The Concrete Pearl (14 page)

The camera shifted its focus from Collins to the sad, frightened little boy. Then it panned out to the show the entire hospital room, the television news reporter taking up the entire right side of the screen in her red mini dress and matching jacket. To her left, Santiago, the boy and his still quietly weeping mother.

“This is Chris Collins with a special live report for Channel 13 News at the Albany Medical Center.”

I picked up the remote, thumbed off the TV.

Then I collapsed into the chair like a bucket-load of raw earth.

Chapter 29

I wasn’t sure how the long the Blackberry had been ringing before it registered with my brain. I was still sitting in the wood chair, hard head buzzing with adrenalin.

I picked up the phone.

Tommy said, “We both know that Farrell ain’t just hiding. He’s gone for good. What they want is somebody to thunderbolt to the crossbeam now and you’re it, Spike.”

“That what you think this is?” I said. “Witch hunt?”

“You know what else?” Tommy barked. “I wanna tell you to take off. If more sick kids come popping out of the woodwork or if that poor Nicolas kid buys the farm…” Pausing for affect … “Well then Christ help us all.”

“Especially his poor mother,” I said.

Call waiting chimed in.

Joel Clark. He’d obviously made it to the office bright and early. Maybe he’d slept there.

“Tommy,” I said. “I’ve got to go.”

“Wait just a second,” he said.

“Make it quick,” I said.

“How you holding up through all this? You want me to come over?”

“How’m I holding up?” I said. “Let’s put it this way: I used to be pretty. Now I’m just pretty fucked up.”

I hit Send, put out one fire only to start another.

“The good news is that you’re innocent until proven guilty,” Joel said, steady voice coming at me over his speaker phone. He turned the speaker off, picked up the handset.

“Reassuring.” My voice, still a whimper.

“Meet me at the Miss Albany Diner in one hour. Can you manage that?”

“I might have trouble holding down solid food.”

“Long night?”

“What about your meeting with the PS 20 project principals and Diana Stewart?”

“Postponed until later this afternoon when I’ve better prepared myself to handle these new allegations and developments. In the meantime, don’t even think of going near that jobsite.”

Yesterday he was yelling at me for being conspicuously absent from the school. Now he wanted me to avoid the place at all costs.

“Joel,” I said, “I still have a contract to fulfill.”

“Not anymore you don’t,” he said. “The Albany School Board is already looking into a new GC to finish it up. You…
We
…can expect a letter of dismissal to arrive via messenger to my office sometime today. From what I understand, the paperwork is already drawn up and attached as an amendment to the original contract.”

“Can they do that? Fire me like that?”

“They already have.” He breathed in, exhaled. I also heard him rattling some papers. Then he quoted, “‘The performance of work under this contract may be terminated by the Owner, in whole or in part, for cause or whenever the Owner shall determine that such termination is in the best interest of the Owner. Any such termination shall be effected by a notice in writing—’”

“I get it Joel.”

My head was heavy, my balance teetering like a detached sandstone cornice.

I said, “The Tiger Lady came to see me last night…Off the record.”

Big Joel issued one of his big sighs.

“What did you tell her?”

“I told her nothing.”

“Then what the hell did she want?”

“She offered her help.”

“She knows something we don’t…Do…not…trust…her.”

“I didn’t…I won’t.”

“One hour,” he said hanging up.

Chapter 30

What’s a thick headed girl to do?

Do the right thing.

Meet up with Joel. Talk the whole rotten situation through. Weigh my legal options, figure out a way to make good the asbestos foul up without damaging my reputation. What was left of it that is, with two million Gs in OSHA penalties and civil lawsuits already pressing down on my shoulders like heavyweight blocks, and everything my dad ever worked for his entire life reduced to me, Tommy and a dwindling cash account.

Or, I could do the wrong thing.

Farrell was gone. He wasn’t coming back. Nor would I ever see a penny of my ten Gs. With a sick child having entered the PS 20 equation, it was only a matter of time until I took a major fall off a high scaffolding tower. With Farrell disappeared, somebody would have to bear the burden of responsibility. Like Tommy said: I was
it
. Maybe I could follow Farrell’s lead, bond the liens the school put up against me, empty out what was left of the Harrison bank accounts, head for the Canadian border. From there, maybe Europe.

Like Elvis sang,
I’m caught in a trap
. A classic case of buried if I do the right thing, maybe not so buried if I take my chances, do the wrong thing and disappear. Whoever said running away was never an option was full of crap. Just ask Jimmy Farrell. That is, if you can find him.

I pulled myself up off the floor.

My head hurt.

In the kitchen I pulled the big bottle of Advil from out of the cabinet. I swallowed four with a cold glass of tap water. The hard water tasted like rust. On the counter, I glared hatefully at what was left of Diana’s cigs.

Maybe half a pack.

I picked them up, tried to crush the pack in my hand. But the pack wouldn’t crush. Something rigid was stuffed inside it. I tore the pack open. Diana’s Bic cigarette lighter had been stored inside the pack. It was exactly the way I used to prevent myself from losing my own lighters back when I smoked.

I pulled the lighter out and nearly fell over.

I hadn’t noticed it when she lit her single cigarette last night, but the lighter did not belong to her. Now, without her hand cupped around it, I was able to perfectly recognize the old lighter. It was an old translucent blue plastic model with a New York Giants football helmet logo printed on both sides. The red, white and blue logo had faded over time. The paint had been practically chipped away from age and jobsite wear. I knew this lighter the instant I saw it in open daylight. I’d purchased it after all.

Purchased it for Jordan not two weeks before he died.

My body was shaking, trembling.

Back inside the bedroom, I set the old lighter into my desk drawer along with the rest of the evidence I’d collected the previous day.

What the hell was Diana doing with Jordan’s lighter after all this time?

If she simply found it somewhere, why had she held onto it for so long? She had to have known it belonged to Jordan. She smoked with him whenever the two met on a jobsite. How many times had he lit a cigarette for her with this very lighter?

In my head I saw the faces of my enemies, Diana foremost amongst a lineup that included Farrell and Santiago. I swallowed something cold and bitter. I wanted revenge. Vengeance. Even the Bible allowed for vengeance. So I’m told.

I closed the desk drawer hard.

Then I went into the bathroom, turned on the shower. It would take every ounce of my willpower—my hardheadedness—but for now I was going to make the right choice.

I was going to keep my appointment with my lawyer.

Chapter 31

I met Joel at the Miss Albany Diner on Pearl Street, maybe a stone’s throw from the Thatcher Street Pub to the north and PS 20 to the south. The old trailer-and-hitch style mobile eatery had been permanently grounded decades ago beside the old RCA building, the six-story concrete monstrosity that was topped off with a gigantic fifty-foot high plaster and mesh Nipper the Dog. The black-on-white Nipper sat obediently atop the flat roof’s edge, big black eyes peering down on the Concrete Pearl like a monster guard dog. His heavy body bolted down by chains and iron bars, tail-end pointing to the Hudson River like an insult.

The diner, the giant plaster dog, the RCA building…much of it would be relegated to the wrecking ball in a matter of months to make way for the new and improved Concrete Pearl Convention Center.

Joel was a slick, divorced, middle-aged lawyer from the construction law firm of Couch, Clark and Levine which was located in the center of Pearl Street where it intersected with the city’s more populated downtown business district—a small three-block area that was to be spared demolition. By the time I made it to the diner, the breakfast crowd had disappeared. He’d already started on a plate of eggs over easy and buttered wheat toast. The runny yellow yokes were bleeding all over the white plate.     

“How can you eat that?” I said, taking a seat on an empty stool directly beside the tall, barrel-chested man.

“It’s called sustenance,” he said, wiping the egg from his face with a paper napkin. “Hey Cliff,” he barked across the counter to a short squat balding man with a white apron wrapped around his torso. “Coffee for my client.”

Without a word, Cliff retrieved a white ceramic mug from the stainless steel shelf mounted to the wall above the grill.

“Thank Christ,” I exhaled. A long, drawn out sigh.

“Looks like somebody might have hit the bottle a little too hard last night,” Joel said with a roll of his gravel-colored eyes.

Cliff came over and set down my coffee. I picked up the hot mug with both hands and took a sip. The hot liquid entered my system like new blood to a dying limb. Coming up for air, I stole a quick glance around the old diner—a habit you can’t help but pick up in my trade. The counter was made of light oak that had been covered over during a renovation of sorts with a laminate top. Easy to clean. The walls were finished in their original material however: stainless steel panels that over the many years of their existence hadn’t quite lived up to the name “stainless.”

“So what’s your advice counselor?” I said, stealing another sip of coffee.

Joel sopped up the remaining egg yoke on his plate with the bit of toast and ate it.

“Let’s move to a booth,” he said, lifting his big torso up from off his stool.

We grabbed our coffee mugs and took seats across from each other inside one of the empty booths.

“This is the way I see it,” he sighed, his eyes staring down into his coffee. “The law is very clear in the matter of a general contractor bearing the responsibility for a negligent subcontractor—”

“Meaning—”

“Meaning that you are just as responsible as Farrell for the asbestos screw up. Maybe even more so since you personally signed off on the daily work sheets presented to you by A-1 Environmental Solutions…Same worksheets that would accompany the filter testing samples passed on to the independent air testing contractor hired by the school—Analytical Labs.”

“The Analytical Labs office is a phony,” I said.

“Forget about that,” he said. “Doesn’t mean a thing. It’s the worksheets I’m worried about now.”

The worksheets.   

Joel’s reminding me of them hit me like a sledgehammer to the gut. Farrell could not have been all that stupid. Following the contract to the letter, he had personally asked me to sign daily worksheets at the end of every work day in which his lackies performed asbestos removal. The worksheets assured A-1 Environmental Solutions that I had not only examined their work, but that I had approved it as having been performed according to plans and specifications. Jesus, how could I not have remembered them?

“Those slips act as legal disclaimers, Spike,” Joel said. “They effectively shift the burden of responsibility from Farrell to you.” Another sigh, a shake of his head, his eyes lifting up from the coffee cup, settling on me. “Don’t believe me? Check out the Air Monitoring Clause of your contract with the school… Paragraph one-point-zero-two which states in part, and I quote, ‘The general contractor shall oversee air monitoring activities during every work shift in each work area during which abatement and removal activities occur in order to something, something, something…’”

“I believe you counselor,” I said, looking down into my coffee. It was bleak and black. Like my future. “So what’s all this leading up to, Joel? Give it to me straight, no mixers.”

My Blackberry vibrated against my right hip. I pulled it out of the holster. What I saw gave me pause. The Caller ID said, “Marino Construction.” A six-digit number followed, along with a new voicemail indicator.

“Somebody you need to speak with?” Joel probed.

I shook my head.

“Just Tommy,” I lied. “I’ll call him back as soon as we’re done.”

Which I hoped would be soon. I might have jumped at telling Joel the truth about who had just left a message on my cell—Farrell’s father-in-law. But judging by the way our conversation was going, I decided to trust in my built-in shit detector, keep the call to myself. Because what if Marino was calling me to let me in on details of Farrell’s whereabouts? You could be damned sure that I would act on them. Joel’s order to stop looking for the negligent sub or no order.

“I won’t sugarcoat it for you, Spike,” Joel said. “If the grand jury agrees there’s a case here, Santiago is going to hit you with an indictment of asbestos removal negligence just for starters.”

My insides dropped.

He added, “Thus far I’ve persuaded him to hold off on anything having to do with that kid Nicolas. At least until it’s proven his condition didn’t come from his living situation at home.”

“Living situation?”

“Poor kid lives in the south end projects. That’s the real evil of asbestosis and mesothelioma. It likes to prey on poor people who can’t afford new digs; can’t afford a brand new mansion in East Hills.”

“Like our boy Jimmy.”

“In my opinion,” Joel added, “your best defense is to simply cooperate in every possible way with Santiago’s investigation…Forget what I said before about staying away from the jobsite. Go back to your office right now, have Tommy help you gather up all the paperwork you have on PS 20, stuff it all into some banker’s boxes, deliver it in-person to my office by the end of the day today. When I meet with the project principals this afternoon, I’ll let them know you’re doing all you can to make things right, not only with the school but with the law. At the end of the day, you and I will both sit down with the prosecutor, strike up some kind of deal.”