Oh. Bailey’s building.

“Sure, I leased subsurface rights from Corcoran. But I could care less about the other property. If you know so damn much about deeds and public records why the hell didn’t you just look up the owner and go spy on him?”

Pellam explained about the St. Augustus Foundation. “It’s fake. I thought you were the ultimate owner. That’s what I was looking for in your office. Some connection.”

McKennah was no longer angry. He nodded, musing, “Using a not-for-profit to hide ownership. That’s damn clever. There’s no chance for pass-through profits so the Attorney General wouldn’t pay much attention to it.” He said this with admiration and seemed to file the idea away for future use.

“The board members of the Foundation are fake. But the lawyer I’m working with said it’d take weeks to trace who really runs the place.”

McKennah’s laugh was loud. “Find yourself a new lawyer.”

“You can do better?”

“Hell, yes. I could do it in a couple hours. But why should I? What’s in it for me?”

That’s the most important thing for Mr. McKennah. You don’t have to play fair but you have to play.

“Let’s do some horse-trading,” Pellam said coyly.

“Keep talking.”

“You’ve got leaks in your company, right?”

“I don’t know, do I?”

“Well, I knew all about your Jimmy Corcoran deal, didn’t I?”

McKennah said nothing for a moment, as he scrutinized Pellam. “You can give me a name?”

“You deliver,” Pellam said, “I’ll deliver.”

They rose in silence to the velvet heaven of high-rise New York.

On the seventy-first floor of McKennah’s flagship building on the Upper East Side the developer led him through a maze of offices and deposited him with a bushy-haired, well-dressed, nervous man. Elmore Pavone nodded an uneasy greeting, realizing he was about to receive yet another burden upon his sloping shoulders. But it was a burden being placed there by Roger McKennah himself and would therefore remain firmly affixed until he had solved whatever problem it represented.

The developer explained to Pavone about the arson and the St. Augustus Foundation. The adjutant too seemed impressed with this illicit use of nonprofit corporations.

Pellam said, “I think it’s Corcoran who’s behind the Foundation.”

McKennah and Pavone got a big laugh out of this.

The developer said, “This’s way, way outa Corcoran’s league. He’s a putz. The phrase ‘small-time’ was invented for him.”

Pellam cocked his eyebrow. “Yeah? I heard he negotiated you under the table.”

“Oh, did you?”

“On the tunnel deal. Taking a cut of the action when he granted you the easement.”

McKennah blinked in astonishment. “How the hell do you know all this stuff?”

Word on the street.

Pellam said, “Is it true or not?”

The developer smiled. “Yeah, Corcoran gets a cut of the profits. But the way the contracts reads is that he gets one percent of the profit quote deriving from his property. That means he gets a piece of the action from any money I make from the tunnel, not the tower. The deal with the city is that I’m leasing the tunnel to the Transit Authority for a token rental – ten bucks a year. So Jimmy Corcoran’s share is ten cents a year.”

The developer added, “I’ll always be one step ahead of punks like Jimmy Corcoran. I was in an Irish gang in the Kitchen too, you know. The difference is, I graduated.”

“Not a great guy to have as an enemy,” Pellam pointed out. “Corcoran.”

McKennah laughed again. “You hear about the Gophers?”

Pellam nodded. The Hell’s Kitchen gang that so fascinated Ettie’s grandfather.

“You know who finally broke their back?”

“Enlighten me,” Pellam said.

“Not the cops. Not the city. Lord knows the feds didn’t do shit. It was business that broke ’ em up. The New York Central Railroad. They hired Pinkerton and in six months the gang was history. If Corcoran hassles me, I’ll tell you, that little shit is going down hard.”

Pellam said, “Well, if it’s not him then who’s behind the Foundation?”

Pavone and McKennah conferred. Assuming the motive for torching the building was that it was landmarked, Pavone mused, the only reason you would clear a landmarked building was to put up something new. “To build something new, you’d have to file applications for construction permits and P &Z variances and an environmental impact statement.”

McKennah nodded and explained to Pellam that builders often had to wait months before getting construction permits for major projects in the city. Planning and zoning variances, which necessitated public hearings and EPA and utility waivers were sometimes required too. These applications would have to be filed as soon as possible – to minimize the time the owner had to hold property that produced no income and yet on which steep taxes were levied.

There was some risk to the arsonist that the police or a fire marshal might find the applications. But in a city bureaucracy as unwieldy as New York’s, arson investigators would probably be content with checking only the ownership of record, foregoing deeper scrutiny. Especially if they had a suspect in custody.

McKennah nodded to Pavone, who snatched up the phone and spoke in cryptic terms of art to an underling. He jotted some notes. In three minutes he hung up. “Got it. No P &Z but a White Plains construction company applied for a building permit for 458 West Thirty-sixth Street – the site of the fire – two days ago. Morrone Brothers on Route 22.”

McKennah nodded, seemed to recognize the name.

Pavone continued, “They’re going to put up a seven-story parking garage on the lot that burned and the two lots next to it.”

“Parking,” Pellam whispered. All this death and horror for a parking lot?

“So John Doe sets up the St. Augustus Foundation, buys the two vacant lots, torches the property on the third and builds his garage.”

“I want John Doe,” Pellam said. “How do we find him?”

“Who’d do Morrone’s steel work?” the developer asked Pavone.

“Bronx Superstructures, Giannelli…”

“No, no,” McKennah barked, “in Westchester! In Connecticut. Let’s think tighter here, Elm. Come on. Whoever it is’s got to keep some distance from the city.”

“You’re right, okay, okay. Probably it’d be Bedford Building and Foundation.”

“No.” McKennah shook his head vehemently. “They’re doing the Metro North job. They don’t have the capacity to do that and a garage. Come on! Think!”

“Then how about Hudson Steel? Yonkers.”

“Yes!” McKennah snapped his fingers and picked up the phone, dialing from memory. A few seconds later he muttered into the receiver, “Roger McKennah here. Is he in?” In the time it took to drop another phone call like a red-hot drill bit the contractor was on the line.

“Hi, Tony… Yeah, yeah.” McKennah’s rolling eyes suggested how eagerly the man’s tail was wagging. “Okay, okay, friend, I’m in kind of a hurry. Here’s what it is. Don’t fuck with me, okay? You gimme answers and you’ll do our new dock in Greenwich. No bidding, no nothing… Yeah, pick yourself up off the floor… Yeah, lucky you. Now, I hear Morrone’s the general on a garage in the city. West Thirty-sixth. St. Augustus Foundation’s the owner. What d’you mean it’s supposed to be hush-hush? There’re no fucking secrets from me, Tony. You’re subbing the steel, right?… You meet anybody from St. Augustus?.. Well, check it out. And call me. And I mean in three minutes. And Tony, did I tell you, I’m budgeting one point three million for the dock job.”

McKennah hung up. “He’ll call back. So, that’s my part of the deal. Now it’s your turn. Who’s the fucking spy who’s leaking my secrets?”

Pellam said, “When I was over at the Tower a little while ago, taking that tour of your office?”