Page 42 of A Friend in the Glass

“Oh, hey—” Rufus paused midthought, glanced down, and crouched. He stood back up holding a gray tabby. Scratching under the bodega cat’s chin, he continued, “Is that Nasta guy related to Jennifer Nasta? I keep getting her fucking reelection campaign texts, even when I report them as spam.”

A new search showed that, yes, Kenneth Nasta was married to Jennifer Nasta—who happened to be a member of Congress, and who was currently serving on the House Defense Subcommittee.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Sam said.

Bodega Cat climbed up Rufus’s chest and perched on his shoulder, tail wrapped around his neck.

“A Defense Subcommittee member who’s doing business with her lobbyist husband,” Rufus began, ticking the points off on his fingers. “Who, in turn, is doing business with Conasauga, who covered up a defense fiasco. Did I get that right?”

“This is a snake pit. And I bet if we start digging into Congresswoman Nasta, we’d find that Conasauga has contributed heavily to her election campaign, and that she, in turn, has been making sure Conasauga gets their share of the defense spending—contracts like Stonefish, for fuck’s sake. So, Del and the colonel have a falling out. We’re not sure why, but it seems like that woman, Evangeline, is involved somehow. Shareed too—she thought she could use Stonefish to squeeze some money out of them. No, hold on, let’s do this in order.”

“Starting with Stonefish,” Rufus interjected.

Bodega Cat meowed loudly before jumping onto a nearby shelf of family-size chip bags, where it settled in for a late afternoon nap.

“Stonefish. It’s a disaster. It’s a disaster for Lew. It’s a disaster for Colonel Bridges. And it’s a disaster for Went. Went—” Sam wanted to saydies, but he forced himself to say, “—kills himself, and he gets blamed, and everyone moves on.”

“Everyone moves on until Shareed,” Rufus prompted next. “She’s caught digging through old cases. She goes AWOL and calls you out of the blue. Why?”

“Because she’s trying to get money. Out of me. Out of anybody. She needs it because she’s already fucked herself over, and she’s trying to score big before it all implodes. So, she calls me. She calls Evangeline. And it’s no coincidence she drops Lew’s name—I think she must have called him too, and that’s how she got herself killed.”

Rufus looked over his shoulder in the direction of the guy standing behind the counter, but he was absolutely transfixed by some video on his phone. Rufus said, “Shareed shows her hand to the wrong guy and it gets her killed. And now the convention is in full swing and out comes Del Jolly and Colonel Bridges.”

“Right. And it’s where everything gets messy. So, Del and the colonel disagree about something, and it sounds like Del is the one getting screwed—when we heard them at the bar, Del was desperate. And the colonel doesn’t like that you and I are poking around; he sends Lew to get rid of us. Then Evangeline gets killed before we can get any straight answers out of her, and somebody kills the colonel. The next day, some assholes working for Civic Catalyst decide we need to go for a ride, and it turns out, they’ve got ties to a congresswoman whose husband has million-dollar ties to Conasauga. Which takes us back to my original question: what the fuck is going on?”

“The colonel’s death is where everything goes topsy-turvy,” Rufus said thoughtfully. He’d reached around Sam and quietly tugged free another snack bag of lime Takis from the shelf in front of them.

Sam didn’t bother to point out that Rufus had been eating so many Takis lately that he was likely only a bag away frombecomingone.

“There’s an argument to be made,” Rufus started, “that Del could want the colonel dead, but considering Del not only attended his panel at the Javits today, but was essentially tossed into the trunk of a car afterward by peoples unknown, I’m inclined to admit… he probably didn’t pull the trigger.” Rufus offered Sam the Takis a second time.

With a roll of his eyes, Sam took it. After a few crunches, he said, “So, some questions: who wanted Evangeline dead, and why? Who wanted the colonel dead, and why? And who wanted the whole Stonefish mess to come out, and why? I mean, it’s been a long time. Why now?”

“I think another question we should consider is: who gave the go-ahead for Chad and Jarhead to come after us this morning?” Rufus asked. “Because I don’t get the feeling they’re associated with Del. Which means it was someone else. Should we be seriously looking at that connection Chad has with Civic Catalyst?”

“I think the fact that they’re tied up with Conasauga means we have to seriously consider the possibility they have something at stake in this too, even if we don’t know exactly what yet.” Sam checked his phone again. “They’ve got a satellite office here. Big surprise, since Chad’s a local. It’s on—it looks like Pine and Water. Does that sound right?”

“A lobbyist company with a satellite office in the Financial District sounds very right,” Rufus agreed. “Stereotypical, even.”He flashed Sam a big grin. “Wanna go see if that’s where Chad’s been lying low all afternoon?”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Eight stops on the downtown A didn’t sound like much, but in reality, it was still a thirty-five minute ride to get from Harlem to the water’s edge of southern Manhattan. Thirty-five long minutes packed into a train like sardines in a tin can because it was the start of evening rush hour. They were shoulder-to-shoulder with way too many teenagers either performing showtime to an unenthusiastic audience or trying to upsell candy bars—the latter of which Rufus wondered might be a violation of some child labor law. And then there was that one dipshit at 59 Street-Columbus Circle who held the doors open for so long that the conductor shouted over the intercom: “I will get out of this fucking car and beat your ass if you don’t let go of the goddamn doors!”

Business as usual in the New York City subway system.

Rufus had used the opportunity to catch a quick nap on Sam’s shoulder. He’d drifted in that no man’s land between sleep and awake, where rest could be obtained but he was still able to come around just as the train pulled into Fulton Street station. Leading the way up to street level, Rufus hunched his shoulders against the bitterly cold wind skimming off the waterand roaring down the maze of tiny streets that defied the uptown grid system.

He moaned, “It’s colder than a witch’s tit down here.” Rufus stuffed his hands into his jean jacket pockets, stamped his feet a few times, and turned around before inclining his head in one direction. “Pine Street is this way, I think.”

Rufus and Sam wove around gaggles of men and women—probably senior finance staff leaving their high-paying Wall Street jobs for the day while interns and newly hired college graduates burned the midnight oil for peanuts. Turning off William and onto Pine—a one-way that felt more like an alleyway, what with the massive skyscrapers all but blotting out the sky—Rufus slowed as they came up on an imposing building of polished black stone and glass. To one side stood an open loading dock, a couple of guys bundled in enough Carhartt to be shooting an ad standing around on a smoke break.

Rufus asked with a curious inflection, “What’s the floor number for the office—does their website say?”

Sam checked his phone. “Eighth floor.”

“Follow me.” Head down and hands still in his pockets, Rufus walked toward the loading dock with purpose, like he had somewhere to be, and just as two of the workers dropped their cigarette butts and started shoving each other—a bunch of hot air or an actual fight, Rufus couldn’t yet determine—he slipped into the open doorway. He waited for Sam before heading deeper into the caverns of the building.

It smelled like cold cement and like exhaust and oil from nearby parked cars—most likely those of executives working in this high-rise office. The commercial overhead bulbs were bare and one flickered like a nervous tic.

---