Absent Friends

LAURA'S STORY

Chapter 14

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Sutter's Mill

November 1, 2001

Afterward, whenever Laura reviewed her tapes—and she'd had both recorders going, of course she had, and both recorders played back exactly the same sounds, told exactly the same story, of course they did (it was like watching the film of the second plane hitting, the footage looped endlessly on TV and you watched it over and over, helplessly hoping this time it would be different)—none of the early part, the interview when she'd been sitting alone with Eddie Spano, sounded familiar to her. It was as though she were listening to the sound track of a film she hadn't seen. It wasn't until the knock, the creaking open of the trailer door, the new voice, that the images started to come; and even then, they were spotty. Until the shouting started. This she remembered. This sprang into full view. The rest of the morning from that point on was clear and sharp to her, full of detail, unrolling in perfect sync with her tapes, and no matter what she did, she was sure—she was afraid—she would never be able to stop seeing it.

Here, at the beginning, on the tape, was Eddie Spano, just as she entered his office. (He'd been sitting behind his desk, a bald, pudgy man. Had he looked up? He must have. Had he stood? No, he hadn't.) Impatient growl: “What?”

Her own voice, words she'd said a million times but didn't now remember saying to Eddie Spano. “Laura Stone, New York Tribune.”

“Great.” A snort, caught for all time. “Go ahead, sit down. Or stand, I don't care. This isn't an interview. This is an order. Lay the f*ck off.”

(A rustle on the tape. Laura sitting down?)

“Mr. Spano, my paper has information—”

“Your paper hasn't got shit.” (A small sound, a slap? Spano, irritated, closing the file in front of him; it might be that.) “I hardly knew Jimmy McCaffery, I don't know that goddamn lawyer, I never gave Keegan's widow any f*cking money. I don't know anything about any of this shit, and I'm tired of seeing my name every f*cking day in your f*cking paper. Is that clear enough?”

Her voice again, persistent. “What was your involvement in the death of Jack Molloy?”

“You don't listen, do you?”

“If I'm wrong, show me where. What was your—”

“Zip. Zero. Nada. None. I make my point, or I have to draw you a picture?”

“I'm interested in the truth, Mr. Spano.”

“Bullshit. You and your paper are interested in smearing shit all over me. I don't know what I ever did to you, but, sweetie, people who play with fire get burned. Ask Jimmy McCaffery.”

“What can you tell me about the negotiations going on before Jack Molloy's death?”

“Negotiations? Jesus Christ, lady, what's wrong with you? What the f*ck are you talking about?”

“You and Molloy were making some kind of deal. What was it?”

“Deal?” (A change in Spano's voice. This must be when he adjusted his game to Laura's, to her tough-broad-reporter, to her cold eyes that told him she'd faced down nastier specimens than Eddie Spano. At least, that's what her eyes were supposed to be saying. That was how, heading over in the cab, she'd decided to approach him. Had she? It sounded like that, on the tape. But she didn't know. She didn't know.) “What was this ‘deal' supposed to be about?”

“After Jack Molloy died, you ended up with a lot of the Molloy empire.”

“Empire? Shit, you're killing me. Molloy was a punk, his old man was a small-time ass-wipe.”

“But you don't deny you wound up running the Molloy rackets?”

“Rackets? You learn to talk like that from the movies?”

“You don't deny it?”

“Of course I deny it. I don't know anything about any ‘rackets.' I'm a businessman.”

“What kind of business?”

“Real estate. Insurance. I have investments all over this island.”

“So did Big Mike Molloy. Drugs, gambling—”

“Lady, are you too stupid to live?”

“Was Harry Randall?”

“What?”

“Too stupid to live. Someone murdered Harry Randall. He was breaking this story, and—”

“F*ck this shit! Lady, that's enough. One more word of this shit in the paper, and—”

Now—there, on the tape—now the knock, now the hinges whining.

Now the pictures started.

Eddie Spano, swinging his flushed face from Laura to the door. “Oh f*ck, what now? Who the hell—?”

And the new voice. “Phil Constantine, Mr. Spano.” A pause, and then, “I work for you.”

Laura could see them standing just inside: the lawyer tall—taller than he'd seemed in his own office, and she remembered thinking that was odd—suit and tie, mud spots on his polished shoes. The young man—this must be Kevin Keegan, she realized, the center of this storm—red hair, muscled, and leaning on crutches. This picture was a snapshot, though, not a movie yet.

But the sound track went on.

“You work for—wait, you're that lawyer f*ck? Jesus! What is this? Are you as psycho as she is? You do not work for me. I don't know what the hell you people want—”

“I just want to hear you say it, Eddie.” Constantine was smiling. Laura saw that. Smiling. A glittering, hungry grin. “I've been your bagman for twenty years, and I just want to hear you say it. I want you to tell Kevin what it's all been about.”

“Look. Shit. I don't know what you people are up to, but I've had enough.” A scraping sound as Spano pushed back his chair. Laura had an idea he'd been about to say something else, but Constantine's eyes had caught hers, and Spano saw that. “F*ck,” Spano said instead. “What? You two in this together? This some kind of shakedown? Get the f*ck out of here. All of you. Out.”

“Ms. Stone, that means you,” Constantine said. “We'll leave soon, too, Eddie. But I passed your money to Sally Keegan for eighteen years. I was a good boy. I didn't ask questions. Jimmy McCaffery said it was his, I closed my eyes and covered my ears and passed it on.

“I'm likely to be disbarred, Eddie. I may even go to jail. I just want to know what it was all about. I want Kevin to know. Ms. Stone.” Now Constantine turned to Laura, and the details filled in, spreading from the center to the farthest edges as Constantine said to her, “Ms. Stone, get lost. Mr. Spano wants this off the record. So do I.”

Laura was not about to get lost. What reporter could leave a scene like this? But she was thinking furiously. It was obviously her presence that was making Spano deny he'd used Constantine to pass the money; what reason would he have to lie to Constantine, even if McCaffery had been their go-between, even if the two had never met? If she left, so they could have this out alone, could she hide somewhere, lurk under the windows, eavesdrop? Outside a trailer on concrete blocks in the mud of a building site? The men with the American flag decals on their hard hats would spot her, circle toward her, surround her like a pack of wolves.

No, she'd stay until Spano had her physically thrown out (and maybe he wouldn't; after all, think how that would look in the paper) and play them off against each other. She'd done that before. It wasn't so hard. Everyone wanted to come out looking good, everyone wanted his story to be the one that was believed.

That was Laura's plan. “If you—” She never got any further than that.

“F*ck that!” Keegan exploded. “Let her stay! Let her hear it, let everyone hear it!”

“Kev—”

“No, Uncle Phil.” Keegan's voice took on a different tone, a tone Laura knew. She'd heard it in the voices of people she'd interviewed in those first days after the towers fell, people coming to accept what they had been desperately fighting: that the “missing” posters, the hospital searches, the frantic digging at Ground Zero, could not help them. It was the voice of someone admitting the shattering truth that a loved one was gone, and in that voice Kevin Keegan said, “No, Uncle Phil.”