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“Perhaps not,” Fitzer said. “But it’s mostly for background? And I believe you’ve had some dealings with Mr. Fitch in the past two years?”
“Who hasn’t?” Michael said wryly. “Elmore is all over the landscape. It’s impossible to avoid him if you want to get anything done in this town.”
Fitzer nodded and reached into his glove leather attaché case. “So we have heard,” he said. He took out a small but very sophisticated digital recorder and placed it on the desk, closer to Michael.
Michael raised an eyebrow. “Really? You’re recording this?”
Fitzer nodded. “It guarantees accuracy, and it lets me concentrate on the questions. Do you object to a recording, Mr. Hobson? I can assure you it will not be used against you in any way, nor will its contents be shared with anyone outside our organization.”
Michael hesitated. He found the idea of a recording irritating, but he couldn’t say why. And since it made sense, he really couldn’t object. “A recording is fine,” he said. Then he glanced pointedly at the wall clock to his right. “Let’s get this done, Bill.”
“Very good,” Fitzer said. He leaned over and pushed the RECORD button, giving his name, Michael’s name, and the date, before pushing the recorder closer to Michael. “I’d like to start with a few questions about Mr. Elmore Fitch’s corporate structure—I believe you are on the board of one of his companies?”
“Two, actually,” Michael said.
Fitzer nodded and said, “Please state the names of those companies and how long you have been a director—oh, damn it!” He clutched at his hearing aid and yanked it out of his ear. Michael could hear a loud, high-pitched tone coming from the thing. Fitzer fumbled with it for a moment and then muttered, “Damn it,” and dropped it into a pocket.
“Problem?” Michael asked. Fitzer didn’t respond. Michael smiled, raised his voice, and said again, loudly, “Is there a problem?”
Fitzer looked up. “The battery is dead. I’m sorry, it should have lasted another day, but . . .” He shrugged. “I’m practically deaf without it. An IED in Afghanistan.” He pointed to the recorder. “I’ll have to rely on that thing. And possibly ask you to repeat once or twice?” He raised an eyebrow. Michael spread his hands in a what-can-you-do gesture, and Fitzer nodded. “Sorry for the inconvenience,” he said. “Let’s continue?”
Fitzer jumped right back into it, asking for names and dates and details as he led Michael through a series of increasingly complicated questions about Elmore Fitch and his corporate maneuvers, prodding Michael into giving longer and more detailed answers. Fitzer was an efficient interrogator, but he tended to be blunt, even confrontational, and with his hearing problem he would ask Michael to repeat his answers—more than the “once or twice” he’d promised. And as the questions got more aggressive and the request to repeat his answers got more frequent, Michael found himself getting closer and closer to losing his temper. When Fitzer asked about one of Elmore’s most distasteful forced mergers, Michael was on the very edge of anger.
“As an attorney, what did you advise Mr. Fitch to do about this merger?” Fitzer asked.
“I told him to get out of the deal,” Michael answered through clenched teeth.
“To
do what?” Fitzer asked, his head cocked to the side.
“To get. Out. Of the. Deal,” Michael said, nearly snarling.
Fitzer shook his head. “Sorry?”
“Get out!” Michael shouted. “I told him, ‘Get! Out!’”
“Ah. Uh-huh,” Fitzer said, and then he looked down at his notebook and moved on to the next line of questioning. He kept pushing, prodding, coming at his subject from every possible angle so that, among other things, Michael could not possibly guess what he was really after. That had to be deliberate obfuscation, and although Michael admired the technique, as an attorney himself he couldn’t help trying to guess what Fitzer was fishing for.
But after twenty minutes of questions, Michael still hadn’t figured it out, and he was very happy to see Fitzer go.
When the door finally closed behind the SEC investigator, Michael took a deep breath to calm himself. Then he glanced up at the wall clock and said, “Shit.” He had less than ninety minutes before he had to leave for the airport to get his flight to Zurich. So he put Fitzer and the SEC out of his mind, picked up a file, and went back to work.
* * *
—
SEC investigators don’t use parkour. So I had to go all the way back to Williamsburg by train. The whole way, I had to stand there holding the strap like I was just any old asshole in a suit. I let jerkoffs push me and step on my feet, because that’s what somebody wearing this suit would do. And in a funny way, I didn’t really mind. Because the last preliminary piece was done, and I was ready for the Main Event. Or anyway, I was ready to get ready for it. So when I got back to my crappy rented room, I went right to it.
The Sierra Club types like to say, leave nothing behind except footprints. That wasn’t good enough for me. Footprints are loaded with DNA. So if I left one behind, I was dead and fucked. So Riley’s Fourth Law states: Leave nothing behind. Clean up like your life depends on it, because it does.
I don’t mind. I’ve been cleaning up since I was a kid. Before she fell apart, Mom was always a real fanatic about keeping everything clean. She swept, she mopped, she scrubbed—and she taught me to do all that, too. I did it, and I got good at it. Not because I really cared but because Mom cared. I scrubbed the floors because it mattered to her.
Mom wasn’t in my crappy little room in Williamsburg. And she would never see it. She’d probably never see anything again. I was still on my knees scrubbing anyway. I hit every single inch of that floor with a good stiff brush and the strongest cleaner I could get. Just like I’d already done to the walls, the door, everything in the room. I finished up by the door so I could go out and dump the bucket in the alley. Then I put it, the brush, all my cleaning supplies into the dumpster and went back up to my room.
I stood in the doorway for a minute, looking around the room. Except for one folding chair, the furniture was already gone. The costume rack was in storage over in Jersey City. All that was left was one suit. It was draped over a folding chair. The chair was pulled up beside the door so I could push it in front of a long mirror hung on the back of the door. I had cleaned it, but it didn’t help a lot. It came with the room, and it was just as worn as the rest of the place. There was a small suitcase and a black leather Polo briefcase on the floor beside the chair.
I scanned carefully for anything I’d missed. Nothing. The place was clean. So clean even Mom would’ve been impressed. Every surface that might hold a fingerprint or a small smear of DNA had been scrubbed with carbolic acid and then industrial-strength cleaner. When I was done, there’d be no sign that I had ever been here. Except that the ratty little room would be cleaner than it had ever been before.
