A Fierce Radiance (31 page)

Spotting two pay phones on the far corner of the square, Claire decided to telephone her office. Wasn’t that how spies communicated,
via pay phones, in the movies Andrew Barnett said his life seldom resembled? She wanted to do her own security check on Vannevar Bush, as she’d promised him. Since the call was long-distance, she had to wait for the operator to get a line and put the call through. She called collect. Frieda accepted the charges.

“Hi, Claire, everything okay? Sure you can borrow it, just bring it back. No, he needs it now.” From the clipped tone of her voice, from her simultaneous conversations, Claire knew Frieda was distracted, others standing at her desk. Frieda saw nothing amiss in Claire’s call, a photographer checking in, standard procedure.

“Everything’s fine. Morning assignment went well. I’ve got an hour before the afternoon appointment. Mack have anything for me?”

“Just a sec, let me check the sheet. You can see him tomorrow,” she said to someone else. “No, nothing, Claire. Give us a call when you wrap up in the afternoon, in case anything comes up later. No sense coming back to New York just to get sent down there again.”

“My thoughts exactly. Frieda, could you transfer me to Mr. Luce’s office?”

“To Mr. Luce?” Now Claire had Frieda’s full attention. “Why do you want to talk to him?”

“Not to him.” Claire put on an exasperated tone. “To Miss Thrasher. A question came up that I need to check with Miss Thrasher about. Something about two guests at the United China Relief party I photographed. They made a large donation, wore their custom-made Chinese costumes, but somehow their picture never made it into the magazine.” Frieda might well ask how and why these outraged Sinophiles had contacted Claire instead of Mr. Luce directly, but it was the best excuse Claire could come up with. “They’re not amused. Someone might have to apologize. I’ll never hear the end of that shoot.”

“That’s what happens when you get yourself on the good side of the boss’s wife.” Claire could hear the satisfaction in Frieda’s voice. Luckily
Miss Thrasher never participated in gossip. She and her boss made a good pair. Like him, however, Miss Thrasher probably wouldn’t have accepted a collect call from Claire, thus necessitating the subterfuge with Frieda. “I’ll transfer you.”

“Thanks, Frieda.”

Within two minutes, she heard his gruff voice. “Where are you calling from?”

“A phone booth at the corner of, let’s see, Lafayette Park and Sixteenth Street in Washington, D.C. It’s very secure.”

“Why am I talking to you?”

“First of all, thank you for pursuing the story we discussed a few months back.” All this talk of spies was making her cautious; she wouldn’t mention penicillin on the long-distance line.

“Don’t thank me. I’m not doing it for you. I’m pursuing it for Time Incorporated.”

“A wise decision.”

“Obviously.” Was he laughing or even smiling? “That’s the reason for your call?”

“No. At my meeting this morning, a friend of yours asked me to do a little work for him on the side. I wanted to make sure the arrangement had your approval. How’s that for corporate loyalty?”

“Our country needs us.”

“I guess that means okay.”

“I wish it didn’t have to be this way, but sometimes it does. You’re not alone, I can assure you.”

“I’m grateful for that, at least.”

“Did he offer you money?”

“Of course not.”

“Why ‘of course not’?”

“I wouldn’t have taken it, if he had.”

“Good. For both of you. Patriotism can’t be bought. It’s an honor to be asked to serve our country.”

“Is that what you’re going to write up as next week’s editorial comment?”

“Maybe so.” Now a certain edge in his voice made her think that he was amused. “I’m making a note of it. I only wish I could personally do more, to serve our country.”

“You’re not thinking of signing up, are you? The Marine Corps?”

The idea of Mr. Luce in the military was ludicrous, unless he was drafted for the position of commander in chief, occupied by FDR at present.

“I’ve thought about it. However, I sincerely believe I can do more for my country where I am.”

“I’m sure that’s true.”

“Mrs. Shipley, if you’re calling from Washington,” the realization dawned on him, “who’s paying for this call?”

“You are, Mr. Luce. Who else?” He was generous with budgets—the
Life
staff traveled well, stayed at the best hotels, ate at the best restaurants—but the little things disturbed him.

“In that case, why don’t you resume doing whatever you were doing before you bothered me.”

“That sounds like a good idea. Thank you, Mr. Luce.”

“Don’t mention it,” he said, with a slight inflection in his voice indicating that he had in fact enjoyed their conversation.

O
n a warm evening in June, Detective Marcus Kreindler happened to be driving north on the East River Drive. He was headed from Twenty-third Street to the Triborough Bridge and his home in Queens. He had the radio on, big band music, and all four windows down. A nice sea breeze came in from the river. The tide was high. The scent was, well, tidal. Salty, fresh, and sewage laden. Exactly what you’d expect from a tidal strait that functioned as a sewer at several points along its course. From heaven to hell, that was his city, and he savored it all. A police boat glided along the water. He stretched around to see if he recognized any of the guys, but he didn’t.

He liked the East River Drive, because it didn’t have any traffic. As of a few weeks ago, the highway was open all the way to 125th Street. This particular section, from Twenty-third Street to Thirty-fourth Street, had been constructed on landfill that was made from the rubble of the bombed-out city of Bristol, England. Bristol was bombed in March and April of 1941, and the rubble was brought over as ballast on merchant ships. Once the rubble got to New York, a bulkhead was constructed in the river, and the rubble was poured in, enough to make something like fourteen acres of new land, according to the newspaper. Lots of praise and fanfare had greeted this rubble re-use. Kreindler had even seen a picture of the plaque that was going to be put on the pedestrian bridge at Twenty-fifth Street commemo
rating the whole thing and praising the bravery of the people of Bristol when their homes were bombed. Kreindler didn’t think they had much choice in the matter. And he didn’t see anything to brag about: chunks of people’s houses, churches, and shops poured into the river to make landfill for a highway. Doubtless some body parts were mixed in with the rubble to boot, not on purpose, but when death’s all around, you can’t keep track of every finger and toe. He tried not to think about fingers and toes in the land beneath his tires.

Instead he contemplated breweries. The river was on his right, and on his left were warehouses, factories, and yes, breweries. He caught a whiff of hops on the air. He was looking forward to enjoying a cold beer when he got home. He reached Thirty-eighth Street, and passed Consolidated Edison’s gigantic generating plant, dwarfing everything else like a monster. The plant was gone in a second as he entered the Forties. Here he was assaulted by the stench from the stockyards and slaughterhouses. His buddies who worked this district said you got used to the stench after a while. Didn’t even notice it anymore. The stench was accompanied by bleating, mooing, and oinking. Cattle, sheep, and hogs arrived in Manhattan on two-story barges that looked like floating paddocks. Four of these paddocks were docked right now. Because of the highway, nowadays the livestock were unloaded onto narrow, open waterside pens and then moved through tunnels that led under the highway and into the slaughterhouses. Yep, the animals were killed, processed, and eaten right here on the island of Manhattan. What a place. Once he’d had a homicide on one of those floating paddocks. It was arranged to look like an accident, guy getting trampled in a cow stampede. But hoof marks couldn’t hide a bullet in the back of the head. Soon there’d be homicides in the under-the-highway tunnels, he didn’t doubt.

Now he was driving alongside the Fifties, the rich folks’ blocks…the River House and the River Club, Sutton Place and Sutton Square. The River Club actually had a dock for yachts to tie up. Once he’d
seen a Chinese junk pulled up there, and it sure did look like junk. Now he was approaching the Queensboro Bridge.

Kreindler spent so much of his workday at the waterfront, he’d started to think of New York City as Venice. Venice with cliffs. He’d never been to Venice, but he’d seen pictures in
Life
magazine. Most people forgot that in New York, water was everywhere, lapping into coves and inlets that lurked unseen until they became the crossing point from life to death.

Like right here. He drove under the Queensboro Bridge into the Sixties and saw the Rockefeller Institute silhouetted in the red sunset at the top of the bluff. He signaled, pulled over, and stopped. He kept his signal light on as a warning, although it didn’t much matter. There were so few cars on the East River Drive that his stopping made no difference to the flow, and he didn’t care if it did. A couple of months ago he was in a squad car with an old buddy. They took a great deal of enjoyment in slowing traffic heading north on Central Park West by double-parking at Seventieth Street to eat their sandwiches. The drivers behind didn’t dare honk, just slowly maneuvered themselves into a single file and passed around. Traffic backed up all the way to Columbus Circle. That fifteen-minute experience still gave him an immense sense of satisfaction.

“Happened to be driving north on the East River Drive” was incorrect. He had to face facts, because he amounted to nothing if he didn’t face facts. The Queensboro Bridge was his usual route home, and unlike the Triborough, it was free. But Kreindler was willing to toss his quarter in the bin at the Triborough for this view. His eyes followed a line from the top of the cliff down to the point where the body had landed.

Only then it wasn’t a body, not when it was falling. Then it was a woman in the prime of life, with everything to live for, a great job (she was the type who wanted a great job, not just a way to earn money until she got married), lots of friends, men asking for her phone number. A
future to look forward to. What did she think about while she was…Kreindler hoped it happened so fast that she didn’t have time to think of anything.

Maybe it was an accident after all, like he was forced to say in his official report and what the coroner had ruled. So much of life was like that: one false step and it’s over. This past winter, Kreindler had slipped on the ice in front of his own house, needed twelve stitches on his chin and the doctor said he was lucky he didn’t break his jaw. He’d never have heard the end of it from the guys if, after forty years on the job, he’d broken his jaw on his own front stoop.

Some instinct kept telling him that Dr. Lucretia Stanton’s death was no accident. But it didn’t strike him as premeditated either. Pushing a woman off a cliff—it was crude. Impulsive. Somebody with a grudge or a hope saw an opportunity and took it. Who? Someone from the inside, or from the outside? The day after she died he’d checked the entry log kept at the Institute gatehouse, but standing there for ten minutes he saw a half dozen well-dressed visitors gain entry with only a nod and a smile. The guard insisted he knew them all, became irate at a suggestion that maybe he didn’t, but even so.

The problem was, Kreindler couldn’t forget her. He’d seen her, there at the bottom of the cliff, her full, wavy hair hiding her injuries. He’d learned about the unusual life she led. Some of his buddies would think her life was odd, eccentric, abnormal even. But Kreindler had seen enough abnormality over the years that he didn’t pass judgment against Tia Stanton. Instead his heart went out to her, as if she were his daughter. How had she ended up there, alongside the weeds and old newspapers and crushed seashells, amid the riverbank detritus of his city?

Who stood to gain the most from the green mold and all the other colored mold he’d seen in her laboratory? Not a question he’d ever asked before. And yet, in essence it was the same question he asked in almost every case, if you replaced the word
mold
with the word
money
. Even he knew enough about science and business to know that growing mold in a roomful of jam jars and bedpans didn’t translate into supplying the entire nation with a life-saving medicine. A lot of middlemen had to be involved, each one taking his cut along the way. And that cut wasn’t necessarily money. It could also be fame and glory, love or sex, revenge, punishment for slights real or imagined.

He didn’t discount the possibility of espionage of the Kraut or Jap variety. Tomorrow he’d spend some time walking around Yorkville, calling in some chits, seeing if anybody in the Bund had heard anything. Officially, the Bund didn’t exist anymore. Got themselves arrested, suppressed, banned, preaching their stupid Nazi slogans, marching around with swastika flags, strutting in their imitation SS uniforms. Bundesführer Kuhn had even gotten himself locked up for embezzlement.

Unofficially, it was a different story. Scratch the surface, and they were still there. Every now and again Kreindler found the group’s hidden stalwarts useful.

Besides, he liked walking around Yorkville. The neighborhood reminded him of his mother. She spent forty-six years, ages eighteen to sixty-four, working behind the counter at Heidelberg Candies on Second Avenue at Eighty-fourth Street. She came home every day smelling of the chocolates they made in the back. When he was a boy, they’d sit side by side on the couch while she helped him with his reading. The scent of chocolate from her clothes and her hair surrounded him. Kreindler’s father died young: he’d worked construction, stepped on a nail sticking out of a stack of wood, got tetanus, that was it.

Kreindler liked to hear German spoken on the streets of Yorkville. He savored the scent of German cooking. Hard to admit to German ancestry nowadays—and in previous days, too. His actual name was
Markus
, but he’d changed it to
Marcus
during the last war. The Great War. The War to End All Wars. The idiots in the Bund trusted him because of his ancestry, never putting two and two together to see he was exploiting them.

Tomorrow he’d enjoy a good meal of sauerbraten and
Kartoffelklösse
over at Hans Jaeger’s at Lex and Eighty-fifth. Just sitting there having lunch, slowly sipping a beer, he’d learn more than Andrew Barnett ever could from his desk at the highfalutin Carnegie Institution in Washington. He’d have
Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte
for dessert, in honor of his mother.

Yes, it was wartime and everybody had their very important work to do. Well, this was his important work. He was sixty-five but he wouldn’t be retiring anytime soon. Not with the younger guys heading off to war, a lot of them volunteering, God preserve them, especially his partner Sean. Kreindler prided himself on being a patient man. Things came up in life. Strange coincidences. Opportunities that you never foresaw. He was prepared to wait a long time on this one, moving forward with his other work while keeping this in the background. He’d take the risk of a turf war. He’d operate on his own until the truth rolled itself out like a red carpet, the kind they used when big shots visited City Hall.

It was getting dark. He turned on the headlights. Reversed the turn signal. Checked the rearview mirror. He pressed the accelerator, smoothly reentering the sparse flow of traffic. The cooling air carried the light ocean scent he loved at the end of a hot day. In the twilight, the highway looked almost beautiful in its gently curving path along the river. The river itself was smooth and black. The dimmed-out lights of the Triborough Bridge flickered in the distance like a delicate sweep of stars.