Metropolis, p.29
Metropolis, page 29
Zach does a quick print of the three workman photographs—he’ll do more iterations if, on closer inspection, they turn out to be as good as he thinks—and hangs them on the line. In one, a stream of light emphasizes a battered work belt filled with tools and reflects off the wrench he’s using to pull something from the top of the elevator door. Zach wonders if it’s the one Haines fell through and looks more closely. He can just make out the faded image of the number 4 above the buttons. The sound of rushing blood fills his ears.
Could the man be messing with the elevator doors? Could this be related to the accident? For that to be possible, the photo would have had to have been taken in early January of this year, right before Haines fell, as there were no reports of any problems before that night. Zach checks the contact sheet with the loupe. Rose is wearing a sweater, and the janitor is in long sleeves, which would point to winter, but which winter? Rose didn’t say anything about elevator repairs at the deposition, so this photo couldn’t have been taken this year. Unless . . .
His mind starts diving in multiple directions. What if it was this winter, and Rose lied about not hiring the workman because the two of them were up to something nefarious? But that doesn’t make any sense—what could they possibly have been doing? It’s more likely that she didn’t mention the workman because she didn’t know about him. And if this is so, then maybe the elevator was purposely tampered with and the accident wasn’t an accident at all.
Whoa. If he could prove this, it would clear him of wrongdoing. Then he would get Metropolis back, he wouldn’t be broke, and he wouldn’t have to involve the IRS in any of the particulars of the purchase or sale. His world would return to its normal axis.
There are cartons of Rose’s office materials, including her computer, piled in the third bedroom, along with the rest of the castoffs Zach brought from Metropolis. He leaves the bathroom and grabs her laptop. It’s dead, and he roots around in the cartons before he finds the power cord. As it boots up, he sits on the floor and balances the laptop on his knees.
Zach goes to her calendar, enters “elevator” into the search bar, winces when a pane appears on the right side of the screen listing ten years’ worth of “elevator” entries. Almost all reference inspections or reminders to set up inspections. There are a number of entries that mention appointments for repairs, and he enters “elevator repair” into the search bar. There are seven, but none later than 2016.
He returns to the bathroom and pores over the prints. He hadn’t noticed that the back of the workman’s shirt says devers 11, and this makes him smile. Rafael Devers, the promising Red Sox third baseman, is one of his favorite new players. The kid had a bang-up rookie year, but he came up in the middle of last summer, halfway through the season, so his numbers weren’t good enough for a Rookie of the Year candidacy, which Zach believes he deserved.
Devers was smacking game-winning home runs and initiated a triple play during the regular season, but it was his playoff feats that made him a household name in Red Sox Nation. And those feats didn’t happen until the end of the season. The 2017 season. Holy shit.
A Devers shirt wouldn’t have been on sale until after last year’s playoffs, late October. This means the photo was taken between then and the night Haines fell. There are no entries on Rose’s calendar for elevator repairs during that time.
Zach has an ex-girlfriend who’s a lawyer at a big firm in Boston, and he phones her. After they exchange pleasantries, Naomi says, “I’m guessing you’re not calling me at the office because you’ve repented your evil ways and want to get back together.”
“True that,” Zach confirms. Naomi is only vaguely aware of the whole Metropolis calamity, as he never gave her more than the cursory details, but he does now. He also tells her what he found. She listens carefully, asks a few questions, reminds him that she’s a trust attorney, with no expertise in this area, but promises to get back to him after she talks to one of her partners, who does handle this type of case.
An hour later, Naomi calls. “If these pictures are what you think they are, Brad says they might be enough evidence to countersue Haines. Maybe even get your building back. But it’s not going to be easy, and you need lots more to back the photos up. As Brad put it, you’ve got ‘miles to go before you sleep.’”
“Tell me what to do.”
“First, he says you have to make sure your assistant didn’t hire him. Second, talk to someone at the company that made the elevator and find out exactly what happened that night and why. Third, if you can, find more photos of the workman and the elevator, preferably doing something more directly incriminating. And those are the easy parts.”
“Can’t wait to hear the hard parts.”
“After you’ve done all that, someone has to figure out who he is. He could be an unsavory type, dangerous even, so you can’t do it yourself. You’re going to have to either hire a detective or convince the police a crime has been committed. Then they, or your detective, have to find your Red Sox guy, confront him, and get him to corroborate your suspicions.”
58
Serge
Diamond is staying in the place just for ladies. She can stay all day and that’s different from the place for men. She gets three meals there and she doesn’t have to stand in line. He has to stand in line for everything in the place for men. She says she sits at a table and they bring her food to her. No one ever brings him anything in the place for men. He only goes to the place for men when Diamond makes him. When she tells him he smells like a horse.
He doesn’t blame her for staying in a nice place. He wishes he could. Well, not really but maybe if people brought food to him at a table. But then he’s not all that hungry anymore so it probably wouldn’t be worth it. He likes to sleep outside and if you stay in that nice place you have to sleep inside. That’s what Diamond says anyway. And he’d have to be a lady, which is also a problem.
It’s been hot and stormy but if he crawls under the bench it’s not as wet as it is on the grass. It’s muddy and smells funky but that’s okay. He can’t take deep breaths anyway so he doesn’t smell much. He coughs a lot and if he coughs into the mud no one cares.
He knows he’s sick. Sicker than sick. He’s got a pain that’s always in his stomach. Sometimes it goes into his chest and makes him cough even more. And sometimes it even goes across his back. He doesn’t know what that’s about. There’s something in his stomach but it’s not in his chest or in his back. The thing is hard and kind of round and seems to be getting harder and rounder. Reminds him of a basketball. Or at least half of one. It makes him not want to eat.
He wears his coat all the time to cover it up even though it’s been very hot. He doesn’t want anyone to see it and he especially doesn’t want Diamond to see it because she’ll make him go back to the place for men and see a nurse. He doesn’t want to see a nurse who’s going to make him sleep inside and make him eat because that will hurt too much. There isn’t much room in his stomach for food. It’s too full of the hard thing that keeps getting bigger.
It’s boring without Diamond. Even if she’s always talking in exclamation marks. No one calls him Scarecrow anymore. No one says anything to him at all. That’s okay. He thinks it’s been a long time since he’s said anything. He clears his throat. It feels thick and scratchy.
“Hello,” he says to two pigeons on the grass in front of his face. It doesn’t sound like “hello.” It sounds more like he’s rubbing pieces of sandpaper together, saying nothing at all. The pigeons fly away. He wants to fly away like the pigeons.
He closes his eyes and sees himself flying above his own head. Above the whole Common. Swooping and diving and then just hanging in the air, the wind under his wings. So peaceful. It feels even better than he thought it would. He sees himself lying under the bench but he knows he’s not really there. He’s flying.
PART FIVE
59
Mercedes
Marta is Mercedes again, and this is almost as disconcerting as when Mercedes became Marta. Although she was Marta for less than a year, that time was so potent it feels almost equal to her thirty-one years as Mercedes. Yet here she is, lying on a couch in a grand apartment in Madrid. She is free to do as she likes. There will be no more looking over her shoulder. There will be no more handcuffs and no more guards.
Her feet are pressed to those of her sister Abril, just as they so often were when they were children. Voracious readers both, they often spent afternoons with their noses in their books and their feet toe-to-toe. Mercedes softly presses her big toe to Abril’s, and her eyes fill with tears of gratitude. She is indebted to the judge, but mostly it is Jason Franklin who made her new life possible.
He researched every possible avenue to prove her worthy of asylum and presented her case to the judge in such a logical and methodical manner that it did not seem possible anyone could disagree. Yet the judge asked both of them so many questions that Mercedes feared she did not believe the evidence. As Judge Cohen slowly reread Jason’s brief, Mercedes had begun to sweat and was certain she was going to faint. Her hands clenched the seat of her chair in an attempt to stay upright. Then, suddenly, it was over. Asylum was granted. She was free.
Her family had never expected to survive Maduro’s wrath, nor escape from Venezuela, nor ever see Mercedes again. They had tried to find her last summer, but even with the aid of detectives, they failed, because by then she had become Marta. It took a little over three months for the US government to give Mercedes permission to go to Spain. And when they finally did, it was a wondrous reunion. At the airport in Madrid, the four Bustamante women cried and clung to each other. Heaven.
With assistance from Papí’s cousin Lucía, who had immigrated to Spain ten years earlier, and the equivalent of roughly two million US dollars in bribes, Mamá, Abril, and Sofía were smuggled out of the country. After a harrowing journey, they arrived in Madrid and settled into the Salamanca district, which is home to many Venezuelan expats. Lucía also helped Mamá bring out almost all of their money, some of which she and Abril invested in two apartment buildings. Mamá goes to Iglesia de la Purísima Concepción every day to give thanks to Jesús for their many blessings. Her daughters do not accompany her to the church, for their thankfulness is of a harder and more tarnished type.
Mercedes can’t stop wondering what goes on in the heads of men like Maduro, Hitler, Pol Pot, Ivan the Terrible, and Caligula. Men without empathy or conscience, who have destroyed others just because they could. Why? she keeps asking herself. Why? She places the book she is reading on the coffee table and tries to stifle a sob, which comes out as a wet, strangled sound.
Abril looks up and closes her own book. She is three years younger than Mercedes, taller with lighter eyes and skin, and they look nothing alike. Yet they are the most alike of the Bustamante children in temperament. They are both intellectual and soft-spoken, both intensely driven. “Do you want to talk about it?” Abril asks gently.
“There is nothing to say.”
“And there is everything to say. When you are ready.”
Abril was at home when Papí was disappeared and when Juan was murdered. With Mercedes and Juan gone, she became the eldest. She was Mamá’s main support and the mastermind of their getaway. So it is not surprising that Abril is more solemn and even less talkative than she was before. Mercedes supposes this is true of all four of them. Sofía, the once happy-go-lucky baby of the family, is the most somber of all. Theirs may not be the most cheerful of households, but it is a loving one.
Mercedes stands and kisses her sister’s forehead. “I think I will go out for a run.”
“Do you want company?”
Mercedes shakes her head. She needs to be alone so she is able to mourn. She misses Liddy even more now that they are thousands of miles apart. She is aware that this makes no difference, as they would be unable to be together if they lived on the same block, but somehow the distance intensifies her longing. The simultaneity of her own arrest and Garrett’s victory had torn them apart, not even allowing for a proper goodbye. Now, cruelty upon cruelty, they cannot even speak to each other on the telephone. Liddy is as unreachable to her as are Papí and Juan.
“Te amo,” Abril says. She understands the need to be alone.
Mercedes blows her a kiss. “Te amo.”
The Salamanca district of Madrid is quieter than most of the city, its wide streets lined with ornate buildings from the nineteenth century. Mercedes heads for El Retiro, one of the city’s largest parks. She likes to run there because she can lose herself in the beauty of its ponds and sculptures, its rose gardens and palaces.
Yet this does not occur today. She cannot wrench her thoughts away from Liddy, whose life must be constant torture. Mercedes does not blame Liddy for her decision, even as she wishes it could have been otherwise, but she is horrified by the depravity of Garrett’s revenge: forcing Liddy to live with him when he knows nothing will make her more miserable. She speeds up in an attempt to leave these useless thoughts behind. She covers much ground, but no matter how fast she runs, they keep up with her.
She exits the park and runs along the fashionable Calles de Serrano and de Goya and de Velázquez, home to some of the most exclusive stores and homes in Madrid, dodging shoppers and tourists. After Jason left Boston, he was kind enough to allow her to stay in his apartment while she awaited permission to leave the United States. It was convenient that she did not have to search for a new place to live, but it also made her sad. She and Liddy had spent some happy, and, yes, some not-so-happy times there. But at least they had been together and were able to dream of a shared future.
Dr. Ullman, dear man, was as delighted about her asylum as he would have been if she were his own daughter. And he was impressed with her dissertation, particularly the strength of the combined effects of childhood zip code, maternal education, and the number of books in the household, which together explained almost 80 percent of the variance in later-life outcomes. Fortunately, her committee had agreed with him. As she runs, she thinks about the people at Metropolis and wonders if her results would have predicted where each is at this moment.
Liddy, who would have been among those closest to the finish line when the race started, has an advanced degree, is working on a novel, and, however miserable she might be, is safely ensconced in the one percent, which is where she began. Jason, who would be midway among the runners, has an advanced degree but is living a middle-class life, also where he began. Rose, who would be hovering closer to the starting line, is currently standing in the same place. And even Mercedes herself fits the projection: wealthy to wealthy. The only one she can think of whose position would not have been predicted by her data is the owner of Metropolis, who must have started toward the front of the runners and now lags behind with Rose. Still, even given the owner, this admittedly small sample would seem to confirm her findings.
She is allegedly working on an article based on these findings, which she and Dr. Ullman plan to submit to the American Sociological Review. This possibility should spur her into action, but it does not. She is also supposed to be looking for a job. And although she’s made a few meager attempts, running and grieving and getting reacquainted with her family take most of her time, and she does not imagine this will change in the near future.
Her mother and sisters, obviously, want her to stay in Madrid, or at least in Spain. But her preliminary job inquiries indicate that universities in Britain or the United States would be a better match. There is a tenured position in the UK, in the sociology department at her alma mater, Cambridge. And there is a postdoc at Harvard, where she would be able to pursue her research.
Mercedes is thinking she would prefer to begin her career in research, but returning to Boston might prove too difficult for her. She is eligible for US citizenship, but without Liddy, she doesn’t believe she can live in a place so filled with Marta’s memories.
60
Liddy
“I’m not happy with the look of these handrails around the toilet,” Hillary tells Liddy as she eyes the special-order bars that are supposed to look more like towel racks than supports for the disabled. Hillary is an interior accessibility designer. They’ve been working together to remodel the condo so it’s a place where, as Hillary puts it, a person with disabilities will find it easy to live and expand his potentials. It seems that no one uses the word “handicapped” anymore.
“They’re thicker than I’d like,” Hillary continues, frowning at the bars. “That’s better for Mr. Haines but not as attractive. Do you want me to have them refabricated? Or should I try to find thinner ones?”
“Not worth the bother,” Liddy assures her. “Looks great, like a bath you’d find in a high-end hotel.” Which is true. With its half walls, multilevel cabinetry, and marble shower enclosure flush to the marble floor, not to mention towel-rack grab bars, it’s barely recognizable as an accessible bathroom.
“I’m so glad you think so.” Hillary is clearly pleased. “I hope it’s working out for Mr. Haines as well?”
“Absolutely,” Liddy says. “Although he mentioned that the opening under his desk in his bedroom is a little too low.”
The main bedroom now belongs to Garrett, and Liddy sleeps in the smaller bedroom off the foyer, which is at the other end of the condo. This makes it easy for her to avoid him when they’re both at home and leaves the guest room, next to him, open for his aides. He has a rotation of four aides helping him every hour of every day, which ensures that he and she are never alone. As perfect as being in a maximum-security gilded prison can be.
Hillary inspects the desk, pulls out a tape measure, mutters to herself as she gauges the space. “I’ll get Stephan back here tomorrow to do the modification.” She consults the list on her phone. “All we have left are a few small issues in the kitchen and the leaky faucet in the powder room.”
