Jack O'Connell - Wireless

Finally, Hannah breaks and says, “You spoke to some people?”

“As I said, a few of my aides have been making inquiries. Visiting plants in the region that supply benzine or benzine-based products.”

A picture comes into Hannah’s head that she can’t immediately dismiss: a scene of Cheng’s meat-boys beating a name from the lips of a broken, cash-strapped man who can’t conceive of why his life continues to unravel. She would like to hope they didn’t have to go too gangland, permanently harm the tongue or eyes or kneecaps. But she knows Cheng’s “aides” walked away from Whitney with something. Or Cheng wouldn’t have made this phone call.

She grabs tight on the phone, switches it back to her original ear, and says, “You’ve got something to tell me?”

Another pause, then the doctor says, “We assured the individual there would be no official consequences. There were violations of certain licensing and—”

She can’t stand it anymore. She yells, “Just say it, for Christ sake,” and then she immediately regrets her action.

In a dispassionate voice, Cheng says, “They sold a small amount of benzine to an unaffiliated Caucasian male six weeks ago. Cash transaction. Two meetings. All business conducted in the woods behind that Catholic orphanage in Whitney.”

“A name?”

“No.” He takes a shallow breath, then adds, “But at the initial meeting, the buyer produced a badge of some sort.”

“A badge? You mean, like a police badge?”

There’s no answer and for a second Hannah thinks Cheng has hung up, then, as if he’s just recalled a punch line, the old man says, “A Federal badge.”

Now it’s Hannah that goes quiet for a second, then asks, “No name or number?”

“The seller says it happened very quickly. That it was likely intended as some kind of threat or motivation. Believe me, Detective, had there been more information, my people would have returned with it.”

Hannah knows this is the truth.

From behind the facing wall of her booth, without any warning, horribly loud percussion suddenly revs up from Propa Gramma, the club next door. It’s followed by the syncopated call of a mostly unintelligible rap sermon from what sounds like a female duo. The words bastard, sisters , and payback seem to be repeated like a funk-mantra backed by a strong bass line. Hannah covers her free ear with her palm and presses the receiver tighter against her head.

“I hope you’ll find this story helpful,” the doctor says.

Acting contrite isn’t Hannah’s strong suit, but she tries to put some humility behind her words and says, “I’m sure I will. Thanks for filling me in, Doc.”

“You’re welcome,” Cheng says. “And I hope, should you learn anything more, you’ll not hesitate in relaying your findings to Little Asia.”

Hannah takes her palm from her ear, makes a fist, and futilely pummels the shared wall, as if this will lower the volume of the music.

“Since when is it necessary to say that, Doctor?”

There’s no response.

“I’ve always worked the split with you,” Hannah says, turning sideways away from the wall, her voice rising. “We’ve had an unspoken agreement. When have I not honored the deal?”

Finally Cheng says, “Our understanding has served us both.”

“I’ll bring you what I find,” Hannah says, suddenly wanting to hang up.

“I’m sure you will,” Cheng says. “But it would be better if I came to you—”

“Yeah, I understand. You don’t want me down Verlin Ave anymore—”

“You don’t understand, Hannah—”

She cuts him off and says, “Tell me something. You own part of this place, right? You own a piece of the Tribal Drum?”

He gives a wheezy laugh and says, “I’m simply a neighborhood doctor, Hannah—”

She interrupts again, “And I’m the Virgin Mary. Do yourself a favor and soundproof this dump.”

“I’ll check on you soon,” Cheng says, and then, after a beat of silence, he hangs up.

Hannah sits for a second with the phone still pressed against her head. A waiter approaches carrying a fresh pot of steaming tea atop a red plastic tray. His neck is weighed down with a dozen ropes of gold chain. His hair blown dry into a perfectly curved helmet that covers any sign of his ears.

“Can I get you something?” he yells over the music.

Hannah can actually feel the pulse of it through the wall. She slides out of the booth and faces him and without thinking, she says, “I’ve been stood up.”

He puts on an exaggerated frown as if he finds this impossible to believe. He gestures down to the phone and says, “Why don’t you sit back down? I’ll bring you a Mai Tai and you can see who calls.”

Hannah stares at him, shakes her head, then moves for the exit, throwing her shoulder into the waiter’s arm as she passes, sending the boiled tea into the air, splashing a shower over the next booth of jabbering regulars.

Flynn has no idea how to lose this edgy feeling that’s lodged in his stomach since he took the call from Shaw. But he’s convinced that attending the Todorov Memorial Parade down here in the Zone sure as hell won’t help. Unfortunately, Ronnie insisted, so now they’re shoulder-to-shoulder with the elite hip, trapped in a chic swarm roaming from display to event to performance down the length of Rimbaud Way.

It’s not that Fr. Todorov had any solid connection with the Canal Zone clique. Mainly, he liked to be seen eating in the restaurant of the month with the poet of the week. But the Canalites have this weird passion for parades, and any occasion is usually suitable for a petition to block off the main drag and form a swaying convoy of disparate and stylish contingents, each equipped with makeshift costumes and floats and their own P.A. system for spreading one more unique manifesto.

The bulk of the Canal Zone is made up of mammoth brick mills and factories, the earliest of which ran off the current of the Benchley River. A few of the small factories still operate, but for the most part, the backbone of Quinsigamond industry has fled heating costs and union wages and vanished to places like Arizona and Malaysia.

Fanned out beyond the old sweatshops are the tenements that housed the immigrant labor. Flynn thinks that maybe the most interesting piece of Quinsigamond history is the half-forgotten fact that the Yankee bosses were adamant about housing each ethnic group separately. So there was an Irish block and an Italian block, a French block and Polish block. The unspoken idea was that if these dissimilar workers didn’t learn each other’s language, they’d never be able to organize and turn their collective power against the owners. Though the plan failed, Flynn can see there was this awful brilliance to it, this mad social-scientist flair. Keep the peasants suspicious of each other and they’ll never notice their real enemy.

Generations later, those original mill-working families have battled their way up to middle class and beyond. The Yankee barons are long since dead. And the factories are the decayed remnants of an invisible war, settled by neither victory nor negotiation, but rather, simple and vicious obsolescence. The buildings are used as everything from theaters and warehouses and biker clubs to subdivided office spaces, a roller-skating rink, a bowling alley.

And the tenements for the workers are now tenements for the art crowd. The cheap rent and gritty ambience have pulled in bohemians from all over New England and they slouch up and down McJacob and Dupin and, especially, Rimbaud Way — the Zone within the Zone — day and night, looking for imagery, free coffee, semi-soft drugs, pseudo-safe sex, and bitingly hip conversation. There appear to be laws about dressing in black, avoiding the sunlight, suppressing visible emotion, and the proper use of hair products.