Inherit the Dead

plus a padlock. The sign on the flap read: MAIL SLOT FOR ALL SUITES IN BUILDING .
    Perry climbed the shadowed wooden stairs. Smelled radiator heatand lemon floor polish. He reached the top landing, let the air and quiet settle around him.
    Four doors waited, two on each side of the dimly lit hall.
    Words on the two doors at the far end of the hall were readable. The solid door on the left held a handmade sign: COFFEEHOUSE OFFICE . Blue paint formed the word SUPPLIES on the also solid wooden door across the hall.
    The two doors closest to the stairs were glass.
    The glass door on the right held black lettering: DISTRICT ASSEMBLY FIELD OFFICE.
    Gilt lettering on the glass door across the hall read: CYRUS TWEED.
    Perry glanced into the government “district” office: low-bid desk and computer setup, gray file cabinets, colorful posters for Long Island, New York City, New York State. Three steel chairs waited in a line for someone to come sit behind the big desk.
    The “Cyrus Tweed” door showed a woman sitting on the desk, her dress high on sleekly stockinged legs as she straightened the hair of the beefy man in the big chair.
    Perry’s blitz entrance startled them. The beefy man jerked back in his chair as the woman whirled to scan the intruder. She wore hennaed hair to her jaw, red lipstick to match, makeup that triumphed rather than hid her forty-some years. The rusty-haired woman beamed seasoned sensuality.
    Perry flashed on Angel in a steamy shower.
    As the redhead slid to her well-shod feet, the beefy guy behind the desk bellowed: “Hey, we’re about to close up shop for the day, but how are you?”
    “Here,” said Perry.
    The woman said: “I’ll check on those constituent issues.”
    She swayed past Christo on her way across the hall, gave him a crimson smile and the scent of musk.
    The door closed behind her as Perry watched Cyrus Tweed watch her go.
    The politician felt the stranger’s eyes on him, shot out his right hand: “Call me Cy, Cy Tweed. Cyrus sounds too—”
    “Whatever,” Perry said as he claimed the visitor’s chair.
    The mahogany desk matched the wood paneling hung with oil paintings, plaques, and spotless framed photographs of Cy playing golf with and sunset beach partying with and backstage rock concerting with and black-tie events with Hollywood stars and billionaires. One photo showed his colleagues on the floor of the state assembly applauding Cy. Portraits of him shaking hands with the current and other-partied former president of the United States hung on his wall. So did a photo of his wife and children.
    Cy said: “And you are . . . ?”
    Guy like this, thought Perry, his every breath is a lie. Hit him hard, fast, straight.
    The private eye said: “Angel.”
    The politician peered around the man sitting in front of his desk to look through the glass of his closed office door and across the hall into the public official’s office where the redhead had gone, told his visitor: “I . . . I’m not sure what you mean.”
    “But you know who I’m talking about.”
    “Did she send you?”
    “I work for people who care about her.”
    “Whoever they are, it isn’t her they care about. Me, I—”
    “You’re a busy man. Your wife and kids. Your ‘whoever she is’ across the hall.”
    “Gwen is . . . a really public-spirited citizen. Volunteers to run my local office.”
    “You mean your office across the hall,” said Perry.
    The vision rose in him and came out like the narration of a movie:“You’re the fixer. All those groups who get mail here—left wing, right wing, Wall Street, union lovers, tree huggers, developers: all the groups are shells run by you and your volunteer . Gwen’s probably on what books they keep. You take money from whoever and funnel it to wherever —for a handling percentage, sure, that’s only fair, because you’re the guy who buys results without fingerprints. Sometimes it’s good: a Hollywood star wants to save the planet, so he gives the group you run a check and you pass most of it along to save the whales. Sometimes it’s a big-money boy who sends you a couple hundred thou’ to launder to the national groups who anyway barely need to explain the millions they spend to buy presidential campaigns.
    “Plus the cash that gets dropped in that steel box. The real dirty money you wash. Say from a Mexican cartel giving you dollars to support tough-drug-law candidates so the illegal market stays intact.”
    Cy said: “I never do