Hells Kitchen

schools’re out next year. And the new day care center on Thirty-sixth and the—”
    “Wait—on Thirty-sixth and Tenth? On the corner?”
    Louis Bailey’s building.
    The supposed harem for McKennah’s mistresses.
    “Yeah, that’s the place. I’m turning three floors there into the best day care center in the country. The parents show they’re gainfully employed or looking for work and their kids stay for five bucks a day, everything included. Food, games, Montessori tutors, books . . .”
    “And I suppose it was just a coincidence that the building next door burned down? It didn’t have anything to do with the Tower?”
    McKennah’s temper flared again. “Listen, you may be a hotshot in Tinseltown but that’s slander! I’ll sue your goddamn ass! I have never in my life torched a building. You can check every one of my projects going back to day one. I’ll go through the list building by building with you.”
    “What about the tunnel? You didn’t torch the building to put it in?”
    McKennah frowned. “You know about the tunnel?”
    “And I know about your deal with Jimmy Corcoran.”
    The developer blinked in surprise. Then said, “Well, you sure as hell don’t know too much about it. The tunnel doesn’t go under the lot that burned. There’s a Con Ed substation under there. It jogs west. Under the day care center building—which I happen to own.”
    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