Hardscrabble Road (32 page)

This morning, he also didn’t want to play Ray Dean Ballard. He didn’t think that had anything to do with Drew Harrigan’s death
per se. After all, he barely knew the man, and what he knew he didn’t like. Still, the news was all over television and the
radio. Morning Edition had it. The newspapers piled in stacks in front of newsstands had it. Everybody had it. If he’d owned
a television, he could have done nothing for the next several hours but listen to reports about when Drew Harrigan died, how
and where his body was found, who and what was going to be in trouble now. He didn’t have a television, and didn’t want one,
and when he passed one in the window of an electronics store he paused only for a minute before moving on down the street.
He did not look like the Ray Dean Ballard they were used to at the office, now. He was wearing a better coat, for one thing.
The real difference was that his demeanor was almost completely changed. He was fed up, and restless, and he wanted to do
something with the morning.

The first thing he did was to stop at a pay phone and tell them he wouldn’t be in until later. He’d left his cell phone at
home, because he didn’t want to be interrupted, and he didn’t bother to tell them why he wouldn’t be in or where he’d be instead.
That was one of the perks of being the boss. You didn’t owe anybody any explanations. The second thing he did was to stop
at an ATM machine and get some money. Usually, he was careful not to carry too much around with him in cash. Nothing got people’s
attention as much as a big wad of bills in a wallet. He checked the limits he was allowed and opted for five hundred dollars.
It came out at him in tens and twenties, as if he had just committed a bank heist.

Out on the street again, he looked around at what was really a very prosperous neighborhood. The stores were good, selling
things people needed at prices far above what people needed to pay. In another part of town, you could get a watch. In this
part of town, you could get a Swiss Army watch, or a Rolex. He had never really understood Rolexes. If he wanted to spend
$17,000 on something, he’d buy himself a car. Except that he didn’t understand cars, either.

He turned first left, then right, then left again, reaching each intersection at increasing speed, feeling more and more reluctant
to slow down for pedestrians or traffic. Now that he’d decided to do this, he wanted to get it done. He saw only one homeless
man on his way. The man was young and completely a mess. He was filthy. His trousers were literally in rags, in strips
that hung down from his knees like abstract expressionist curtains. In spite of the wind and the cold and the time of day,
he had his member out, waving in the wind. He was pissing on the tires of every car parked at the curb.

This is the truth, Ray Dean told himself. I am not able to solve the homeless problem. Nobody is able to solve the homeless
problem. The homeless are not a problem. They are a fact of life.

He made one more turn, and then there it was, the one building in Philadelphia he was usually careful to avoid: the Markwell
Ballard Bank. It was not the kind of bank people used to open checking accounts or savings accounts or nip into to get a little
money. It had no tellers, no customer lines, no little bank of deposit slips next to the door. In fact, the door wasn’t a
commercial door, open to the public. It was locked, and to get in you had to ring a bell and be admitted by a doorman.

Ray Dean rang the bell. The doorman peered out the plate glass of the window and then opened up.

“Mr. Aldy,” he said. “It’s been a long time. I hope you’re doing well.”

“I’m doing fine, Fitz. Is Cameron up there waiting for me?”

“Mr. Reed has been in his office for an hour,” Fitz said. “Everybody still hopes you’ll come into the business, you do know
that, don’t you? We’re all waiting for you.”

“If you go on waiting, you’ll get like Rip Van Winkle,” Ray Dean said. “I’ll go on up. I hope you have an unexciting day.”

“Every day is unexciting except the ones where the president comes to visit or the protestors camp out on the street, but
there isn’t going to be that kind of thing today. I bought myself pepper spray if the protestors come back.”

Ray Dean half ran to the stairs and started up, four flights, he didn’t care. He really was restless today. He made it up
all three flights in record time, and without becoming breathless. All that running he did was obviously paying off. He went
through the fire doors into the fourth-floor lobby and saw Cameron Reed pacing back and forth in front of the receptionist’s
desk, as if he had nothing at all else to do. The receptionist didn’t look pleased.

“Aldy,” Cameron said. “I dropped everything. What’s the emergency?”

Ray Dean had half a mind to say “murder” right here where everybody could hear it, but he didn’t. He knew what Cameron was
really worried about.

“It’s just something I need,” he said, edging Cameron toward his office door. “Let’s go into your office and be private. Really
private. Turn off the intercom.”

“Margaret knows everything, Aldy, you know that. I don’t keep anything from Margaret.”

“Turn off the intercom,” Ray Dean said again. “I mean it, Cameron, this is private.”

Cameron looked anything but pleased, but Ray Dean hadn’t expected him to be pleased, so he didn’t worry about it. They went
into the office and shut the door behind them. Cameron went over to the bank of buttons on his desk and flipped one up. He
told Margaret that he was going to be “off-line” for a few minutes. Then he flipped the switch the other way again.

“The other one, too,” Ray Dean said.

“I don’t know—”

”—The other one too,” Ray Dean insisted. “Come on, Cam, don’t do this. I grew up in offices like this. Granted, not the Philadelphia
ones, but they’re all alike. My father is a paranoid nutcase.”

“Your father is a great man.”

“The two things aren’t mutually exclusive. Flip off the other one.” Cameron looked away for a long moment, then pulled out
a drawer and fiddled with another set of buttons.

“Of course,” Ray Dean said, “I don’t put it past the old lunatic to have had this whole place bugged like the Moscow embassy,
but that will have to do in the way of precautions. Let me ease your mind and tell you that I still have no interest in coming
into the family business. You’re welcome to be heir apparent to my father’s endless obsession with all things financial, except
that I really appreciate it when you send me the dividend checks. Okay?”

Cameron visibly relaxed. “Okay,” he said.

“It should have occurred to you that if I’d changed my mind about that, I’d have talked to my father first. We do talk, you
know. We talk a lot. If he gets bored, don’t be surprised if he decides to solve the homeless problem all by his own self.
I want you to do something for me. I want you to run a financial check. Not the kind the credit card companies run before
they give somebody a card; a real one. The kind you’d give to somebody the bank was thinking of loaning a couple of hundred
million dollars.”

“We wouldn’t expose ourselves to that extent on a single loan.”

“You know what I mean.” “Yeah,” Cameron said.

“Yeah, I do. You got a reason for this? You’re not thinking of asking us to loan a pile of cash to a friend of yours or anything,
are you? That doesn’t sound like you. Are we invading this person’s privacy for a reason?”

“I don’t know if you can invade the privacy of the dead,” Ray Dean said. “And the last thing I’d want is for the bank to loan
this guy any money. Although, Lord, I’d give something to be a fly on the wall if my father and this man ever met. You know
who Drew Harrigan is?”

“Of course I know who he is. He’s a buffoon.”

“He may be a buffoon, but he’s a very influential buffoon, and at the moment he’s dead. Murdered, according to the Philadelphia
Police.”

“I did hear that he was dead. Are you saying you’re a suspect in his murder?”

“I suppose half of Philadelphia is a suspect in his murder,” Ray Dean said. “Maybe half the country. I think I can honestly
say that Drew Harrigan gave five new people reasons to kill him every time he opened his mouth on the air, and he was on the
air four hours a day six days a week for years. I want to know who was bankrolling him.”

“You just said he was on the air four hours a day six days a week. He was a popular radio host. Maybe he didn’t need anybody
bankrolling him.”

“He might not need them now, but he would have in the beginning,” Ray Dean said. “I’ve been looking into it. His whole shtick
depends on research, on knowing things that nobody else knows. And in order to do that, he’s got to develop sources, he’s
got to have equipment, he’s got to have money, and he didn’t have it when he started. I want to know who’s bankrolling him.
And don’t tell me maybe somebody started off doing it and isn’t now, because you know that’s not how those people work. Scaife.
Olin. Whoever it was, they like to get control and keep it.”

“It wouldn’t be Olin,” Cameron said. “And I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be Scaife, although he provides the money for a lot
of this kind of thing. Why do you want to know who was bankrolling him? Do you think his backers killed him?”

“No. I think his drug supplier killed him, but there may be more of a connection there than you’d think. That’s not it, though.
It’s just that it’s been bugging me. My guy is still missing. As far as I know, it’s still safest to assume he’s dead.”

“Your guy?”

“Sherman Markey. The homeless man Drew Harrigan—”

“Never mind,” Cameron said. “I remember. You think that if you find out who was bankrolling him, you’ll find your homeless
guy?”

“No, I think I’ll find out what the point was,” Ray Dean said. “I made a list of Harrigan’s targets last night. A couple of
professors at Penn, one of them being Jig Tyler.”

“The man is a Stalinist asshole,” Cameron said.

“I’m not disagreeing. But, look, there are those two. Jig Tyler for being a Stalinist asshole, as you put it. The other, a
woman, for being a ‘lunatic feminist.’ Then there’s two Democratic congressmen, one from Massachusetts, one from Oregon. The
one from Massachusetts is in favor of same-sex marriage. The one from Oregon is in favor of assisted suicide. Then there’s
a Democratic senator from Illinois and the problem there seems to be that the guy is in favor of some provision in some trade
act that is opposed to the spirit of NAFTA, or something. I couldn’t figure that one out, and I’ll bet
most of his listeners couldn’t, either. It doesn’t make any sense. There’s nothing coherent about it. There’s no point.”

“What makes you think there’s going to be a point?”

“There always is a point,” Ray Dean said, “and you know it. I want to know what the point is. I want to know who was backing
him. I want to follow the money. Could you do that for me?”

“Sure,” Cameron said. “It’ll take a couple of days, maybe. Or maybe not. It depends on how secretive they’re being, and how
good they are at keeping secrets.”

“If it was us, would you tell me?”

“No.”

“Is it us?”

“Don’t be an ass,” Cameron said. “You know how your father feels about people like Drew Harrigan. Or Reagan Democrats in general.
Or the guys in the pickup trucks with the Confederate flags, as Mr. Howard Dean put it.”

“My father never let his personal feelings get in the way of business. I don’t think he’s starting now.”

“He’s not,” Cameron said, “but he’s bankrolling the other side, so I think we can safely say that you can be more certain
than you might have been otherwise that he’s not the force behind Drew Harrigan. Why don’t you just let the police do their
job? They’ll look into the finances.”

“They won’t begin to know how to look into the finances,” Ray Dean said, “and you know it. Besides, I’m not necessarily interested
in telling the police anything. I’m just interested in knowing. As soon as possible.”

“Your father will be pleased to know you’re taking an interest in the business.”

“My father is writing a book on the moral responsibilities of global capitalism. All he ever talks to me about is how he’s
convinced I’m going to get killed, just like what’s his name, who was teaching in Harlem.”

“You can’t blame him. You work with some very crazy people. Violent people.”

“So does he,” Ray Dean said. “They just dress it up in fancier clothes. You’ve got my office number. Call me there. Ask for
Ray Dean. Nobody knows who Aldy is.”

“Are you at least using Ballard?”

“Of course I’m using Ballard. Be good for me, Cam, okay? This is making me nuts. And I’ve got a feeling we’re going to hear
nothing but bad news for the foreseeable future. I think my guy is going to show up dead, and I think the police are going
to land on me with both feet. I was the one who sent vans out to search for a red watch cap on the night Drew Harrigan was
murdered, wearing a red watch crap. Crap.”

G
regor Demarkian didn’t know
what he thought a Carmelite monastery was going to look like. Maybe he imagined a castlelike building with Gothic spires
and a moat. Whatever it was, it wasn’t this blank front of a building that faced on the pavement like all the other buildings
in the neighborhood, only the wooden door at the side indicating there was more to its property than to those of its neighbors.
The wooden door shielded a driveway that led to the barn. Gregor could just see the other building at the back of the narrow
space through which cars would have to drive if they wanted to park back there. He wondered if the monastery had cars, and
if it did have them, what they were used for. The nuns were supposed to be cloistered. They wouldn’t be running around the
city looking for the nearest McDonald’s drive-through.

They parked at the curb without difficulty. There weren’t a lot of cars here jockeying for spaces, which was odd. Even in
the worst neighborhoods it was usually difficult to find a space. Marbury and Giametti put their police marker in the front
window and got out. Gregor and Rob Benedetti got out, too. Gregor went up to the wooden door and rattled it.