The Hammer of God (19 page)

“On behalf of the bank, welcome Mr. Rashani,” loan officer, David Wasserman said as he rose and shook the hand of Commercial Bank's newest customer. “And thank you very much for your business.”

“I am sure this will be a long and fruitful relationship. We have many movies to make here in America and, hopefully soon, a TV series,” Rashani said.

“Good, good, we like to hear that.”

“Yes, your state's new tax incentives are a long time coming. Our investors are very happy we are shooting in New York State.”

“Our bank lobbied hard to get the Governor and the State Assembly to offer these incentives and, may I just say, Mr. Rashani, you are living proof that these incentives are good for New York. Please don't hesitate to call me personally if there is any further way we can help you.” Wasserman stood and earnestly reached out to shake the man's hand.

“Actually, in about three months, I might want to bring some new investors to the city. Perhaps you could be in attendance and show them what a good job you and the bank are doing for us.” Rashani emphasized the lie he had just uttered by clasping his free hand over their clenched grip.

“I'd be honored; helping our clients grow is how we grow.”

As the impeccably dressed producer of Iran's biggest production company left the bank, Wasserman called his wife.

“Honey, I just signed a 25-million-dollar account with the largest independent producers of film in Iran. Yes, just now! That's going to bring my three-month total to 185 million. They have to give me that V.P. slot now!”

∞§∞

Rashani's next stop after establishing a production bank account was the insurance company. Along the way, he reflected on the brilliance involved with paying a Hollywood agent $50,000 cash just for a favorable introduction to the bank. That agent, nor Mr. Wasserman, could pick the real Rashani out of a line up of him and a Girl Scout troop, let alone care about the color of his money.
Yes
,
greed is good
, Rashani thought, remembering a line from an American movie that was actually made here in New York.

So far, the creation of American Partners Iranian, L.L.C. had cost about $85,000, a mere grain of sand next to his 25-million-dollar “production budget.” With his new API, L.L.C. bank checks, he was able to write the $10,500 dollars necessary to obtain the Producer's Liability package. It was a mixture of many diverse insurance policies that protected the producer from all kinds of calamities that can befall a cinematic production, from rain to bad film stock ruining a shot. He did not purchase E and O insurance however, even though it was discounted with the package. Errors and Omission insurance protected the final movie from all claims. There would be no final movie. In fact, there were only two reasons to have the Producer's Package at all: it had workman's comp, which any good crew person or trade union insisted on before walking onto a working set, and, more importantly, you could get a permit to film on the streets of New York. Even with police escort and protection – all free of charge! You could close a bridge, clear an avenue, wreck cars, and burn down buildings, theatrically of course. As long as you held the insurance naming New York City as loss payee for one million dollars per event, you were instantly a reputable production company. A New York City film permit was truly the key to the city.

∞§∞

“Wanna see what got my brother killed?” John said motioning upstairs in the two family house that the Remos lived in since their sons were three and thirteen. On the way up the stairs was a framed photo of John and other hard hats down at “the pile.” It made Bill stop.

“John, you were there?”

“No, not just me – the whole union. We all turned out. There was thousands of metric tons of steel there, had to cut it where it lay. Every time we came across remains, we had to stop. Then there was a ceremony; then we'd start working again. There was 250 tons of human remains compressed into the 10-story pile.”

As they went up the stairs, the effort made John cough.
9-11 sickness
Hiccock thought. At the top, under a table, were work boots that looked like they were sitting in pancakes. John bent down and got them. “No, look see, these were brand fucking new, first day look, look here, the souls are melted. That fucking pile was like walking on an oven for 10 days. Brand new fucking pair of steel toes – instant garbage. That was some hell of a place. But we cleaned it up in record time.”

“You guys were amazing.”

“No, sometimes I think we should-a let it sit there forever, to remind everybody what those fuckers did to us. People, they are forgetting, getting soft, letting down their guard. It's not good, I tell ya.”

“The President and me, we'll never forget, John.”

“No, you'll keep all those Washington jerks on the trigger, no, I know that.”

Bill suddenly remembered why John's nickname growing up was “Johnny ‘No'.”

“C'mere, let me show you what I brung you up here for.”

Bill remembered the hallway, from when they were kids and the bathroom at the end of the hall. How embarrassed he was one night, when, on a sleepover, he walked in on Anna washing her nylons in the sink. She was in a slip, but in those days, even seeing your friend's mom in a slip was a weird and creepy thing. They went into what used to be Peter's room. There, amid the guest bed and older furniture, was a box of stuff. John reached in and pulled out a gray envelope with the old, interlocking blue NBC logo on it. Inside was a brown binder with yellowed pages. John flipped open the binder; it was a photocopy of a book. It looked as if someone had laid it flat on a copy machine.

Bill was frozen.
Just as Peter described. Holy shit he wasn't hallucinating…at least about this part.

“This is what I figured got Petey killed.”

Bill felt as though someone had just showed him the original draft to a Shakespeare play. This was the book Peter told him about on the steps of the Memorial.

“How do you know he was killed over anything more than a bar fight?”

“No, what the fuck was he doing in France? No, he never cared about places like that. I'm telling you, that old man got whacked, then Peter went on his crusade shit and bam now he's dead.”

“Old man? You mean Professor Ensiling?”

“Bingo! Dat guy!

“I hear you, John, but Joey Palumbo – you remember Joey – he works with me now.”

“No, Palumbo? No shit. Last I heard he was working with the feds.”

“Yeah, I kinda screwed that up for him, so now we…anyway, he checked the Ensiling thing out, and he says the fat lady sang natural on this professor guy.”

“No, Billy, I don't mean to argue here, but that's bullshit. Peter told me about the threats, the attempts, the time they missed him and the old guy and killed that broad.”

“John, I never heard about any woman being shot.”

“No, all I'm saying here is that this book, with all this gobbledygook and fucking formulas, got everybody killed. You want it?”

“After a sales job like that? Yeah, sure I want it, John. I'm dying to have somebody come after me, too.”

“Then at least you'll know Peter was right? No?”

Bill just looked at his childhood friend's smirking face. “Thanks a lump.”

∞§∞

Between what was in Peter's files and Mrs. Remo cajoling him to stay for cake and coffee, Bill just made the 8 o'clock back to D.C. from La Guardia and decided to skip going to the office and had his driver take him directly home. It was 9:30 and the funeral had taken more of a toll on him than he realized. The thought of going home to Janice and splicing into some iota of a normal routine was a comfortable idea.

He rolled out the garbage cans to the front of the driveway and went into the house from the garage entrance into the kitchen. As if he were eight years old, there on the fridge, being held up by magnets shaped like bananas, oranges, watermelon slices, and lemons, was the
Time
magazine cover. Under it was a Post-it note that read, “I always wanted to tramp around with a ‘cover boy.' I await you upstairs Mr. Bond.”

Bill smiled, opened the fridge, grabbed the orange juice, and was about to take a slug from it, when the door closed and he was looking right at the cover picture of him with the President of the United States. Self-consciously, he got a glass from the cabinet and poured.

Janice was under the covers and her body was radiating heat. He snuggled close and she spoke softly into the pillow. “You look like
you
should be the President in that picture, Billy boy.” She reached around and pulled him into her.

Bill kissed her neck. “You're just saying that to have your way with me…”

“I'm going to have my way no matter what I say, Mr. Commander n' Geek.” Then she rolled over and made good on her promise.

Forty-five minutes later, she was curling Bill's hair around her finger while he dozed off with his arm over her stomach, his head on her chest. “Did you read it?”

“What?”

“The article; did you get a chance to read it?”

“Yeah, good writing. Like a serialization of a novel.”

“Bill, I am concerned.”

Now he was up. He rolled over on his back, sat up, and took a swig of the orange juice in the glass. He jutted it to Janice as if to ask, “Want some?”

She shook her head. “The article makes it seems like you single-handedly caught the terrorist mastermind.”

“Jan, you know I can't really talk about this…”

“Yes I know. But what if these guys get pissed off at you?”

“Who?”

“The terrorists; what if they come after you, personally? If I were them, and I read that article, I'd want to kill you for ruining my plans.”

“Hey, I'm an American, so they'd want to kill me for that alone. I'm in the government, so that's another reason. And I let you speak back to me and go out in public with your face and ankles showing, so they can cut my head off three times before they ever get to ‘I ruined their party.'” He dragged his index finger under his chin in a slashing gesture for emphasis.

Janice grabbed the finger, pulled his hand to her lips, and kissed it. “God damn you, I am serious!”

“Okay, sorry. I have Brent.”

“He's only a driver.”

“A driver with a gun!”

“No, I mean he's only around when you are working.” Janice untangled from him and spun around, sitting up and locking her eyes into his. “Get a protection detail. Tell Mitchell I want you to have one. He likes me and I'm sure he doesn't want to see me as a widow.”

Bill rolled over, pulled the pillow over his head, and spoke into the muffling mattress. “I was feeling so good five minutes ago. Thanks for the buzz kill, kid.”

She pulled the pillow off him and leaned into his face. “I love you. I don't want anything happening to you because of fucking
Time
magazine. Promise me.”

“Janice…”

“Bill, promise me you'll talk to Mitchell – tomorrow, or that was your last blow job!”

“You play dirty.”

“I like to think of it as, ‘below the belt.'”

∞§∞

Rodney left the Lock and Store at 10:30 headed for the New York City Mayor's Office for Motion Picture and Television. His mission today was to secure three film permits for what would ostensibly be the first two days of shooting the New York exteriors for the Iranian/American co-production of “Byline of Death.” He was instructed to get two shooting permits and one rigging prep permit. One was for filming on Park Avenue at 45th street across from the Waldorf Astoria hotel. He was to get the second one for that same day, a build/prep permit for the parking lot at Citi Field in Queens. The baseball team that played there was scheduled to be out of town those days. The second shooting permit was for filming at the Citi Field location the next day, ostensibly to film what was prepped the day before.

Leaving Jersey, he made the big, sweeping turn that screwed down from the elevated roadway of the Route 3/Tunnel approach to the toll plaza below. All of New York City was backlit by the rising sun from the east out his window. He looked south to the hole in the lower Manhattan skyline.

“No flat tire this time, Allah be praised.”

He lowered the prayer tape playing in the AM/FM/CD cassette radio in the car as he neared the Port Authority tollbooths of the Lincoln Tunnel.

∞§∞

“Sonia Hansen,” Joey said in Bill's office. “Died in Vienna on Dec third last year. She was shot on the street. No motive, no priors, no killer. It's in the books as open case. Crosschecking Ensiling's travel itinerary, it would put him in Austria on that same day.”

“Okay. That could just only mean what we already know – that this woman was killed the same time Ensiling was there. We need to put them together to see if Peter was right. Wait a minute, John said something that seemed to make it like Peter was there too. Can you check with State and see if they come up with a visa from the Viennese, er… Austrians?”

“I am having Interpol check any street surveillance or traffic camera to see who was around the woman at the time she was gunned down. Maybe we'll catch a glimpse of the professor and Peter.”

“Also Joey, this is just a hunch, but have them check ATM machines and any hotel cameras where the professor was staying. That might tell us what he was wearing and what to look for.”

“Good thought. You sure you don't want my job?”

“Nah, it's easy to think up stuff when that's all you have to do. It's harder to actually do it.”

“Duh,” Joey said as he left Bill's office.

Bill focused on the pile on his desk. Next on his agenda was to get the legitimacy of Peter's book confirmed or denied. He had Kronos scan it then used a scan-to-text converter to make it all one big word-processing file. He then put it up on the SCIAD network. After a day or two, he expected to hear something back.