Линвуд Баркли - Elevator Pitch

“Guy’s facing terrorism charges, but that’s what he’d worried about.” Bourque shook his head. “You come across anything yet that connects Wooler to a guy named Otto Petrenko?”

“No. If we do, you’ll be the first to hear about it. Anything else?” Baskin asked.

Bourque thought a moment. “I don’t think so.”

“You don’t want to know if I have a partner named Robbins?”

Bourque grinned. “No.”

“You’re the first.”

Before crossing back over the George Washington, Bourque pulled into a McDonald’s lot on Lemoine Avenue. He was starving, and didn’t have the time or inclination to find anything of higher nutritional value.

He was wolfing a Big Mac and slurping down a Diet Coke when his cell phone, which he had placed on the table, rang.

“Bourque,” he said, although with his mouth full it came out more like Burfk .

“Get the marbles out of your mouth,” Lois Delgado said.

“I’m grabbing a bite,” he said.

“Where?”

“McDonald’s.”

“Yeah, thought I could smell it,” she said. “What’d you find?”

He filled her in. When he was done, she said, “So, guess where I am.”

Bourque took a sip of Coke. “In a room at the Plaza with Ryan Gosling.”

“I mean right now, not where I was last night,” she said.

“Tell me.”

“I’m in the City Hall garage looking at a boring sedan with a license plate that ends in 13, and it’s got a dent in the bumper identical to the one in our picture.”

“Whoa,” Bourque said, feeling his pulse quicken. “Now we just have to find out who signed it out that day.”

“Already have,” she said.

“Are you going to make me beg?” Bourque asked.

“That’s exactly what Ryan said.”

“Tell me.”

“Here’s a question. Why do you think the mayor’s son would be wanting to meet with Otto Petrenko?”

Bourque set down his drink. “The mayor’s son?”

“Glover. Glover Headley. He’s one of his dad’s aides or advisers or whatever.”

“Huh,” Bourque said. “I guess we should ask him.”

Thanks for coming.”

Richard Headley gazed out over the assembled media. He couldn’t recall the press room ever being this crowded. There were even more representatives from TV and radio and print here today than there had been the day before. He hadn’t had very good news for them then. Today was looking a little better.

“I just want to say a few words before Chief Washington arrives. She’ll be able to answer a lot of your questions in more detail. But there has been an arrest. Most of you already know about the shooting at the InterMajestic.”

He quickly told them that the man who’d been arrested was a suspect in the taxi bombing.

“At this time,” he said, “we can’t say this person is connected to the elevator tragedies, but I can confirm he is a person of interest. There is a strong link with the Flyovers group, which has, in recent months, established a pattern of fomenting chaos in coastal cities, of which we are definitely one. So with that possibly hopeful news, and reports coming in from across the city about the progress that is being made in restoring elevator service, I think it’s fair to say that things are looking up.”

Several questions were shouted out, and Headley did his best to answer them, but in most cases said they would have to wait for the chief. To his relief, there was not one question about the granola parfait rodent.

On the pretext of having to leave for another meeting, Headley offered his apologies and excused himself from the press room. When he returned to his office, Glover was there. Sitting on the couch, a remote in hand, watching CNN on the new TV that had been installed after the mayor had shattered the other one the day before.

Glover stood.

“I see you got back okay,” Headley said.

Glover nodded. “I walked.”

Headley’s eyes went wide. “From Ninetieth Street?”

“Took me about two and a half hours. But it gave me lots of time to think.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew a white envelope, which he handed to his father. “About this.”

“What’s this?” he asked. Written, in hand, on the front of the envelope was the word Dad .

“I wasn’t sure who to make it out to,” Glover said. “I didn’t know whether to write ‘Dad,’ or ‘Father,’ or ‘Mayor Headley.’”

The envelope was not sealed. Headley withdrew the single sheet of paper tucked inside, unfolded it, tossed the envelope onto the coffee table. He scanned the words. It didn’t take him more than ten seconds to read it.

“What the hell is this?” Headley asked.

“You’ll notice, on the actual letter, I made it out to the position, to Mayor Richard Headley. I guess, between that and the envelope, I covered all bases.”

“You’re resigning?”

Glover nodded. “Yes. As it says, in the letter, effective tomorrow. Or, I guess, midnight tonight.”

“Why? You don’t give a reason in your letter.”

“Because I’m tired of disappointing you. And I simply can’t take it anymore.”

“Can’t take what?”

“The constant belittling. The put-downs. The eye rolls. Anyone else with an ounce of self-respect would have quit long ago, wouldn’t have put up with it for so long. Maybe that’s what took me so long. I’m all out of self-respect.”

Headley was shaking his head. “This is ridiculous.”

“More likely a relief, for you. Now you don’t have to actually fire me.” He took a breath. “Mom’s been dead a long time, Dad. If you’ve kept me on out of guilt, thinking maybe you owed it to her, you don’t have to feel that way any longer. I want to leave. Maybe my quitting will be my one chance to make you happy.”

“Christ, Glover.”

“The resignation, as it says in the letter, is effective at midnight. I’d still like to attend the Top of the Park event tonight, however. If it’s still on.”

“It is,” Headley said. “Coughlin messaged me a while ago. He’s got the elevators working. Of course you can come.” He paused, then said, “That woman you hired. Arla Silbert.”

“The one you fired,” Glover said. “Because she’s Barbara Matheson’s daughter.”

Headley nodded quickly, as though wanting to brush over that part. “What else do you know about her?”

“Nothing. Why?”

“No reason. I just... wondered.”

Glover turned and started heading for the door. He was almost out of the office when his father called out his name.

“Yes?” Glover said, stopping and looking at the mayor.

“I’m sorry about kicking you out of the limo.” He swallowed, hard. “That was wrong. It wasn’t your fault there was a goddamn mouse in that old lady’s breakfast.”

“Actually, it was,” Glover said. “I put it there.”

The mayor was standing by his desk, numb, when Valerie came into the room three minutes later.

“What did Glover want?” she asked. “I saw him leaving and he looked kind of shook up.”

He handed her the resignation letter. She scanned it quickly, then said, “Oh. Did you accept it?”

Headley nodded. “He told me something that he did... I should be angry. I should be livid. But I’m not. I feel like I had it coming.”

“What did he tell you?”

The mayor shook his head. “Maybe you’re right. What you’ve been telling me, that I’ve been too hard on him. I’m seeing now how that can end up biting you in the ass.”

“Richard, I wish you’d tell me what you’re talking about.”

“Glover may think I’ll have changed my mind about letting him come to Coughlin’s thing tonight, but I haven’t.” He smiled grimly. “I want him there.”