Dog Bites Man (16 page)

Last Tuesday, Sweetwater was abruptly fired from her job in the
Gracie Mansion kitchen by Edna Hoagland, the mayor's wife, for
unspecified reasons. It is not known whether her dismissal was re
lated to knowledge she may have had of the dog's slaying.

Neither Mayor Hoagland nor his wife was available for comment
concerning Serreqi's grave allegation. However, John R. Gullighy,
the mayor's press secretary and close political confidant, said that
the allegations were "absolutely untrue" and "somebody's halluci
nation."

"I have no idea what happened to that dog, if anything," he told
The Surveyor. "All I know is that Mayor Hoagland spent that
evening with an old friend and came home, as was customary, with
his bodyguards." He acknowledged that the two plainclothesmen
were Fasco and Braddock but said he had no way of knowing
whether they had been dressed in black.

"You better be careful with this one, young man," Gullighy
warned this reporter. "I think you've got an unstable young fellow
on your hands. You'd better be sure of your ground."
The Public Affairs Bureau of the Police Department refused to
let the two suspected murderers talk to this reporter. Nor would
the bureau spokesman confirm or deny whether the police had any
record of the shooting, or if a Firearms Discharge Report had
been filed, as is required whenever a police officer's weapon is
fired.

Asked if there had been a cover-up, Gullighy angrily dismissed
the idea."To have a cover-up, there has to be something to cover up.
That was not the case here."

Ms. Brandberg, a former Native American beauty contest win
ner and widow of billionaire industrialist Harry Brandberg, said
that she believed her employee, Serreqi, "completely." "I'm out
raged. All I can say is, I hope the mayor and his goons will be
brought to justice."

Ainsley Potter, chairman of the Coalition for Animal Welfare,
also expressed shock at the charge. "The mayor very hospitably en
tertained us last Monday and appeared to be a friend of animals.
But if this charge is correct, it is reprehensible."

Will the mayor have to resign? this reporter asked. "If the allega
tion turns out to be true, I would certainly think so."

[The mayor's bad week: embroils himself in animal rights con
troversy. Story, page 3; editorial, page 6.]

Justin Boyd's editorial was hard-hitting:

LIFT YOUR PANTS LEG, MR. MAYOR

—————

Mayor Eldon Hoagland has a crisis on his hands. We aren't refer
ring to his pusillanimous dispute with a bunch of animal rights cra
zies over the esoterics of embryological research, but the serious
charge of dog murder leveled against him by a young Kosovo free
dom fighter, Genc Serreqi.

As our front-page story today details, this brave young man, fresh
from bloodshed in the Balkans, was walking a young dog on Fifth
Avenue when it was cold-bloodedly shot by three men he has since
identified as Mayor Hoagland and his two bodyguards. The shoot
ing took place, according to Serreqi, after the dog bit the mayor on
his right leg and the mayor ordered his men to shoot.

This is a serious charge, going to the question of the mayor's
judgment and character. As one of his earliest and most enthusi
astic supporters, we would be both shocked and saddened if Ser
reqi's tale were true.

The mayor's spokesman has emphatically denied the story,and fur
ther denied that there has been any attempt to cover up the incident.

Who should we believe? We need to know the truth. And there
seems to us a sure way to determine that truth: permit an indepen
dent physician to examine Eldon Hoagland's right leg for signs of a
dog bite. If the telltale evidence is there, we are owed an explana
tion. If it's not, we'll be the first to apologize to him.

Lift your pants leg, Mayor Hoagland, and let's see the truth!

.    .    .

"All right, Jack, what do we do about
this?"
Eldon demanded, drumming his fingers on the latest
Surveyor.

"Keep your pants on. Literally and figuratively."

"Very funny."

"What's your choice? Deny, deny, deny. You're going to have to do it in person very soon, you know. You can't hide behind my skirts forever."

"Hmn."

"As for the take-off-your-pants thing, you can ignore that. It's a silly, undignified demand. Justin Boyd sensationalism."

"I don't understand Justin. He was my biggest supporter. Why would he turn on me like this?"

"He's a journalist."

.    .    .

After leaving his distraught employer, Jack Gullighy turned his attention to another idea. If this Albanian freedom fighter
The Sur
veyor
wrote about was an illegal, as everyone seemed to believe, why not get him deported? Pursuing the mayor would be a lot harder if the principal witness were back in the Balkans, he reasoned.

To that end he called an acquaintance in the Immigration and Naturalization Service information office. The latter had not seen
The Surveyor
story, so Gullighy filled him in.

"If he's a wetback, and we think he is, it doesn't look too good for you guys—an illegal alien getting these headlines," Gullighy explained and then, helpfully, supplied his contact with Sue Nation Brandberg's address.

A long shot, Gullighy realized, but with calamity just around the corner it was worth a try.

.    .    .

That morning, before
The Surveyor
story appeared, Sue Brandberg had called Brendon Proctor and asked him to come and see her. The lawyer, aware that he was in at least temporary disfavor with his client, said he would come by as soon as he could that afternoon. Her intention was to work out the details of her marital arrangements with Genc. Then, after she had read Scoop's article, she began to have second thoughts. The story of her dog's assassination was out; it seemed only a question of time before Eldon Hoagland would be brought to account. Was Genc necessary to the process? Perhaps he was. But what if he was not? Did she really care if he was deported?

After a few minutes' reflection, she decided that she did indeed want him around, with those cries of OOOH! SHPIRT! So when Proctor arrived, she told him that she was going to marry Genc Serreqi.

The wisps of hair on Proctor's bald head were sticking out, as usual; had they not been, her announcement would certainly have propelled them outward.

"Mrs. Brandberg, you are serious?"

"Absolutely. He's a charming young man. And I think I love him."

"I certainly hope you're going to have a prenuptial agreement."

"That's what I wanted to ask you about. Do I need one?"

"
Need
one! He's penniless, I'm sure, and you have millions. If you should die, he could get half your estate." He didn't add that given the discrepancy in the lovebirds' ages, it was probable that she would predecease Genc.

"What about children?" Proctor asked.

"Children? At my age?"

"You might adopt."

"Most unlikely."

"Well, you might want to cover that. I assume he's some sort of Muslim or Mohammadan or whatever. And I'm sure you'd want your children to be raised as Christians."

"Not necessarily. There are Native American religions, you know." She enjoyed making Proctor uncomfortable.

"Oh yes, I see."

"But I don't think I need to pay for a lawyer's time to draft clauses about our children's religion. The money, yes. I understand that part of it."

"I'll need a schedule of your assets. But I guess I can put that together for you."

"Fine. The sooner the better."

"He spells his name
S-E-R-R-E-
Q-
I?
No 'U' after the 'Q'?"

"That's right."

"Most odd. Are you absolutely sure, Mrs. Brandberg, that you want to go through with this?"

"Yes, Brendon. As certain as I am that I want you for my lawyer."

T
he flow of e-mail to Eldon kept growing. And there was no middle ground in the messages received:

You halfwit! Go back out west, where the gun is king! We New
Yorkers are more civilized, in case you hadn't noticed.

First your police kill my people, now they kill animals. Watch out
when we turn our guns on you!

Only one message (secretly) pleased Eldon:

Good for you! If I had my way, I'd shoot every dog in New York
City. The crap on the streets, stupid owners who can't, or won't,
control their little—and big—Fidos. I wish I could say you've
shown us the way, but the bleeding hearts would never let us get
away with it.

The Surveyor
may have downplayed
The Post-News
's coverage of the embryology controversy, but the daily gleefully picked up on the Wambli scandal the morning after Scoop's second story appeared. Giving its weekly rival a boost was of minor significance when there was such a delicious opportunity to attack the mayor. THUGS KILL PUPPY AS MAYOR STANDS BY, the front page screamed, beside a stock photo of a Staffordshire bull terrier (not Wambli). Except for changing the Park Avenue pit bull into a lovable puppy, the story was basically a rewrite of Scoop's.

The editorial in the same edition was something else again:

THE BLOOD ON ELDON
HOAGLAND'S HANDS

—————

New Yorkers are used to shocks and scandals, but seldom has the
city been shaken as profoundly as by the revelation that two armed
thugs in the employ of Mayor Eldon Hoagland brutally shot a help
less puppy in the supposedly safe precincts of upper Fifth Avenue.
And shot the defenseless animal at the direction of the mayor him
self.

The shooting, described in our story beginning on page 1, terror
ized the young Albanian freedom fighter who was walking the dog,
Wambli, when the ferocious assassination occurred. It ought to ter
rorize the rest of us, too: employees of our city wantonly slaughter
ing a tiny animal at the behest of the mayor. Granted Wambli was
not pumped full of 41 bullets as in the infamous police-shooting
case our readers will remember, but the fusillade was nonetheless
gruesome enough.

The mayor continues to deny any involvement. We frankly don't
believe him. But if he is innocent, there is an easy way to prove it.
As another publication opined yesterday, all he has to do is let his
leg be examined for evidence of the bite that supposedly led to the
killing.

If, as we believe, the mayor is lying, we are of the opinion that he
has little choice but to resign. We cannot tolerate a first magistrate
who does not tell the truth, or who condones the outright killing of
a pet beloved by one of our city's most socially conscious citizens,
Sue Nation Brandberg.

Mayor Hoagland, do not cover up any further. Uncover, and let
us have the true facts. We await your decision.

.    .    .

"It's certainly nice to be trusted by one of the two biggest newspapers in your city," Eldon told Edna at breakfast.

"Postnewspaper, dear."

"Now I know how Bill Clinton must have felt when that Jones woman's lawyers wanted to examine his prick. 'Distinctive characteristics,' I believe they were looking for."

"Well, you've certainly got them. That bite is still ugly."

"And nobody's going to see it."

.    .    .

"You've got to have a press conference," Gullighy told his boss later that morning at City Hall.

"Let's wait another day, or better, over the weekend. Or still better yet, next Wednesday, after the Columbus Day holiday. Let things settle down."

"All right, but I'm afraid it's not going to get any better."

"You're not thinking I should do what the
Post-News
says, are you?"

"Hell, no. You've got
some
dignity left to protect."

"Thanks," Eldon said, not much liking his aide's emphasis on "some."

"By the way, the wound's not fully healed, I take it?"

"No, dammit. And it itches."

.    .    .

It was a rare occurrence, but leaving City Hall that afternoon the mayor and his entourage ran smack into Randilynn Foote and hers as they came down the stairs from the Governor's Rooms. Surface politeness prevailed, but the surface was very thin.

"Hello, Governor."

"Greetings, Mr. Mayor. Nice suit you got on there. I especially like the pants. Mind if I feel them?"

Eldon backed away, defensive and horrified.

"Just kidding, Mayor. Just kidding."

.    .    .

The mayor was on his way to a ribbon cutting at a garment factory in the Bronx. The new enterprise was exactly the sort of project he had tried to encourage: a new business creating jobs in an economically deprived area, unionized, free of mob influence and not a sweatshop. As an added dividend the owner was a dynamic—and attractive—Hispanic, Laura Cata, who had been an ardent supporter in his election campaign, not least because of his commitment to helping start-up businesses.

After the bruising he had taken for days, he was gratified at his reception: a sensuous buss from Ms. Cata (no air-kissing here) and rousing cheers and applause from the rainbow crowd of workers—mostly women—Asian, Hispanic and black. They were all wearing bright yellow T-shirts inscribed cata, inc.; he was presented with one and, when he handed it off to Gene Fasco, the onlookers protested. So he took off his jacket and put it on over his shirt, to even more shouts of approval.

He hoped that the pool photographer accompanying him would get the right picture—the smiles of the owner and the local Bronx
politicians in attendance, the enthusiastic crowd. Send
that
to
The
Post-News!

Ms. Cata's introduction was fulsome. Eldon rose to the occasion with some short, graceful remarks—even working in a reference to
ciudad grande.
Then, after a glass of the sparkling wine being passed and shaking hands all around, he headed back toward his car with his hostess, pleased and exhilarated. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a large golden retriever ran out and nuzzled Ms. Cata, its owner. She was as affectionate as she would have been with a small baby and introduced the creature, Miguel, to the mayor.

Mercifully there were no jokes about canine homicides, and Eldon, steeling himself, even made a tentative gesture to pet the dog. The crowd applauded some more, the photographer snapped away and the mayor left in friendly triumph.

"Better than last time," he muttered to Fasco and Braddock as they headed back to Manhattan.

.    .    .

Maybe better than last time, but it turned out only marginally so. The next morning's
Post-News
featured the photograph of Miguel and Eldon—the cheering crowd cropped out—on the front page, revealing a dogphobe's steely smile that scarcely concealed underlying fear and loathing. "Better Watch Out, Doggie," the caption began. And in the upper left corner of the front page was a black-bordered box—

—presumably referring to the mayor's reluctance to lift his pants leg.

.    .    .

"Can't win 'em all, Mr. Mayor," Gullighy told his boss helpfully Wednesday morning.

"Thank you."

"I've scheduled the press conference for two o'clock. You want to make a statement, or just get up and stonewall?"

"I want a statement about that embryo business. That I'm unequivocally in favor of properly conducted, responsible research on animal embryos. The rest I'll handle. Okay?"

"You got it."

"Meanwhile, if you will permit, I have a meeting with the Technology Zone Task Force. It will be nice to do some substantive work around this place for a change."

.    .    .

The meeting with the task force should have been a triumph. The chairman, Don Mead, was Eldon's commissioner of economic development. He was a former Wall Street investment banker with both a brain and a social conscience. He had been in the Peace Corps in Nigeria and had an idealistic view of the world that he had managed to retain even while rising to the top at an aggressive Wall Street banking house. He could be brash and tough—he had had to be in the brutal internal wars within his own firm—but he had avoided the seduction of regarding the ever-expanding accumulation of personal wealth, formerly known as greed, as his ultimate goal in life. He was that interesting and rare phenomenon, a true liberal who was also a multimillionaire.

Like Eldon, he shared the view that good could be done for—and more important, with—the poor, mis- and uneducated, often dysfunctional underclass. Eldon had spotted him on one study
commission or another, and easily, as it turned out, persuaded him to join the Hoagland administration.

Mead's brief from the professorial Eldon had been to put aside the (failed) clichés of the War on Poverty, Urban Renewal (with a capital "U" and a capital "R") and the other nostrums for dealing with urban deprivation.

"I know they say if you teach a man to fish he will eat for a lifetime," Eldon had told him. "But that ignores that the waters he will fish in are polluted, his fishing gear is likely to be stolen and his family will soon tire of an all-fish diet. We need new approaches, Don, and you're a tough enough son of a bitch to develop them. The technology zone first and foremost."

Mead had accepted the challenge, at a cut in income that meant little to him, and assembled the Technology Zone Task Force from within and without the city administration. They were all present today in the mayor's conference room: Sal Miskovitz, an extraordinary number cruncher and municipal budget expert from the comptroller's office; Mina Gordon, Mead's cool assistant and an alumna of another downtown banking firm; Jared Vaughan, a black economist from the Finance Administration who had actually visited (or more precisely, grown up in) one of the desolate areas that were the task force's concern. The three staff members were two Ph.D. candidates from Columbia whom Eldon had supervised, Mary Palucci and Christopher Lehrman, and a young intern, Garry Spiller, from the Public Affairs Program at NYU.

This serious group rose as one when Eldon entered the room, which he circled, shaking hands. There were empty coffee cups amid the papers on the table, but no one had left exposed a copy of the morning
Post-News
(which they had all read avidly).

"What have you got for me?" he asked as he sat down next to Mead.

"Mr. Mayor, we hope we have a doable technology zone proposal and one that won't break your budget."

"Good. That's what I like to hear."

Spiller handed Eldon a stapled set of pages that duplicated the sheets on a flip chart at one end of the long conference table. Then he went and turned the title page on the visual display.

"Here it is in a nutshell," Mead explained. "One billion spread over five years to start the highest-technology state-of-the-art complex anywhere. That includes the construction of a high school building and a new City College branch at the site. As you will see, the potential is for a minimum of five thousand high school and college graduates within eight years and a minimum of forty-five hundred new jobs at the end of five."

"The schools. I hope they'll teach computer skills and not just how to change a spark plug."

"Yessir. That's a later chart. You'll see that."

"What about tax breaks for the industries coming in? You include them as a cost in your billion?"

"No, we do not. Hopefully the tax deals will be at a minimum and the chance for skilled labor in a convenient location will be enough to attract plenty of high-tech upstarts. We don't want tax considerations to be the tail wagging the dog."