Hells Kitchen

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 thephone 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 anotherphone 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.