The Vaults (24 page)

“That’s right,” Van Vossen said without surprise. “Do you know what it means? Neither did we. So I queried our liaison with the Department of Prisons—a gentleman named Kraal. I met with Kraal over lunch and I asked him what the hell was going on with this notation PN. What does this mean? He gets very serious and he says, didn’t they tell us about the Navajo Project? I had never heard of this.”

Van Vossen looked at Puskis to see if this registered, and seeing that it did not, continued, “So I ask him what the hell this Navajo Project is that we haven’t been told about. He lowers his voice—we were at a pub—and says that it is a new method of punishment that they are experimenting with. He says it is very controversial and it is very hush-hush in the department. He says they send these convicts out of the City and their cases aren’t handled by Prisons but by the office of the mayor. Then he began to get nervous and says that that is all he knows about it. It was obvious there was more, but he changed the subject and ignored my other questions. About a week or so later, he comes up to me on the street as I am walking home. He says that he was mistaken about the Navajo Project and that it was a plan that had been considered but never adopted. I asked him how that could be, and he said he didn’t know, but that there was no Navajo Project. He was scared, you see. It was clear to me that he was terrified.”

Van Vossen stopped for a moment and repeated the procedure with the tin in his lap. Puskis looked again at the stacks of paper that must have been the book that Van Vossen was writing. There were thousands of pages.

“And that was it for him,” Van Vossen continued, as if recounting a dream dreamt long ago. “I never saw him again. Not that it means anything happened. It is perfectly understandable that our paths would never cross again, particularly if he were trying to avoid me. And I would have most likely taken his disavowal at face value if it wasn’t for what happened afterwards.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing overt. Nothing obvious. I actually didn’t notice it at all. But a
transcriber named Talley crabbed it by chance. I don’t need to tell you that each file has date stamps for when it is taken from the Vaults and when it is returned. What Talley realized was that it took some files longer to reach the Vaults from us than others. We might send ten files to you, and eight would get to you that day, and two would get to you the next. Do you understand?”

Puskis nodded.

“At first we weren’t sure. We thought that maybe we weren’t remembering the exact day or the exact run, you know—morning or evening—that we had sent them back. So we started keeping track and requesting the same files again to see what date you had checked them in. And it turned out that we were right. Some were taking longer than others.”

“And you assumed that someone was looking at the files after you sent them,” Puskis said.

“That’s right. Listen. We first noticed this—what?—two months or so after I had talked to Kraal. So this started to make me nervous, you see.”

“Did you notice if there were particular kinds of files that were being delayed.”

“We experimented with that, too. Talley and me. We requested certain types of files—homicides or gang-related crimes, for instance—to see if there was any pattern. If there was, they held back other types of files as camouflage. We couldn’t figure it out.”

Puskis rubbed the sides of his nose with his fingertips. “Who do you think was looking at the files?”

Van Vossen shrugged. “Does it matter? It was either the police or someone from the mayor’s office. Either way, you can understand that it had a chilling effect on us. But it seemed vitally important to get the message out about these criminals who were apparently part of the Navajo Project, whatever that was. I didn’t feel safe about openly contacting anyone, and there was no way to safely conceal anything in a file. It was a risk even to involve Talley. It’s no secret that the mayor had an ear in the Transcribers’ Room.

“So I came up with the idea of getting a duplicate file into the Vaults. It seemed like a good solution. I would plant the duplicate file, request it, and then when you noticed that there were two files, you would look into it. The genius of the approach was that if you approached the Chief or anyone else about the duplicate files, they would assume that it was just an inevitable mistake or that you were beginning to lose it just like Abramowitz had.”

“Why didn’t you request the file again?”

“They retired me. Almost immediately after I had the second file planted. Maybe they knew, or maybe they were suspicious that we were playing games with the system and decided to make me the example. Maybe Talley was the mayor’s man. I never knew. They sent me off and I didn’t have the nerve to ask any of the others to make the request. Who was I to trust? So it sat until a legitimate request was made, I suppose.”

Puskis was overwhelmed by this story. “How did you get the duplicate file into the Vaults?”

Van Vossen laughed without much pleasure. “That was simple. One of the women who cleans on our floor was married to one of the cleaners for the Vaults. I gave her twenty dollars to have her husband stick the file in the right spot. Apparently he did.”

Puskis searched the street as he walked back toward City Hall from Van Vossen’s house. Van Vossen had told Puskis that the police, or more specifically, the ASU, kept a watch on his house, but that he thought the surveillance had more or less been abandoned at this point. Reacting to a stricken look from Puskis, Van Vossen smiled.

“You don’t have to worry. You may be the most important person in the City for them. In the Vaults they have a tremendous amount of important information. The information that could harm them is most important of all, you see. But all this information is absolutely worthless if there is no way to retrieve it. Nobody understands how it is organized but you.”

“To be honest, that seems like a reason to get rid of me.”

“No. Quite the opposite, in fact. Listen. It is like a cancer. How can you treat a cancer if you don’t know where the tumor is? It is the same. They need you because you can find the dangerous files. They may try to manipulate you into finding them. If they get scared or think you may have figured it out, they’ll force you to do it. But either way, you are indispensable.”

That argument had logic but not enough to quiet the thundering of Puskis’s pulse. As he walked, he noticed a man on the opposite sidewalk keeping pace with him.

The Poles were assembled in Red Henry’s office. Extra chairs had been brought in, and the senior Poles sat while the others stood at attention behind them. Peja sat opposite the Poles, and the translator stood in the middle of the room, turning this way and that to follow the conversation.

Henry said, “We realize that the recent strike at one of our factories has caused some concern.” He waited for the translation and watched the head of the contingent, a walrus-looking guy named Rinus, nod gravely and then respond. The translator turned back to Henry.

“He says that there is some concern. He suggests that the police are not an . . . efficient means for dealing with that type of problem.”

Henry forced a smile, though the audacity of the criticism brought blood to his face. “Tell him that I am going to show him a method he may find more efficient.”

Henry watched as Rinus nodded judiciously, looking at Henry rather than the translator.

Henry beckoned the translator to his desk. “I’m going to bring in somebody and have a chat with him. I want you next to Rinus, and I want you to keep a running translation of what goes on. Don’t water it down.”

The translator nodded with annoying earnestness and pivoted to go to his new post.

“Another thing,” Henry said, before the translator had taken a step away. “This might get rough. Nothing that happens here leaves this room. You will probably understand why you shouldn’t be on my bad side after this morning.”

The translator turned a shade paler and hurried to Rinus’s side. Peja had taken up a post by the door, and Henry nodded to him. The door opened to admit two burly ASU officers, one on each of Enrique’s arms. They marched him into the middle of the room and then left him there, retreating to positions by the door.

“Enrique Dotel?” Henry asked.

Enrique nodded. Henry made sure the translator was in place.

“You were the organizer of the strike this week at Capitol Industries?”

Enrique again nodded. His composure, a subtle show of defiance, irked Henry.

“The strike is now over. Do you understand? You are personally responsible for making sure that the shifts are back to full capacity beginning tomorrow morning.”

Enrique kept his chin up and met Henry’s eyes. “The strike is not over. I do not control the workers. They make decisions for themselves. I am only an organizer. The strike will not end because I am in prison or anyone else is in prison.”

Henry looked over to Rinus, whose head was cocked to hear the frantic translation.

“I don’t want this to be a problem,” Henry said quietly. “I want to be clear, and I want you to understand and guarantee me that you can do as I ask.”

“Again, I am not in a position to fulfill your request. If I was in such a position, I would not grant it.”

Henry rose from his chair and walked around his desk so that he stood over Enrique. He might have been half again the weight of the smaller man.

“I’m afraid that I’m not making myself as clear as I might.”

Enrique did not back down. “You are clear. I hope that I am clear as well.”

Henry grabbed Enrique by the front of his shirt and lifted him off the ground so that they were face-to-face.

“You are making a big mistake, friend.”

For the first time, Enrique showed fear. He was a big man and not used to being physically dominated.

Henry looked at Peja and nodded toward the window behind the mayor’s desk. “Open it.”

Peja looked at him, confused.

“Open the goddamn window.”

Peja scurried across the room to open the window. The translator kept translating, but fear was in his eyes. Rinus squinted, concentrating on what was happening while he listened. The other Poles watched with anticipation.

When Peja had the window open, Henry carried Enrique over and
shoved his upper body through to the outside. They were on the fifth floor, sixty feet to the sidewalk below. Henry grabbed Enrique’s ankles, then extended his arms out the window so that Enrique dangled upside down with Henry taking his entire weight. Henry held him there for several seconds until an odd whimpering sound drifted up to him.

Rinus and several of the more senior Poles were crowding around the window to get a better view.

“Again,” Henry said with exaggerated calm, “I need you to have the workers back at the factory tomorrow morning. Is that something you can guarantee me?”

Poole held Carla’s hand as they walked. It was rare for them to be out together like this. At one time this had been commonplace, but their work now made it nearly impossible, and they had settled into a hidden relationship, seeing each other almost exclusively within the confines of their flat. While something about that was both exciting and cozy, it was also nice to be together away from that confined space every once in a while. The mood was, of course, spoiled by Carla’s anxiety.

“Why are you smiling?” Carla asked.

Poole shrugged. “I like walking with you. It’s a break from what I’ve been doing.”

“Good God,” she said, exasperated. “Enrique is being dragged into the mayor’s office and you’re enjoying the walk?”

Poole shrugged, still smiling. “I guess so.” He didn’t know Enrique and was, to be honest, not sure that he wasn’t jealous of the time that Carla spent with him. But there was more than that. Poole knew that he could not fulfill something in Carla. He was not able to match her ideological certainty or zeal, and he wondered if Enrique could. He was concerned about what could happen to Enrique, but it had more to do with Carla’s happiness than Enrique’s well-being.

She gave him a hard look but squeezed his hand, the kind of mixed message that she often gave and that Poole had long ago decided not to try to figure out. They were a block south of City Hall.

“What’s your plan?”

Poole knew that her instinct was to go straight up to the fifth floor and have a go at getting into the office. He also knew that she understood that this plan was not likely to work, that if they did somehow manage to get past all the security and into the mayor’s office, it would probably do more harm than good.

“I think we wait and watch and make sure he comes out sometime soon. What time is it?”

Ten thirty.

They waited five minutes. Poole tried a couple of amiable tracks of conversation, but Carla was having none of it.

She gasped. Poole followed her eyes and saw Enrique dangling from a top-floor window. It was nearly surreal. Enrique hung motionless from two arms that protruded from the window.

“Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.”

Poole worried that Carla was going to hyperventilate. He slid behind her and cupped her shoulders gently in his large hands.

“He’s going to drop him! He’s going to kill him!”