Spiegelman, Peter - John March 02 - Death's Little Helpers by Spiegelman Peter

Author:Spiegelman, Peter [Spiegelman, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1400044936
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2011-09-02T11:51:55+00:00

18

Warren Bradley was saying something about the CIA, but my mind was wandering. In fairness, it wasn’t Warren’s fault. He was an excerpt from a job interview textbook: well groomed, well spoken, confident, and poised. His dark hair was going gracefully gray at the temples and was expensively cut, and if he were any more distinguished-looking, he’d have to run for office. His white shirt was spotless and his blue suit was pristine. Even the racehorses that galloped on his necktie did so with calm assurance. And as far as I could tell, he was entirely sober. I was the one having problems.

“… of course, that was before counterterrorism became a growth industry,” Warren said. He looked at me expectantly, an uncertain smile on his handsome face.

I wrenched my thoughts away from Nina Sachs and the ferry landing, and back to the conference room at Klein & Sons and the interview with Warren. I was pretty sure he’d been making a joke, and I smiled back at him. I guessed right, and he looked reassured and kept on talking.

I read through Warren’s résumé again. Like him, it was perfect: Ivy League college, law school, a stint in the air force, another with the Bureau, and ten years at a big Wall Street firm, where he’d risen steadily through the ranks to the number-two spot in their internal security department.

“Tell me about your assignment in London,” I said. That kept him going for another ten minutes.

Warren was my second interview of the day. Alice Hoyt had been my first, and she too had been sober and confident and eminently presentable, though that’s where the similarities ended. Alice was medium height and broad-shouldered, and there were a lot of laugh lines around her full mouth and dark eyes and a lot of gray in her short Afro. She had graduated public high school in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, and although she had served in the military too, it had been in the army as a lance corporal. From there she’d joined the NYPD and attended Queens College at night for a BS and, later, an MS in criminal justice. She’d spent over twenty years on the job, fifteen as a detective and five as the boss of a detective squad in Midtown North. From there she’d gone private, to a DC firm that did a lot of corporate consulting and, as Alice told it, employed at least as many publicists as it did operatives. After five years, she was tired of the travel and of the time away from her husband and three kids.

“I’ve been away from Brooklyn too long,” she’d said, with a wry smile.

Warren’s deep voice wound down. It was my turn to talk again.

I went back and forth with him for another twenty minutes, and I mostly paid attention. We exchanged firm handshakes and Mrs. K showed him out, swooning only slightly as she did. I went into Ned’s office.

Ned wasn’t there, but my sister Liz was. She was sitting on Ned’s sofa, her shoes off and her long legs propped on the teak coffee table.

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