High Chicago jg-1 Page 3

  "Marilyn," I said gently. "If it's not too painful, can you tell us anything about the night she died?"

  She took a deep breath, as if trying to expel a toxic cloud that had formed inside her lungs. "It was two weeks ago. She had dinner at her father's house that night. Her and Andrew. I know something happened there between Maya and Rob. Neither of them told me what it was about, but I know from Andrew there was a bit of a row and Maya left early. Probably something to do with Nina. The new wife."

  "Why do you say that?" I asked.

  "Because she's a bitch to everyone. Anyway, a few hours later-around midnight, the police said-she jumped off… oh God… I'm sorry… she jumped off her balcony. From twelve storeys up."

  "They're sure she jumped?" I asked. "Could she have somehow slipped?"

  "There's a waist-high concrete wall around the balcony," Marilyn said. "If she had simply fallen over, they said, she would have landed differently. Closer to the building or something. They were pretty sure she climbed up onto the wall and then jumped."

  "Marilyn," I said, "do you know if Maya was into drugs at all? Maybe if she was upset after this dinner, she-"

  "No! She wasn't a drug user, or even much of a drinker. She didn't even like being around people who were. She liked herself. Liked being herself. That's what makes it so damn hard to understand." Her slim body started to heave and huge racking sobs followed. Jenn went and sat next to her and put a hand on her shoulder. A few minutes passed before she could speak again. "Please, Mr. Geller-"

  "Jonah."

  "Please, Jonah. Jenn. Find out what happened to my baby. Find out what went wrong. Where I went wrong. I can handle that. I can handle anything but this wondering. This not knowing."

  "Why take it all on yourself?" Jenn asked. "You weren't the only parent she had."

  "Please," she said, giving us the closest thing she had to a smile. "Rob is the most self-absorbed little pri-the most self-absorbed man on this planet. If Maya literally had been crying out for help, he wouldn't have heard it. Or he would have told her to wait till he got off the phone. He was that way when we were together and he's been even worse since we split. Between his new bimbo and his big new project-he's quite the mover and shaker now. No, I'm the one who was supposed to be there for her. And for Andrew too, even if he never seems to need anything from anyone. It was up to me to help the kids get over the divorce and get on with their lives and I failed. Or at least I failed Maya. Completely."

  I looked at Jenn and she nodded at me.

  "We'll do what we can," I said.

  I asked if Maya had left a note of any kind.

  Marilyn shook her head.

  "Do you have a recent photo?"

  Marilyn reached into her purse and withdrew what had been a five-by-seven once. It was now five-by-four with a ragged edge on the left. The photo showed a beaming young woman with sea-green eyes and chestnut hair that fell to her shoulders. She had her arm around her mother, who stood on her right.

  "I'm sorry," Marilyn said with a half-smile. "When Rob told me he was leaving me for the trophy girl, I cut him out of most of the photos."

  "What about her apartment?" Jenn asked. "Have her things been moved?"

  "Not yet," Marilyn said. "I haven't been able to deal with it. I paid the rent until the end of next month. Maybe by then I'll be able to sort through it and see what I want to keep."

  "With your permission," Jenn said, "we should have a look. Her phone records and credit card bills might tell us something."

  Marilyn nodded.

  "Did she keep a journal?" I asked.

  "I'm not sure. She told me once that she had to keep a journal of a character she was playing-it was Helena, one of the lovers in Midsummer Night's Dream-God, she was so funny in that, so goofy-but whether she kept one of her own? I don't know."

  "If she did," I said, "maybe we'll find it at her place."

  "I'll get you a set of keys," she said. "Or maybe I should go with you. I might be able to tell you what's important and what's not."

  "That's a courageous offer," Jenn said. "Do you think you could manage it?"

  "Now that I'm here-now that I've met you-yes, I think I could." She put her hand over Jenn's and squeezed it.

  "Why don't you guys go ahead," I said. "I'd like to talk to her dad."

  Marilyn recited Rob's office, cell and home numbers. "But good luck getting hold of him. Ever since he got involved with Simon Birk, he thinks he's more important than God."

  "The Simon Birk?" I asked.

  "The man himself," she said.

  Everyone knew Simon Birk. Even me, who paid little or no attention to matters of big business and real estate. Birk was one of the highest-profile developers in the world, Chicago's answer to Donald Trump, only with hair that could be explained by science. He and Trump were known to be bitter rivals. When ground was broken on Trump's International Hotel and Tower at Bay and Adelaide, the Donald arrived in a stretch limo and used a golden shovel. Several months later, at his own groundbreaking ceremony, Simon Birk made his entrance by helicopter, the rotors scattering hats and ruffling the hair of dignitaries and journalists. He scoffed at the shovel he'd been offered and commandeered a backhoe to crack the dry earth and scoop out the first bucketful of soil.

  "So the big project of Rob's that you mentioned," I asked, "is the Birkshire Harbourview?" It was a massive new complex on a long-neglected part of Toronto's port lands.

  "Yes."

  "How did he manage that?"

  "Birk wanted to build in Toronto and Rob had the one thing they don't make any more."

  "The land."

  "Acres of it, all south of the Keating Channel."

  "How did he swing that?" Jenn asked.

  "Depends who you ask," Marilyn said.

  CHAPTER 4

  The plaza outside the Cadillac Fairview tower was bathed in sunshine, and full of people basking in it. Smoking, chatting, munching hot dogs from street vendors, or just leaning back and letting the light shine down on them. Enjoy it while you can, I thought. Despite the unseasonable warmth of the past few days, the long Canadian winter was coming. As the days grew shorter, faces would get longer, brows more furrowed, shoulders more hunched. Moods would get blacker, hopes would dim.

  My own mood hadn't been great since Stefano di Pietra had died at my hands, the would-be Don lying motionless under the waters of the river of the same name. Sleep had been restless, sometimes elusive altogether. My dreams had been the kind you strive to forget when you awake. Sometimes I'd be lost: in a tunnel, a hotel, a subway station, in my own apartment. I'd be fighting with assailants, firing guns without bullets, swinging my fists uselessly, getting no power behind the punches. I'd be surrounded by flames with no way to douse them. I'd be on trial for crimes I couldn't remember committing.

  In winter it would only get worse.

  I walked through the sunlit lobby, a two-storey atrium with full-length windows on three sides. The floor and walls were pink marble, the railings highly polished brass. Two fountains at the base of a marble stairway created a rushing sound like a bountiful stream in nature. It was the only natural thing about the place.

  I took an elevator to the fourteenth floor and walked into the glassed-in reception area of Cantor Development, where a woman sat behind a workstation made of dark wood in two shades, cherry and mahogany.

  "Good morning," said the receptionist.

  "Good morn-"

  "I'm sorry, he's away from his desk right now," she said, and I realized she was speaking not to me but into a headset. I waited next to a rack of publications that included Condo Life, Canadian Builder, Greener House and Home. The cover of Canadian Builder, placed at eye level, showed two men: according to the caption, the one on the left was Rob Cantor; on the right was Simon Birk. Cantor was tall and fit, with thick dark hair. Birk was easily half a foot shorter, squat but powerfully built, grey hair cropped close to his skull, his head thrusting out of his suit as if trying to burst free of constraints
.

  "Yes?" the receptionist said.

  He reminded me of someone… Norman Mailer or Rod Steiger… a pugnacious attitude that suggested he was ready to rip off his pinstriped suit and scrap in the street. You might beat him, the look in his eye said, but you'd know you'd been in a fight.

  "Sir?"

  I turned. The woman was looking at me now.

  "Sorry," I said. "Are you talking to me or the headset?"

  "To you, dear," she said.

  "I'm here to see Rob Cantor," I said.

  "Is he expecting you?"

  "He is." I gave her my name.

  "Oh, yes. Let me call Florence for you."

  I flipped open Canadian Builder to the article on Birk and Cantor's partnership. The Birkshire Harbourview complex, it said, was being built at a cost of more than $500 million. No ex pense was being spared: it would feature only the finest marble; the rarest hardwood; the highest-end kitchen appliances; the most expansive and state-of-the-art workout facilities and spa.

  I was wondering when the writer would run out of superlatives when a tall, dark-haired woman emerged from behind glass doors and introduced herself as Florence Strickland, Rob Cantor's executive assistant. She was holding a BlackBerry in one hand. Her handshake was firm, as was her voice when she told me Mr. Cantor would not be able to see me after all.

  "He knows what it's about?" I asked.

  "I told him, yes."

  "And he can't spare a few minutes?"

  "Something came up."

  "I don't mind waiting."

  "That won't do any good," she said. "He had to leave the office."

  I remembered what my mother had said about Rob spending time on the phone during his daughter's shiva.

  She glanced at the BlackBerry. "He does have a 2:30 slot free tomorrow," she said.

  "Unless something comes up."

  "He's a busy man, Mr. Geller. Shall I reserve that time for you or would you prefer to rebook at your convenience?"

  I could tell I wasn't going to get any further with her. Not without ice tongs. "All right," I said. "I'll take the 2:30 tomorrow."

  "We'll see you then," she said, and her fingernails skittled over the BlackBerry keyboard. "From 2:30 to 2:45. Will that do?"

  "I guess it'll have to."

  She smiled and thanked me-for what, I couldn't guess-and turned back toward the inner sanctum, just as a young man came out. He wore a dark suit too serious for his age and carried a long cardboard tube under one arm.

  "Where's my dad?" he asked Florence Strickland. His dad. This, then, would be Andrew Cantor. He was twenty-five, his mother had said. His hair was dark but his complexion was pale. His neck was mottled with old acne scars.

  "He had to go down to the job site," Florence said.

  "Why didn't he tell me? He has to sign off on these drawings."

  "Something came up," she said. "Would you like me to try his cell?"

  "No. I'll take them over. They'll need them down there anyway. If he calls before I get there, ask him to wait there for me. Or to try my cell."

  "I'll tell him."

  She went back through the glass doors and Andrew walked past me as if I were invisible. He told the receptionist he would have his cell on.

  "Of course you will, dear," she said. "Should I call you a cab?"

  "Please."

  I followed Andrew into the hallway. He punched the down button on the elevator and stared at his reflection in the stainless steel doors. A warped reflection that made him seem shorter and wider than he was.

  "I'm heading down to the site too," I said. Why not use the time to hear what the closed-up son had to say about his vibrant, stage-struck sister. "I can give you a ride if you like."

  He said, "Are you a supplier?" With the frosty welcome he'd give if that's what I were.

  "No," I said. "Jonah Geller. I'm a friend of your mother's."

  "So why are you going to the job site?"

  "To talk to your dad."

  "About what?"

  "Your sister."

  He looked back at his reflection. "If it's all the same to you," he said, "I think I'll take the cab."

  CHAPTER 5

  The cranes had returned to Toronto. As I drove east along Lake Shore Boulevard, they stood out against the sky, raising girders and great buckets of cement up to the tops of buildings that grew taller by the day. During past recessions and lulls in the market, tower cranes had all but disappeared from the landscape, as landlords couldn't give away office space or condos. Now the town was booming again, buildings going up everywhere you looked, even on a narrow verge of land right next to the elevated Gardiner Expressway, built so close to it that occupants could lean over their balcony railings and high-five drivers going by.

  I took Cherry Street south across the Keating Channel, a man-made canal that allowed freighters to get close enough to factories and industries for derricks to unload their goods. The port lands between the channel and the lake had long been home to heavy industry, everything from oil refineries to tire manufacturers. Any new project being built there had to reclaim the abused land. Brownlands, they were called. Turning them green was hugely expensive, which was why they'd been neglected so long. Tracts had been bought by retailers intending to build superstores, then abandoned when they realized how polluted the land really was, and how expensive it would be to treat or replace the soil.

  But some developers were clearly able to absorb the costs. Either they'd been lucky enough to find land that had been used for lighter industry, or they'd conceived projects whose profit margins made remediation worthwhile. And with the blighted Gardiner supposedly coming down, the door had never been more open to reuniting the city and its waterfront.

  I turned east on Unwin Avenue, the last road north of the lake. On the south side was the tree-lined shore of Cherry Beach and its marina, closed for the season now with empty slips and boats in dry dock, but a hive of colour and activity in the summer. There were trees and grass and gorse bushes turned a vibrant autumn red.

  But on the north side, it was all barbed-wire fences and tired-looking buildings. At the far end of Unwin, looming like a poor cousin of the Washington Monument, was the 700-foot smokestack of the Richard L. Hearn Generating Station, decommissioned and mostly abandoned now; the new Portlands Energy Centre was being built alongside it, over considerable opposition from area residents. I drove past great piles of salt and sand used for the city's roads; hills made of gravel and aggregate; twin peaks of broken stone to be taken to landfill sites; rusted transmission towers standing like sentinels with their arms akimbo.

  According to Canadian Builder, the Birkshire Harbourview was being built on a thirty-hectare tract of land between Lake Ontario and the Keating Channel. I don't know a hectare from Hector, Prince of Troy, but it seemed like a huge parcel to me. I had to pull close to the edge of the road to let a dump truck rumble past me, coming out of the site with a ghostly cloud of dust billowing out from under a tied-down tarp. I left my car parked outside the site and got a hard hat from my trunk. I keep a number of hats, jackets, shoes and other items there: surveillance work often calls for a quick change of appearance, and hats are an easy way to fool someone into thinking you're not the same guy they just saw in their rear-view mirror, or behind them on a crowded sidewalk. I also took out a clipboard and a pen, and began a slow circuit around the hoarding that surrounded the site. Each panel had been papered over with images of model suites with sweeping views of the harbour and the Toronto Islands behind them or of the glittering city skyline to the north.

  Informational panels showed how the building would conform to the highest LEED standards for green living. Another showed the price range: starting at $1.5 million for a 1,500-square-foot one-bedroom and topping out at $12 million for a two-storey penthouse unit. And to think I was making do with a thousand square feet at a thousand a month. Then again, my view was every bit as good, even if it showed the city rising out of a dark ravine, and not smiling at its
glittering waterfront reflection like Narcissus.

  I walked around the south side to where the park would be. An artist's rendering on the rear hoarding showed a lush wooded parkland; all I saw was bare, fragile new saplings where said forest would be and fenced-off areas that had been reseeded with grass. The parkland as drawn would connect to Tommy Thompson Park and the Leslie Street Spit, a man-made five-kilometre peninsula jutting out into Lake Ontario, built with landfill as a breakwater and now a favourite spot for weekend walkers, birders, joggers and cyclists. It would host a variety of wildlife-foxes, coyotes, rabbit and groundhogs, cormorants, night herons and of course ring-billed gulls. Their colony just west of the spit is one of the world's largest: the squawking from their breeding grounds in mating season sounds like a million nails being dragged down a blackboard; the spit itself looks like it's been paved with dung and feathers.

  Coming back around the north side, I found a gap in the hoarding and got my first good look at the hole itself. The size of a full city block and five or six storeys deep, a quarry whose inner walls had been lined with wooden planks, shored up at intervals by massive timbers. A steep dirt road led down into the hole, its surface showing the herringbone pattern of heavy tires. Dozens of workmen swarmed the bottom, all wearing bright yellow hard hats. Some were on scaffolding, shoring up braces in the corners. Parked down at the centre was a crane, but at its end was a massive auger boring a hole ten feet wide. Near it were holes already finished, into which great steel caissons were being lowered, each as wide around as a fuselage. One dump truck was straining up the road to ground level; another prepared to descend and gather up the earth being dug out of the foundation. The air rang with the whine of machinery, the cries of gulls and the shouts of men trying to be heard above them.

  As I came to the main entrance, a truck with a flatbed loaded with caissons was entering. The driver had his window open, elbow out, cigarette dangling at the end of his fingers.

  "How far down do those things go?" I asked.