LACKING VIRTUES (27 page)

***

“Okay, okay, stop acting like Perry Mason,” Elliot said. “You found out he didn’t buy bread before he disappeared. That doesn’t mean he was murdered.”

“But – ”

“Where was his car found, hotshot?”

“You said, New York.”

“That’s right, King, New York. You think they got any Pollack bakeries in New York?”

“Sure but – ”

“Just be quiet. He might have gone on vacation to New York, sold his car before it was stolen, decided to move back to Germany, what the hell do we know? You might have come up with a lead, you might have come up with rubbish. Speaking of rubbish, did you see that bum in the garbage bin?”

“The guy who took off when we walked into the alley?”

“Yeah, him. Go catch him and bring him back here. I’m gonna sit here for a few minutes and digest my lunch.”

“But – ”

“Get going, King. You’re putting on weight.”

The bum was a mean, defensive son of bitch who treated King like
he
was the garbage scrounger. King first had to threaten him with a vagrancy charge, then put an arm around his filthy shoulder, to convince him all they wanted was some information on the guy who owned the tool and die shop.

“What’s your name?” Elliot said, when King returned with the bum. The veteran cop was sitting on Stein’s back step.

“Charles the Third,” the bum said.

“So tell me something, Charlie. You know the guy who owned this place?”

The bum’s mouth froze. King said, “Let me talk to him, okay? We get along.”

Elliot said, “Hey, anyone who wants to take a load off my back, be my guest.”

King patted the bum on the shoulder again, encouraging him. “We’re worried about Mr. Stein, Charles, that’s all. Like I said, this has nothing to do with you. We got nothing on you and nothing against you. Stein put up a vacation sign quite a while ago. His car was found in New York, stolen. So we’re asking questions of all the people around here to see if we can find out if anything has happened to him.”

“I saw him leave,” the bum muttered. “And don’t patronize.”

“What?” said Elliot, coming out of his post-lunch stupor.

“You saw him leave?”

King said, “What do you mean, you saw him leave, Charles?”

“I saw his car drive off one morning last summer. He hasn’t been back since.”

“How do you know he hasn’t been back?” King asked gently.

“No rye crusts in the bin.”

“No shit,” Elliot said. “Good work, Charlie.”

“Charles, please. Before he left – early, around eight in the morning – there was a line of cement trucks here in the alley.”

He pointed to a row of hedges. “I was sleeping back there, first time I’d had a good sleep in a while. They woke me up, those goddamned trucks. Sounded like the Exxon station on the corner was blowing up.”

King said, “This is very helpful, Charles. We appreciate your cooperation.”

“You want me to finish or not?”

“Yes, of course. Go ahead.”

“A little later I saw Stein’s car pull out of that metal door over there and drive off down the alley. The goddamn trucks stayed half the day, making racket and pouring cement into the shop’s coal chute.”

“Interesting,” Elliot said. “Would you care to show us where that chute is, Charles?”

The bum led them to a big wrought iron plate that looked like a sewer cover. King tried to lift it, then saw the lock. “Should I shoot the thing off?”

“Have you lost your mind?” Elliot said. “We’ll need a warrant to do anything like that. You go blasting away at that lock and you’ll lose your badge before you get used to wearing it. Can you read, Charles?”

“What do you mean, can I read? I have a Masters Degree in English lit.”

King could see Elliot strangling a wise crack. “Did you happen to notice a company name or any other form of identification on those trucks, anything like that?”

“Yeah, I noticed but I can’t remember.”

King said, “Do you live around here, Charles?”

“Around here? No, I live
here
.”

He pointed toward the hedges. King could just make out the corner of a clapboard shack, illegal but what the hell.

“Good. We might need to talk to you again. Can we find you here.?”

“Unless you’re blind. Maybe you could think about buying me a meal.”

“We ain’t rich,” Elliot said. “It’d be cheaper to arrest your ass.”

“My partner’s just kidding,” King said. “I’m good for a meal. If you come up with that name, you can order anything on the menu. In fact, Charles, we could go over there right now.”

“Peas and meatloaf today,” Elliot said. “Come on, Charlie, think real hard.  I’m a tight son of a bitch, but you give us the name on those trucks and I’ll spring for seconds if you’re still hungry.”

“I’d still be hungry, but I told you. I can’t remember the name. I can almost see it, just can’t remember it.”

“Tell you what,” King said. “Give us a call if you do. The meal ticket’s good until we get another lead.”

Elliot handed the bum his card and a quarter. “That’s for the phone, buddy. Don’t spend it on coffee. I’ll be back for it if your memory doesn’t improve soon.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

In the days following the Chicago crash, the administration’s search for someone to blame for the escalating air safety crisis had coalesced around Frank Warner. Whether or not he should be relieved of his duties at the NTSB had become an open topic of discussion among Washington’s powerful and in the national press.

Warner wasn’t a political animal, but he believed he had an obligation to the American flying public to fight his dismissal any way he could. Jackson Penn, a classmate of the President’s at law school who knew a lot about politics and little about aviation, had been mentioned in a
Washington Post
editorial as a good choice to succeed Warner. So had Marlin Watson, a DEA investigator who couldn’t tell a flap from an aileron.

These frightening prospects convinced Warner that he’d better occupy center stage at the White House meeting to which he had been summoned – a meeting rumored to have as its sole purpose Warner’s dismissal.

His only hope, he thought, was to catch the administration’s hatchet men off-guard at precisely the moment they were trying to make a media event of his beheading. The meeting, which had just begun, was already forcing him to control his temper. He beamed his rage at the window behind Jeff Galloway, the President’s Chief of Staff. Now was the time for self-control; the time for self-defense would come soon enough.

“Anyway,” Galloway continued, “what the President, everyone in this room and, I dare say, everyone in the country, is asking right now is why
you
, Mr. Warner, have not been able to tell us what is causing these crashes. In addition to killing a lot of people and wiping out a Ford plant, they have terrified travelers and thrown the ailing airline industry into an even deeper crisis. If they are allowed to continue, we’re going to start seeing major damage to our economy. We can’t stand idly by while this happens. So what’s your problem, Mr. Warner? I want to know what is causing these crashes. Why are you unable to tell us?”

Warner would have preferred to leap across the table and punch Galloway in the face. Instead he looked down at his notes. “Let me make a minor correction to your statement, sir. Thanks to the dedicated work of hundreds of men and women who serve the NTSB in one capacity or another, I
have
been able to tell you the cause of three of the four crashes, and to supply a probable cause for the fourth. If you’ll give me a minute to go over the results of our investigative work, I think it might help all of us proceed from a factual rather than an emotional point of view. May I?”

“Go ahead,” Galloway said grudgingly. “But it appears you still don’t get it.”

Warner stood up abruptly.  “I get it, Galloway. I know that you, the President, everyone in this room and everyone in the country want to know what is causing these crashes. Fine. Let’s go over the results of my work again. The 767 crash in Atlanta was caused by a defective engine mount. The 757 crash on the Hawaii track appears to have been caused by degradation of the O-rings that keep oil from leaking out of jet engines. Those engines are five thousand feet beneath the Pacific now, so the cause remains probable. The 767 crash in Pittsburgh was caused by four defective engine mounting bolts – bolts which have nothing to do with the engine mount that failed in Atlanta. And the Seven Five crash in Chicago was caused by the failure of a lock on a pressurization valve that sent one of the engines into reverse thrust during take-off.

“We have completed these investigations in record time, and with conclusive results. That’s our job at the NTSB. So don’t try to make us scapegoats, Galloway. This isn’t the right issue for you and your people to play politics with. If we intend to find out why so many crashes are occurring, it’s going to take the cooperation of all Federal agencies represented here today – the FBI, the CIA, the FAA, and the NTSB. Leadership has been lacking, I agree. Not my leadership but the leadership needed to coordinate and direct the work of these agencies. And that, Mr. Galloway, means the leadership of your administration.”

Warner didn’t know if it was standard practice for those seated in the Cabinet Room to applaud, but they were applauding when he sat down. Galloway cleared his throat to make a rebuttal, but for the first time in anyone’s memory he could find no words. Whether this was good or bad, Warner wasn’t sure. Galloway was known for dirty tricks and an almost pathological vindictiveness.

FBI Director Bill Daniels took advantage of the lull to speak his mind. “Frank, thanks for putting things in perspective. If we’re going to go around apportioning guilt, I’m prepared to take some of the blame. Until that last crash, I simply could not bring myself to believe foul play was involved.

“Now I’m willing to consider the possibility, thanks to the convincing case your man, Simmons, made yesterday. I’m sure Jeff Galloway and the President realize that your skills are invaluable to us right now. You’re the best in the world. You’re in constant demand from other governments whenever they can’t solve a crash of their own. I know this administration isn’t foolhardy enough to consider asking the best to resign at a time like this. And just to make sure everyone understands what I’m saying, let me state my position even more clearly: if Warner goes, I make my disagreement with the administration a matter of public debate.”

Papers shuffled, glasses of ice water clattered, a throat was cleared, Galloway’s.

“Thanks, Bill,” Warner said modestly.

Secretary of Commerce Cathy Williamson said, “My agreement with Mr. Daniels is total. If Frank Warner is forced out, I will also go public with my opposition.”

Secretary of State Olsen, one of the most skilled negotiators of the postwar years, jumped in to rescue a rapidly deteriorating situation.

“All right, all right,” Olsen said. “That’s enough. Bill, Cathy, your position is understood. The important thing for us now is that we approach this mess rationally. We will all be losers if we have a palace revolt when we’ve got a national crisis on our hands.”