William Franklin
Spotting me, the white-haired man behind the front desk of Eighty-Eight East End Avenue began to smile, then recognizing me, frowned. “Hi,” I said, trying to sound like someone who was not going to faint.
“Welcome back.” He attempted a welcoming smile but failed.
“Thanks. I was hoping to see William Franklin.”
“He is working in the park today.”
“Really?”
“Yes, he volunteers. I’m guessing you’ll find him on the esplanade.”
“Thanks.”
William Franklin was kneeling on the ground next to several wooden stakes and a group of black-eyed Susans that had tilted over. His white hair fluttered in the river’s breeze, and a smudge of dirt sat on the tip of his dignified nose. He smiled up at me. “Hello dear, can I help you?”
“My name is Joy, and I’m a student at NYU. I’m taking an urban planning class and thought that you would be the perfect person to speak to about 88 East End Avenue.”
“I’d be happy to tell you about her,” he said, his voice filled with a father’s pride. “Just give me a couple of minutes.”
I sat on a bench nearby and watched as he finished stacking the black-eyed Susans, using string to tie the long stems to the wooden stakes he’d beat into the ground. Franklin stood up and stretched, then reached down and grabbed a vine with white flowers with both hands. He ripped it out of the earth and dragged it over to a trash can. The flowers were pretty, and I didn’t understand why he was destroying them.
“Datura,” he said when he saw my face. “It’s poisonous. Just one of their seeds can make you crazy, three will kill you.”
“Scary,” I said.
Franklin wiped his hands on the seat of his work pants and then smiled at me. “How can I help you?”
“First let me buy you a cup of coffee.”
“That sounds nice.” William Franklin walked with the ease of man who knew his way around. He led the way to a quiet coffee shop I hadn’t noticed on 80th Street, all the time pointing out buildings and telling me little bits of history. He smiled the whole time, clearly enjoying his guided tour. We both ordered ice coffees, and Franklin joked with the young woman behind the counter that soon he would see her at the debutante ball. She smiled at him, humoring an old man’s ancient notions about what girls like her dreamed of.
“Would you like to walk with these?” he asked, signaling with his bushy eyebrows toward the park.
“Sounds great.”
“I worry we will have a heat wave soon,” William said as we strolled down 80th toward the river.
“I hope the city doesn’t lose power.”
“Luckily for the residents of Eighty-Eight, we have a generator.”
“That’s helpful.”
“Yes. We have used it during several emergencies.”
“I guess there’s plenty of room for a generator in that giant basement of yours.” Franklin nodded. “George Chamers said it was one of the largest in the area.” We entered the park and turned onto the esplanade.
“Do you know George personally?” He nodded at a woman making her way using a walker. She smiled back at him.
“No, I was just doing research. How is it that the basement is so large and uncharted?”
“There are several reasons the basement is so hard to navigate. Firstly, the original blueprints were lost in a fire in the late ’30s. Then, as the years passed, there have been many additions and subtractions to the basement of Eighty Eight. The building used to have a yacht club. It extended directly to the water. But now, of course, there is the F.D.R.” He looked out to Hell’s Gate, his eyes squinting against the sun. “Lots of changes.”
“Chamers joked that there are passages directly to the park.” Franklin smiled and shook his head. “Are the rumors true?”
“There are lots of rumors in this world. Some people say that there are passages that lead right into Gracie Mansion. The land was originally owned by the Walton Family. Scared of increased conflict with the British, they built tunnels under their house for an easy escape. This proved unnecessary since George Washington and his troops appropriated the estate in 1776.” Franklin laughed softly at the Walton’s bad luck. We were approaching the memorial for the soldiers who drowned aboard the H.M.S. Hussar when William Franklin stopped.
“There are rumors that the Hussar was carrying the British payroll when she sank, that millions upon millions of dollars’ worth of gold bullion rests a mere 80 feet beneath the surface, lying within easy reach of common scuba.”
I felt a tingling all over. Gold. Scuba. Was it possible that the coins Joseph gave Charlene came from the Hussar?
“Men much smarter than you and I have gone looking for it. Simon Lake, the famous submarine inventor, spent many years and much of his fortune groping around in those murky waters looking for the Hussar. In 1985, Barry Clifford, the well-known aquatic salvager, claimed he’d found the wreck but nothing came of it.”
“Do you think there’s gold down there?”
He shook his head and laughed. “I doubt it, and even if there was, it would be under rubble. Pot Rock, the rock the Hussar struck, was demolished, along with the rest of the reefs that helped earn this stretch of water its name.” I looked at Hell’s Gate, churning under the hot sun.
“What about tunnels into Gracie Mansion? Do you believe those rumors?" He smiled and shrugged.
“Who knows? There are supposed to be tunnels leading in and out of the White House. Why not Gracie Mansion?”
“Are there tunnels that lead into the park?”
“You ask a lot of questions.”
“You have a lot of knowledge.”
He laughed. “Was it your mother who taught you flattering old men would get you what you wanted?” I laughed but didn’t answer.
We strolled on, circling Gracie Mansion, in silence.
Secret F*cking Passageways
“Mulberry, hey. I’m in the park, and I just learned something amazing. Did you know there were secret passages built under Carl Schurz Park before the revolutionary war?”
“What?”
“There was a passageway, a secret f*cking passageway.” I was pacing under the shade of a cherry tree.
“I mean, there have to be. The blond woman either knows the building well, or someone in the building taught her how to go. The thing is there can’t be that many people who know about this.”
“Slow down, Joy.”
“Are you listening to me? We’re almost there. I can feel it.”
“OK. OK. I need you to start over.” I watched a squirrel chase another down a tree.
“Mulberry, Jesus. Don’t you understand what I’m saying? Secret passageways. Tunnels, underground, leading from one place to another. Ways to travel underground without anyone knowing.”
“Where?”
“Are you serious? In the goddamned park.” The squirrels stopped near a fence and chattered at each other. They waved their little arms around and bobbed their heads.
“William Franklin didn’t mention this to the police.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s not true.”
“But why would he hide it?”
“You’re joking, right?” One squirrel started chasing the second. They ran into the bushes.
“Sorry. I’m just tired.”
“Alright,” I exhaled loudly. “Look, is Charlene safe now?”
“Yes, she is.”
“Ok, so you need to look forward. You need to understand that this isn’t over.” I could hear him bristle over the phone.
“I'm on my way.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.” I flipped my phone shut loud enough that I hoped he could hear it. The squirrels started making some serious noise—loud squeaking and thumping. My prurient interest overcame my decorum, and I peered through the bushes. They were doing it on top of a square hatch marked “Drainage.”
The squirrels finished up and scurried off. I was still staring at the drainage hatch. I cocked my head. “That’s a hatch,” I said out loud.
Before thinking about it too much, I climbed over the wrought-iron fence into the bushes. Ducking down, I was invisible from the pedestrian path as long as no one was looking for a young woman crouching in the foliage. The hatch hinges looked well-oiled, but when I tried to lift the metal top, it didn't move. I pulled with all my strength against the solid edge, but nothing. Sweat dripped into my eyes. There had to be some kind of trick to the thing. But all I saw around me were dirt, branches, and sprinkler heads. Digging my fingers into the dirt, under the edge of the hatch, I pulled up. Nothing happened.
I sat back on my haunches. Dirt, branches, and sprinkler heads. Then I saw it. One of the sprinkler heads was not like the others. While most of them were silver and modern-looking, the one closest to the hatch was bronze and stained green from age. I pushed on it, I pulled on it, and then I kicked it. The head shifted slightly, and the hatch opened silently.
I peered into the dark hole, now exposed. Cool air scented by the river hit my face. I opened my cell phone and lowered it into the hole. In the dim, gray light of my cell phone’s face, wooden steps glowed. “Holy shit.” I glanced around me: branches, dirt, and sprinkler heads. I stepped down into the cool air. Goose bumps spread from my ankles up to my nose as I descended.
Dropping Into Darkness
Sunlight streaming down from the opening cast my shadow over where I was stepping, filling the space below me with a murky darkness. At the tenth step, the metal hatch began to close. I held my breath and squeezed my eyes shut. It must be an automatic door, I told myself. The metal thunked into place above me, and I was left alone with the cold, packed-dirt walls, the solid wooden steps, and the reassuring light of my phone. I kept moving down.
About 30 steps later, I reached the ground. A hallway faded into blackness in front of me. The ceiling was strung with light bulbs in yellow plastic cages. There was no obvious switch to turn them on. Two steps later, the bulbs brightened with a whirr of electric current. The hall ended 40 feet in front of me at a gray door with a chrome knob.
The knob turned easily, and the door opened into a dark, cramped space. I felt my way forward and quickly found another doorknob. Turning this one got me into a larger dark space. I found a light switch on the wall to my right, and when I flicked it on, I discovered I’d come out of a closet. The room I was standing in was empty, and there was a door to my left. I lingered on the threshold peering out onto a hallway that had the telltale white walls and sporadic lighting of Eighty-Eight East End Avenue. The hall ended in a T. I decided to go left because it was as good as going right, but before venturing beyond my doorway, I turned to study it.
There was nothing that would distinguish it from any other door in any hall. I took a pen out of my shoulder bag and made the smallest of blue marks by the middle hinge. Then I started left. I reached the hallway at the end of the first hall and realized I didn’t have a plan. Should I try every door? Should I wait for Mulberry to arrive and then try every door?
I was suddenly paralyzed with indecision, and that turned into fear faster than squirrels copulate. I broke out in a sweat. As the fear was hitting its peak, and all I could hear was the rushing of the blood through my veins, a door behind me opened and voices and footsteps echoed.
The halls I could see were empty. The acoustics made it impossible to tell where the footsteps were coming from. I went to take a step and stopped, my foot hanging in the air. They would hear me. There was a door only a few feet away, and I wracked my brain over how to get to it without making a sound. Then again, maybe they already knew I was here. If there were sensors to close the hatch and turn the lights on, why wouldn’t those same sensors notify someone in a room somewhere filled with security monitors that an intruder had entered the building? Maybe it didn’t matter if I made any noise.
“Christ, you’re such an idiot,” a man’s voice said. “Betting on the Mets is like betting on the fat guy in an eating contest.”
“You just can’t understand that the Mets are the greatest team in the world,” said another man. I pictured potbellies and easy laughter. I took as soft a step as I knew how. The slightest of taps echoed through the hall. I took another quiet step and was standing in front of the door. “If you refuse to acknowledge the greatness of the Yankees, there’s no help for you.”
I wrapped my sweaty palm around the knob. It opened nice and quiet. I went in and closed the door behind me. Leaning against it, trying not to breathe or let my heart beat, I listened. Through the door, I could still hear the muffled voices of the men. I was pretty sure they were getting closer. Light leaked in under the door and lit my sneakers. I took two steps back, just in case they were looking under doors for shoes. Their shadows passed by, blocking the light for a second. “Alright, I’ll bet you $500.”
“You know what? Make it a thou—” The rest was muffled. Their voices gone, I peeked out the door. What was I doing down here? I shook my head trying to physically remove my doubt. I started trying doorknobs. The first room was filled with, as far as I could tell, a tenant’s storage. A milk crate of vinyl records sat next to a turntable. A puffy, black-leather couch covered in plastic was pushed up against the far wall. A glass coffee table with chrome legs was next to the couch. Two wet suits spilled out of an open box. A married man’s bachelor’s belongings, I guessed.
The next room held sealed wooden crates. “Fragile” was stenciled in red across them. I tapped on the crate closest to me. A hollow echo told me it was empty. So were the next and the one after that. I tried opening one, but it was as sealed as it appeared. “Strange,” I told the empty room. By one of the crates, I found a flashlight. “The Expedition 1900 Aluminum Limited Edition L.E.D.” was inscribed into the handle. When I turned it on, a burst of light filled the room. The beam was wide and exceptionally strong. I took that baby with me.
While searching my third room, an apparent dumping ground for old lobby furniture, it occurred to me that I should be looking for closets. The tunnel that William Franklin showed me originated in a closet, as had my entrance, so maybe other tunnels started in closets. There was no closet in the bachelor’s room or the wooden-crate room. The third room had a closet, but it was empty, and no amount of tapping on the back wall revealed a secret passageway. I looked at the paisley couches piled around me. There was no way I would ever find anything using this method. I sat down on a couch. A puff of dust rose around me. It stung my eyes and made me sneeze. I had to resist the urge to start crying.
“What am I doing here?” I whispered to the paisley. I got no response and got angry. “Someone is killing people and getting away with it, and I’m the only one who cares.” My voice was rising, but I didn’t care who heard. I punched a cushion, and dust flew back at me. “Stupid dust,” I coughed. “What is wrong with this world? Dammit.” I stood up and paced. “You know it shouldn’t be up to people like me to deal with this. The police should be down here looking for tunnels. Why aren’t they looking for them? Oh, because some old man likes to get his rocks off in a kinky way. So stupid. This whole thing is so f*cking stupid.” I threw myself back onto the couch. I dropped my new super flashlight on the ground and covered my face.
Frustrated I threw my hands aside and lay looking up at the ceiling. Directly above me was a fire sprinkler-head. I sat up and looked around. There were three, all linked to the same pipe. I stood on the couch and reached for the closest one. I pushed up, I pulled left, then right, I pulled down. Nothing. I moved one of the chairs under the next one and tried again, but nothing. The third sprinkler brought the same results. I went back to the first and tried twisting it. The couch began to sink. I sat down quickly. The couch was definitely being lowered into the ground; a whole section of the floor was dropping into darkness.
A Tiny Room
The trap door clinked and clanked down into a small room with a very low ceiling. Standing up, I scanned for an exit. A single exposed bulb flicked and then glowed steadily from a socket in the ceiling. I stepped off the platform, and it immediately began to thunk and click and rise. I watched it go. As the floor from above became the ceiling again with a sickening click, I reminded myself that there was a way out of this room.Even though there was no obvious exit, that didn’t mean there wasn’t one—unless this was a trap to catch nosy dog-walkers who wandered around in basements they weren’t supposed to be in. I wrestled with fear for a couple of minutes, staring blankly at the long column that rose out of the floor and supported the platform. Made of dark metal it appeared to be smeared with oil. Maybe they would release gas into the room to knock me out, I thought. “Shut up,” I told myself. “Take a deep breath, and find the exit. OK. Good idea.”
I moved around the tight space, running my hands over the concrete walls, trying to find anything that could be a lever or pressure point. I knocked on the walls and stamped on the floor but heard only solid thunks. Panic rose again, but I pushed it down. There had to be a way out. This place was just a foyer to something bigger. It had to be. I went over the whole room once. Then again. And again. After about a half an hour, the room was becoming stuffy. There was no air coming from anywhere. “I'm going to die here. No you’re not. Shut up. Don’t be dramatic. Don’t be dramatic. I’m in a f*cking coffin. Shut up. OK. OK. You’re going to be OK.”
I sat down on the floor and concentrated on calming myself down. Deep breaths in…and out…and in…and out. I took a yoga class once on one of my I’m-going-to-get-in-shape kicks, and the instructor taught us some breathing techniques that I tried to remember. The teacher was this elastic, dark-haired beauty who kept saying, “Good. That’s good, guys,” Even when she was demonstrating something, she would tell us we were doing great. In…and out…and in…and out.
I opened my eyes to the small, dark room. “I’m going to get out of here,” I told it. I stood up and walked the perimeter again. There had to be something. I looked at where the column entered the floor. I touched it. My fingers came back covered in oil. Someone had to oil it. Oil didn’t just get on columns by itself, right? A machine like this had to be maintained. There was no point in having a complicated platform-lowering machine unless it led somewhere. I put my hand back on the column. I felt around the base. There was a slight draft. I breathed in deeply. There was a way out. I just had to find it.
Another walk around the room. The walls, the floor, and the ceiling were all rough concrete. I ran my hands along the uneven surfaces. I closed my eyes and put both hands on a wall. I pushed. Nothing. I pushed harder, still nothing. I went to the next wall and tried it again. Nothing. The third wall I pushed moved back with a lurch. I snapped my eyes opened. A breeze hit my face and I filled my lungs with the air. It smelled of mold, dirt, and damp. I pushed harder. The whole wall moved back another foot. A string of bulbs illuminated a long hall that ended in what looked like elevator doors.
There is Only One Residence in the Park
I walked down the hall, constantly turning back to see that my wall was still open. I reached the doors and pushed an unmarked button next to them. The doors opened. Inside was a silver room that had to be an elevator. I stepped in. There was no panel of buttons, but after the doors slid shut, I felt it move up. Moments later I was standing at the entrance to a study. A large, dark, wooden desk faced me. On the walls, paintings of Revolutionary War battles hung. Ships cannoned each other in the dark night, illuminated by orange bursts of ammunition. I stepped into the room, the elevator doors closed behind me, then two bookcases moved to cover the doors.
I walked to the window. A manicured lawn dotted with statues, and in the distance, Hell’s Gate. As far as I could tell, the building was in the park. So I wasn’t in Eighty-Eight East End anymore. But what building was in the park? There is only one building in the park—Gracie Mother-f*cking Mansion. The door opened behind me, and the mayor of New York City walked into the room.
He stared stock-still, the door open behind him, one foot in the room, one out. He looked shorter than on TV, but there was no mistaking his stocky frame, his thinning blond hair and his famous blue eyes. “Books move,” I said and pointed at the bookcases hiding the entrance to the elevator. His eyebrows moved together to form a confused expression. “The books move,” I tried again and pointed enthusiastically at the shelves. His eyebrows got closer.
“There’s an elevator,” I managed. His face broke into the most wonderful, charming smile, and I suddenly wished I had a baby so that he could kiss it.
“I don’t know how you got in here,” he laughed a conspiratorial laugh, “or why, but I like you.” He nodded, agreeing with himself.
“I voted for you.”
“Thank you.” He looked genuine when he said it.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know I was breaking into your house. There’s an elevator behind those books.” He walked over to his desk and opened a drawer, then closed it.
“I don’t know about that.” He laughed again. “But one thing I do know is that you are very creative.” Two security men—huge, hulking men in dark, ill-fitting suits—burst through the door. They didn’t pause; they didn't talk; they rushed me. I hit the ground hard. One was on my chest, and I could barely breathe. The other pointed a gun at me.
“Don’t move!” the one on my chest yelled in my face. His breath huffed and puffed onto my cheeks. I gasped for air.
“You’re under arrest,” the one with the gun told me. I gasped for breath.
“Don’t hurt her,” I heard the mayor say. I squeaked. I saw spots. “You’re crushing her.”
“Sir, we need to evacuate you,” I heard a woman’s voice say.
“Don’t be ridiculous. She’s just a confused girl.”
“Don't move.”
“Can’t breathe.”
“Dammit, she can’t breathe.”
“Sir, we need to evacuate you.”
“Get off her.”
“Sir. I must insist.”
“Get off her.” The large man was suddenly off me, and I coughed, desperate for air. I felt bruised and unable to breathe. “Are you OK?” Those famous blue eyes searched my face. He was down on his knees, holding my shoulders. “You’re going to be OK. Breathe slowly. Slow.” I tried to take my time, but panic seized my lungs and I couldn’t breathe. “You got the wind knocked out of you. It will pass,” he told me, but it was not the blow that was constricting my breath. It was fear. I knew that hot breath. I recognized the man who had bowled me over. He was that faceless, hulking figure who barreled off the train away from me, and now I was on the floor in front of him without my breath. “Slowly,” Kurt Jessup told me again, “slowly.” The big man watched me watch him. Did he know I knew who he was? Gasp. “Slowly.” Jessup massaged my shoulder. Gasp. And what about this guy? He was the big man’s boss, Gasp. He had to be involved. Breathe, breathe, breathe.
The mayor stood up and offered me his hand. I took it, and he pulled me off the floor. A woman with a pinched face and an expensive red suit stood next to the desk, trying to hide her indignation. The mayor turned to his bodyguards.
“Thank you, gentlemen. You can wait outside.” They left without a word, but my attacker scowled as he followed his partner out the door. His retreating back was hauntingly familiar. “Samantha, you can go, too. Thank you for responding so quickly.” Her nostrils flared, but she left, leaving us alone again. “Now, what’s this about an elevator?” he asked, smiling.
“Um. There’s an elevator behind the bookcase,” I said, unsure how to act or what was happening.
“Who told you that?”
“No one. I found it. It connects to the basement of Eighty-Eight East End Avenue.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Will you show me?”
“I don’t know how to open it.”
“I think if you opened it once, you can open it again.” He smiled at me.
“I can try.”
“That’s all anyone could ask.” I walked over to the bookcases and stared. Did he really not know how to open the thing? Was there any doubt that he was involved in this? He’d known both victims; he had a secret tunnel leading from his office to the basement of Eighty-Eight East End. Was there any way he was innocent?
“As you can tell, I’m a little obsessed with the Revolutionary War,” the mayor said behind me. I scanned the books, Great Ships of the Revolutionary War, The Turning Point of the War for Freedom, A Guide to Revolutionary War Battle Sites.
“I see.”
“I am especially interested in the ships of the period. I’m an avid sailor and diver, you know.”
“I've heard that,” I said, pretending I didn’t know about him and Tate being scuba buddies. As if I didn’t suspect they’d found the Hussar.
“You know, this area, the whole Hudson Valley, was crucial to the Revolutionary War,” he said. I turned to see him looking at me expectantly, leaning lazily against his giant desk.
“I remember something like that from school, I guess.” He took this to mean I was interested.
“You know, the H.M.S. Hussar sank right there.” I was looking at a wall sconce to the left of the bookcase, wondering if it was a lever that would reveal the elevator, so didn’t see where he was pointing, but I knew he meant Hell’s Gate. “She was a British ship. Part of a Cork fleet. They were privateers, which is pretty much the military version of pirate ships.” I pulled on the sconce, then pushed on it. “The Hussar is not famous for any great battle she was in or her effect on the outcome of the Revolutionary War, but rather for the amount of gold and treasures that were on board when she sank.” I moved to the other side of the bookcases to the sconce’s twin. I said nothing, but my mind was racing.
“It is said that the Hussar went down with not only the payroll for the British troops on board, but also commandeered treasure from several American ships. Some say one-and-a-half billion dollars’ worth of treasure rests at the bottom of Hell’s Gate.” Why was he telling me this, I wondered. The sconce had a brass base from which an elegant arm curved toward the ceiling. On top, a white shade rested on a low-wattage bulb.
“Of course, with all of the changes made to the East River since 1780, it is highly unlikely that the wreck is still there.” I pulled on the sconce. “The rock the ship struck that caused its sinking doesn’t even exist anymore.” I pushed on the base. “It was destroyed when Hell’s Gate was cleared in the mid-1800s. You know, it was the largest man-made explosion prior to the atomic era. It sent a 150-foot tower of rock and foam into the air. It’s really quite a fascinating event in New York history. Do you have much interest in the city’s history?” I was taking the shade off the lamp when I realized that he wanted a response. I turned to see him standing next to the giant windows framing Hell’s Gate. The water swirled brown and silver behind him. He was smiling at me, waiting for an answer. He did not look like a killer, a monster who strung up his good friend and demolished the face of another. He looked like a history buff excited by his topic.
“I guess, as much as anyone else,” I answered.
“You seem like a very curious person to find your way in here. That seems like the act of a curious person.”
“I wouldn’t describe myself as curious.” I blushed and turned away. I didn’t know what to do. Was he a madman toying with me, or a political figure trying to understand how I sneaked into his office?
“I have always found this city’s history fascinating. History in general, of course, but New York’s in particular. It is, after all, the greatest city in the world.” I scanned the space between the bookcase and the wall. The cases had slid into place, so there must be some kind of track. I couldn’t see one, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. I looked at the wall, the path the case would have to travel to reveal the elevator. It looked like a normal wall, white with a high baseboard and crown molding.
“Wouldn’t you agree? Don’t you think this is the greatest city in the world?”
“Yes. That’s why I live here.”
“Were you born here?”
“I moved here five years ago,” I said without turning around. There was something discolored on the baseboard to the right of the bookcases. It looked like a shoe scuff, but I wasn’t sure. I bent over to look at it more closely.
“That’s one of the things I love about New York—everyone is from somewhere else. Even me,” he chuckled. “My parents brought me here from Germany when I was only six months old.” The scuff was indeed a scuff. “Where are you from?”
“Beacon.”
“That’s on the Hudson, right?”
“Yes, about an hour north of the city.”
“Are your parents still there?”
“No.” I took a couple of steps back, trying to figure out what to look at next. The two bookcases and the two wall sconces were the only things on the wall. Paintings hung on all the other walls, but this one had large empty spaces on either side of the lamps.
“So where are—”
“Why are there no paintings on the walls?”
“There’re lots of paintings on the walls.” I turned to look at him. He was smiling at me as if I were a small and amusing child who had just mispronounced a word.
“There aren’t any paintings on that wall.” I pointed at the empty wall.
“I don't know. I don’t do my own decorating.” He shrugged his large shoulders and looked around the room as if he’d never been in it before. I looked at the other paintings of Revolutionary War ships blowing the shit out of each other.
“You picked the paintings, didn’t you?”
“No. I have a decorator.”
“Did she put in the bookcases?”
“No. He didn’t.”
“Anything else that came with the room?”
“Those lights,” he pointed at the lights I had been toying with,” and let’s see. Oh, this.” He walked over to a bust of George Washington that sat on a pillar next to an overstuffed armchair. I walked over to it and pushed on Washington’s forehead. His head flipped back and the bookcases slid apart to reveal the stainless steel doors of the elevator. The doors opened, and the small cubed space of the mysterious elevator was exposed.
Big Surprise
“Oh, my God.” The mayor was staring at the elevator, his mouth agape. I watched his face. Was this was really the first time he’d seen the elevator? He took a step toward it, then stopped and looked some more.
“Would you like to go for a ride?”
“Yes. Yes, I would.” We stepped inside. He looked around us as the doors closed. “Where are the buttons?” he asked.
“There aren’t any.” The elevator started down.
“How deep does it go?”
“Not that deep.” The elevator stopped and the doors opened. The long, dim hall stretched before us. I wanted to keep him in front of me, just in case.
“After you.” The mayor stepped into the hall, and I followed. “This leads to a small and rather claustrophobic room up ahead. And then we catch a couch up one flight.” The mayor turned around, a question on his face. “You’ll see.” We walked down the hall in silence. The wall was still open and we stepped into the anteroom. The wall began to close behind us. I took a deep breath and reminded myself that there was a way out.
“What’s going on?” the mayor asked with panic in his voice.
“It’s OK. This happened to me before.” The door thunked into place.
“I don’t like this.” The mayor looked around the stuffy space, his eyes open wide.
“There’s got to be some way of calling the couch down. See, this is the pole it will come down on. It’s a whole section of the floor, really.” Just then the couch began to descend. “Or maybe it’s automatic,” I said. He nodded but didn’t speak as the couch clunked into place. “Have a seat.” I motioned to the dusty paisley couch and the mayor looked at me. “It’s alright,” I assured him.
“I’m sorry. This is just a lot for me to take in all at once.” He sat down. A dust cloud poofed up around him. “How long have you known about this?” he asked. I sat down on the couch next to him.
“I found it like an hour ago. I wonder who built it?” He nodded but didn’t answer me. The couch began to rise. “I can think of a million reasons a person might want to get into Gracie Mansion, but who could build this kind of thing without it being noticed?” He looked up as we approached the room above. I tried to spy a glint of recognition in his eye but there was nothing. It seemed this was all new to him. The floor locked back into place, and we were in the room of abandoned furniture.
“This is a serious matter of security,” the mayor said. “You haven’t told anyone about this, have you?” he asked, looking at me as if I were a security risk.
“No. I’d just arrived into your office when you walked in.”
“This is very serious.” He stood up and walked around the room.
“I know.”
“You can’t tell anyone about this.” He was pacing, head down, lips pursed.
“Do you want to see the path up to the street?” He looked up.
“Definitely. Lead the way.” He motioned toward the door. I stood up and headed for the exit. The mayor followed. I heard him stop, and then I heard a scrape on the floor. As I turned back, a sign telling me that all visitors had to be announced connected with the side of my head. I flew into a high-backed chair. There was blood in my left eye. I tried to scramble up but couldn't control my legs. I looked down at my feet and didn’t understand.
The mayor strode over to me in two swift, determined steps and picked me up by my throat. I clawed at his hands, digging my nails in deep, but his grip tightened. I choked for breath. His blue eyes glittered two inches from my face. I kicked at his knees and his shins. He stood his ground, a slow smile changing the shape of his face. I kicked harder, and his hands tightened. I felt my windpipe close. I struggled, but I just couldn’t breathe.
It was as if I were in a horrible dream, one of the ones where you can’t muster the strength to hit hard enough or scream loud enough, where you are paralyzed and there is nothing you can do. I let my hands fall from his. I could feel myself giving up, hoping to wake up. I closed my eyes and listened to his labored breathing as he struggled to hold me and squeeze me enough to kill me. That’s what he was doing—he was murdering me right here with all this paisley. Kurt Jessup, the mayor of New York, was trying to end me. In that moment, something clicked. My body, drained of energy and oxygen, made one last attempt to keep breathing, keep going, not die. I brought my knee up into his balls.
He cried out the way men will when you knee them in the balls. I pulled away from him. He dropped me, and I hit the ground gasping. Backing away from him on my hands and knees, my brain moving more slowly than my body, I grabbed at my bag. He recovered quickly and came at me again.
His fist connected with my cheek, sending me reeling with spots of light in my eyes, but it didn’t hurt. Nothing hurt. I found the Taser in my bag and turned back on him as he grabbed my arm and began to haul me up. I fixed the device on his stomach and pressed the button. He went rigid. His eyes bulged from his tan face. I pulled the Taser back and stuck it to where I thought his heart would be and pressed the button again. I felt his shaking. He fell onto his face on the floor. I put the prongs to the back of his neck and zapped him one more time.
When Shit Hits the Fan, the Fan Gets Dirty
Panting hard, I opened the door. The hallway was empty, and I ran. My throat felt bruised and tight, which was making it hard to breathe. Blood was on my hands and leaking into my eye. I wiped it away with my shirt as I looked for my blue mark. I felt the world spinning, and it was getting hard to concentrate. All the doors looked the same, the hallways never-ending. My shoes squeaked on the floor. I stumbled from door to door, leaving a trail of blood, until there it was—my door.
It wouldn’t open. Groaning, I pulled on the knob harder. Tears stung a cut on my cheek. “Come on,” I wheezed. But the door didn’t care that I was bruised and bleeding. I hit the door and collapsed onto the ground. The Taser was still in my hand, and I held it tight to my breast. This wasn’t over. I had to get out.
I reached up and turned the knob. It opened easily. Gathering my strength, I hauled myself up and through the door. I stumbled through the room, into the closet, and through the passage out. The lights came on, and I hurried down the passageway. I just had to get to the surface, to the park, and everything would be fine. I climbed toward the drainage hatch on all fours.
Several steps before I reached it, the door opened, and the sunlight hit my face. I pulled myself up into the bushes. I fell over the iron fence and onto the paving stones. I rolled onto my back and let the sun beat down on me. Hearing footsteps, I turned my head. A woman walking her Pomeranian stopped when she saw me. Her mouth formed into a little O. “Snowball? I whispered. The woman turned and hurried back the way she came. I closed my eyes.
“Joy. Jesus Christ. Joy?” I opened my eyes. Mulberry stood above me, silhouetted against the setting sun. “What happened to you? My God. Are you OK?” I smiled with parched lips.
“I’m alive. And I found the killer.” I closed my eyes again, enjoying the orange-tinted darkness.
“You need a doctor. Jesus, who did this to you?” He reached down and took my arm. I opened my eyes and looked at him. His face was very close, an expression of concern tinged with fear on it. Mulberry smelled like clean laundry and greasy food. He helped me up. “I’m going to take you to the hospital.”
“I think that’s a bad idea.” My head was beginning to clear. “I can’t explain what happened to me.”
“You don’t know?”
“Oh. I know.” I swallowed, trying to dull the pain in my throat but only made it worse. “But I can’t tell anyone.”
“Even me?”
“I mean doctors. I’ll tell you when we get back to your place.”
“I really think you need to go to the hospital. You may need stitches.”
“I’ll be alright,” I told him as we left the park. “Let’s just go to your place. It’s close, right?”
Mulberry lived in a converted tenement. It had an antique elevator with big push buttons and a gate you had to pull closed yourself. His apartment was warm, small, and cozy. Mulberry cleaned my wounds. I tried to push him away, but he hushed me and continued to wipe the dried blood off my face. When he was done, he put an ice pack on my swollen cheek. I slept between clean sheets with a fan cooling the air around me. I slept all night until the sun peeked over the horizon and turned the sky outside a dusty blue.
My throat was swollen and painful. The left side of my face shot a pain through my head and down my neck when I touched it. I got out of bed and found a bathroom. My reflection was shocking.
The entire left side of my face was deep purple. An angry scab sliced across my cheekbone. A smaller abrasion sat just above my eyebrow. On my neck, in dark blue, with green edges, was the imprint of the hands that had tried to choke the life out me. When I climbed into the shower, I found a bruise the size of my fist on my hip and a welt on my elbow.
I let the hot water pound the back of my neck and rush over my chest and down my legs. I breathed the steam and tried not to think about anything except the rushing sound of the water. The room was filled with swirls of white, and the walls were coated in condensation when I got out. I found a towel hanging next to a silk robe. It was black with small white dots and smelled like a man. It felt good against my damaged body.
Mulberry was asleep on a tan, overstuffed leather love seat that faced a large television. He was snoring under a blanket, his mouth open, his eyes fluttering. The dawn light filled the room, filtered through sheer white blinds. His feet, bare and hairy, stuck out over the armrest. He was too big for the little couch.
I wandered into the kitchen and looked at the pictures on the fridge—one was of Charlene and Mulberry at Charlene’s high school graduation. They smiled at the camera, their arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders. They looked young. Another picture showed Mulberry as a young kid with his father, who wore a full-dress uniform. His father’s hand rested on Mulberry’s shoulder.
I found coffee in the freezer, and filters in with the mugs. Mulberry’s machine was a classic drip. I made a big pot of thick and serious coffee, hoping it would help clear the fog from my mind. I found fresh milk in the fridge next to a nearly empty six-pack of Newcastle. My whole body hurt, but here I was doing what I did every morning except today I had fresh milk.
As I poured myself a cup of coffee, Mulberry walked in, his eyes puffy and his hair sticking out in odd, though not unflattering, angles. He wore a white undershirt over a pair of Christmas boxers. Santa rode, in an overstuffed sleigh, across his thighs, over his crotch and around to his butt. “Mornin,’,” he said in a scratchy voice.
“You want a cup?” He grunted. I filled a mug with a dentist logo on it and passed it over to him. Mulberry leaned against the counter and sipped it with his eyes closed. The whole thing was surprisingly comfortable considering that we didn’t really know each other at all. “How old are you?” I asked. Surprise showed through his puffed lids.
“I’ll be 40 in a month,” he answered.
“Congratulations.”
“Thanks.” He sipped his coffee loudly. “Nice robe, by the way.”
“I like it.”
“Me, too.” He smiled. “Nice shiner.” I reached my hand up to the bruises and stopped just short of touching them.
“Thanks.”
“How does your throat feel?”
“Like someone tried to choke me to death.”
“You want to talk about who that someone was?”
“I don’t know.” He raised his eyebrows. “It’s gonna sound insane. I can’t even really believe it.” He waited. I laughed through my nose. “Alright. It was the mayor.” He smiled.
“Come on, Joy. You can tell me. I’m on your side, remember?”
“I’m not kidding.” I turned my back to him and refilled my coffee. “He tried to kill me after I found a secret passage that led directly into his office from the basement of Eighty-Eight East End. I know it sounds insane, but it’s the truth.” I turned back around and saw that Mulberry was starting to believe me.
“You’re not kidding.”
I looked him straight in the eyes and watched his face fill with fear. “I know. I don’t know what to do. I think the mayor killed Joseph Saperstein and Tate Hausman, and here’s the really crazy part—I think he killed them over long-lost treasure.”
“I’m sorry, back up. The mayor really tried to kill you.” Mulberry was looking at the finger marks on my neck.
“Definitely.”
“How did you escape?”
“I Tasered the shit out of him.” Mulberry choked on his coffee.
“What?”
“What? He was trying to kill me.”
“Is he OK?” It suddenly occurred to me that I had left a man in his late forties lying in a basement, gurgling. I felt my blood make a mad dash to my toes.
“Oh, my God.”
“What?”
“I didn't even think about it.”
“What?” Mulberry looked scared.
“I just left him there. I just wanted to get away. I couldn’t have killed him, could I have? No. Is it possible?”
“Yes. There’s a reason those things are illegal here. I mean, if he has heart problems and you shocked him near his heart, it could kill him.” He put down his mug and walked toward me. “Where did you shock him?”
“In his stomach.”
“That should be OK.”
“And his heart.” His face fell. “And when he was on the ground, I zapped him in the back of the neck.”
“Holy shit.” Mulberry took a step back from me. “Um. I.” He wiped his mouth with his palm and rubbed his stubbled chin. “I have to pee.” He turned and left the kitchen.
“Mulberry?” I called after him, but he didn’t respond. The bathroom door closed and the shower turned on. “F*ck.” I finished off the cold coffee at the bottom of my cup and walked into the living room. I flopped onto the couch and rested my head on the back. Closing my eyes, I tried to squeeze the image of the mayor on the floor out of my head. It didn’t work. I snapped my eyes opened and looked around for something, anything to fix this mess. But all I saw was a big TV, a coffee table, and a bookcase.
I scanned the books neatly lined up on Mulberry’s shelves. Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes sat next to Sir Francis Bacon’s The Great Instauration. I found Caesar Beccaria’s treatise Of Crime and Punishment next to Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. I smiled at his selection. In a framed photograph on top of the TV, Mulberry smiled with his arm around a pretty blond lady holding a dog’s leash. The dog, a chocolate lab, sat between them with his tongue hanging out. It occurred to me that I owned a dog. I ran back into the bedroom and found my phone in my bag, but it was dead. I hurried to the kitchen and used the phone on the wall to call Nona.
“Nona. Thank God. Can you go over and take care of Blue for me? I’m—” I didn’t know how to finish the sentence.
“Done and done dear. I heard him in there alone yesterday and took him out and fed him. Are you OK? I was worried about you. Why didn’t you come home?”
“I got beat up.”
“My God. Are you OK? You sound hoarse.”
“I’m alright. Nothing permanent, but I have some pretty gruesome bruises.”
“Did you go to the hospital?”
“Yes,” I lied.
“And you filed a report with the police? Do you know who it was who hurt you?”
“I never saw his face.”
“Where were you?”
“In the park.”
“Carl Schurz? I thought that park was so safe, what with Gracie Mansion there and everything.”
“I was surprised.”
“I’m glad to hear you’re OK. Strange James didn’t mention this to me.”
“Huh?”
“Didn’t you call him?”
“Not yet.”
“He’s in your apartment.”
“He is?”
“Yes. He and a blond man arrived about an hour ago. I saw them in the hall, and James said that he was taking care of the house for you. I asked if you were OK, and he said that he couldn’t talk and ran inside.”
My heart started beating faster. “What did the blond man look like?”
“I only saw the back of him, but he was shorter then James and stocky.”
“Did James look OK?” I asked barely above a whisper.
“I guess so. He was a little out of breath. I guess, now that I think about it he looked— scared. Joy is everything OK?”
“Scared?”
“Yes. Joy?”
“Alright, Nona. Thanks. I’ll call you soon.”
“If you need anything, don’t hesitate.”
I hung up. My whole body tingled. James was in my apartment with a blond man. I dialed James’s cell phone with a badly shaking hand.
“Joy Humbolt. How nice of you to call.” A lump constricted my throat, and I couldn’t respond to the syrupy-sweet voice. He laughed at the other end of the line, a low and menacing rumble.
“Don’t you hurt him,” I growled through the fear.
He laughed harder. This time he was really amused. “Too late.”
“F*ck you.”
“Those are big words for such a little girl.”
“Yeah, how’s your neck?”
“I bet it’s feeling better than your delicate little throat. You sound like shit.”
“What do you want?”
“A fair trade. You for your brother.”
“OK.”
“Come to your apartment.”
“Let me speak to James. I have to make sure he’s OK.”
He laughed again. “Don’t worry, he’s alive.”
“Put him on the phone or no deal.”
He laughed again. “Why not?” he said, and I heard the phone changing hands.
“Joy?”
“James, are you OK?” Tears welled in my eyes. “I’m so sorry. I’m going to get you out of this.”
“Hey. I’m OK. Just a little bruised.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I think the mayor is crazy.” I heard a slapping sound and James say, “Ah, f*ck” over the sound of the phone clattering to the floor.
“James! James, are you there?”
“You two are a real laugh riot.” The mayor was back. “I don’t like to be kept waiting.”
“I’ll hurry.”
“Come alone. If I see one cop, or even the hint of a cop.” He laughed low and menacing. “Come alone.”
“I’m on my way.” He hung up. I placed the phone back on the cradle and stared at it for a couple of seconds. I heard the shower turn off.
“The mayor’s alive,” I yelled to Mulberry through the bathroom door on my way to the bedroom. I pulled my jeans over the bruise on my hip and put my head through the hole of my T-shirt with extreme care. Mulberry came out of the bathroom wearing just a towel. His torso surprised me. It was rock-solid. Water glistened in his chest hair. He caught me looking.
“You took my robe.” He walked past me into the bedroom and grabbed it off the chair I had thrown it over. He wrapped it around himself and let the towel underneath fall.
“I have to go,” I said and went into the bathroom to check myself in the mirror. “Do you have a scarf and a giant pair of sunglasses?” Funny how the accessories for being fabulous in a convertible are identical to the ones used for covering up severe facial bruising.
“What?”
“I can’t go out looking like this.”
“Where are you going?”
“I need to go home.”
“We need to talk. You assaulted the mayor of New York City.” I turned on him.
“He tried to kill me. Do you get that?”
“But if you killed him you’re going to be in serious trouble.”
“He’s not dead.”
“How do you know?”
“Trust me.” I picked up my bag, felt around inside, and made sure I had my keys, wallet, phone, and Taser.
“Where are you going?”
“Home.” He followed me into the hall.
“If you wait five minutes, I’ll come with you.”
“No.” I turned back to him. “I need to rest. I’ll call you later.”
“I don't think you should be alone.”
“You really can’t follow me. Just don’t, OK? I need to be alone.”
“Alright.”
“I’ll call you later.”
“Alright.” I left him in the hallway in his funny silk robe, and I wished to God that he would follow me, and I prayed that he wouldn’t.