home. Some unspoken hunch told Johnson the young man wasn’t through for the night. Gallery opening, bedding his baby—still there’d be some extra job to do. And after an hour, he wasn’t disappointed.

About midnight Anton came out his front door. The windows upstairs still black. Was he the kind of guy who left a note? And if so, what would it say? “Just restless, G, going for a walk . . . be back soon.” Yeah, the young smoothie wouldn’t forget the luv-u-note-thing.

Anton walked past the window of the coffee shop without glancing through the glass and descended into the Christopher Street subway station. Hurriedly, Johnson slapped some bills on the booth table and followed the young man underground. He chose the Redline Pelham 1-2-3, Downtown to South Ferry or under the East River to New Lots Avenue. At midnight, the Christopher Street station still bustled, people going home to Brooklyn from a night in the Village or just arriving, their night about to get underway. So Johnson could stand in a far corner of the Downtown car, hanging on a strap with his back turned, surreptitiously glancing over his upraised arm. Anton never saw him.

The train went five stops south, still in Manhattan—Houston Street, Canal, Franklin, Chambers to City Hall. Next stop Brooklyn? Suddenly Anton wasn’t in the car anymore. He’d gotten off at City Hall, and Peter pushed his way out of the subway car onto the platform. Moving bodies scurried through the labyrinth of the City Hall station. By sheer luck, Peter caught the back of Anton’s head descending the stairs to the Blue Line Trains. So they were going under the river—just the northern tip of Brooklyn, then on to Queens. Down in the lower levels of the NYC transit system, the platforms were more deserted. Anton appeared to be casually waiting for someone. And Johnson was forced to find a stanchion for partial cover. Anton didn’t seem particularly concerned, seemingly absorbed in his own thoughts, only looking up when an A Train arrived at the station. That’s when things started to get interesting.

The A Train disgorged, a few passengers wandered off in various directions, and the platform was empty again—but now another man
stood a car-length away from Anton. Where he came from Johnson couldn’t tell; he just suddenly appeared. Nothing very unusual about him. The guy wore cheap knockoff jeans and sneakers, hooded sweatshirt, a backpack for books and personals—the uniform of New York’s young male students and lower working classes.

But what startled Johnson was how the hooded young man waved once to Anton in greeting, and Anton acknowledged him back. In an easy four steps, the two stood side by side, now both apparently waiting on the platform. And for no reason at all, somehow Johnson knew this was one of the guys who took pictures of Giselle.

The rest of the night was a long, deafening blur of trains and platforms. Of rocking in the cars hanging to a strap and waiting for the
whoosh
of the pneumatic doors. Johnson kept well enough back to keep from being spotted—often riding in an adjacent car—though once or twice he came damn near to bumping into them. They weren’t sneaking around but open about their travels, acting naturally, even bold in their manner. Often pausing to calmly scan the subway platforms. Whatever they were doing, Johnson couldn’t imagine.

They took the A Train on its long journey out to JFK International. Only to be met by another fellow in a hooded sweatshirt. Now the three headed back up the line. They ditched their ride at the Broadway Junction station. Switching trains again to the J Line on its way out to the distant Jamaica Center in Queens. Somewhere during the switch they picked up a fourth guy.

At the end of the line at the Jamaica Center station, they switched over to NYC Transit’s second deep underground Blue Line, the E Train, and headed back toward Manhattan. In the process, they picked up a fifth and sixth, dressed the same as the first three, hooded sweatshirts, sneakers—and all looking Middle Eastern or Southeast Asian. Johnson’s mind simmered as he watched them, but for the life of him he couldn’t detect an objective; nobody pointed or discussed anything—they simply rode the train like everyone else. A plan, obviously, but to harm whom and how? Mass hijacking? Multiple train wrecks? No way to tell.

As they headed closer to Manhattan, the group began to thin out. The first to peel off did so at the Jackson Heights station: a confluence
of four different lines all heading to or leading from the heart of the city. Johnson saw a stray kid scoot off to Flushing Meadows and Corona Park, toward the site of the 1964 World’s Fair—heading out to an extremity of the system once more.

Back in Manhattan the group lost three more Hood Heads at the 51
^st
Street and Lexington Avenue station—of course, the IRT. Johnson thought he had figured some of it out now. From the 51
^st
Street station those three could travel uptown the length of the swank Upper East Side to the Bronx: Wakefield, Eastchester, and Pelham. More extremities.

By the time Johnson’s train reached Columbus Circle in Manhattan on the corner of Central Park, only the first Hood Head and Anton were left. They clasped hands and did a slight chest bump, then went their separate ways. Anton back to the Red Line whence he’d started. Sure, that made sense. He could travel the tony Upper West Side, either way up to Van Courtland Park or downtown to South Ferry, hopping off at Christopher Street. Johnson didn’t bother following him.

It was the other guy who counted. Right, of course, he made directly for the Orange B Line. Brooklyn, the only borough they’d avoided. By riding the subway this way, the men had traversed nearly the whole system, going out each arm of the starfish and returning to its heart. The only major line they missed served Brighton Beach and Coney Island. Brooklyn. Safe at home base? And that came last. But what it all meant, who the hell knew. Would the B & D snoops have seen something he missed? Doubtful.

Johnson rode in the far end of the car away from his mark, his mind spinning with all the possibilities and occasionally getting caught up in the cobwebs of fatigue. He noticed a kid sitting across from him and briefly worried about falling asleep and getting rolled again. The kid kept catching his eye, then looking away. He wore baggy jeans, work-boots, a bandana, and a Sean John T-shirt.

Relieved to be off the train, a bleary-eyed Johnson emerged from the New Utrecht station with his target about 4 AM as the sky lightened the low buildings of central working-class Brooklyn and a few very early birds began to chirp. People were getting ready for the day—the city’s dawn patrol. And in a surprisingly brief three and a half minutes
Johnson managed to lose his mark as the man walked along the sidewalk into the deeper regions of the neighborhood. Though he’d realized as much subconsciously throughout his long subway trip, this hammered the point home:
During rush hour, a guy like this was virtually invisible in the crush of thousands.

In the end, he stood wanly in the middle of the block of a residential street. Yeah, the guy might have gone into
that
row house. Or was it that set of dumpy apartments? The one with the blind windows?

He heard a familiar city sound: the doors of a panel van opening. Turning to look, a few cars down a guy in a San Diego Padres cap had opened the door to his food service delivery wagon, Hung Fat Oriental Food Distributors—Long Island City. They were a long way from Long Island City.

Somebody waved at him from the dark of the van and hissed
pssssst!
Wallets. “Oh for Chrissakes, stop standing there like a jackass and get in.”

Inside, the van was comfortably warm but a little stuffy. Johnson found a stool by a console. “Don’t touch anything,” someone said. Must have been the guy who opened the van doors. He couldn’t really see the faces, people he hadn’t met yet.

“Are you
trying
to be conspicuous?” Wallets growled. “Why don’t you just sneak around in a trench coat and fedora? Like
Spy vs. Spy
.”

Then the door slid open once more, and the kid from the train hopped in. Johnson visibly started, and Wallets smiled, “I’d introduce Cedric, but you’ve already met.”

Johnson looked confused, but something stirred in the deep mists of his memory.

Cedric laughed and said, “Brooklyn Heights.”

Johnson let out a long, “Ohhh . . . ”

“Cedric kindly returned your credit cards that night, remember?” Wallets said. “We kept in touch, and now he helps with odd tasks in the city. He was following your Workbench Boy, but might I add,
doing it with little risk of being noticed.
”