The Mayors of New York: A Lydia Chin/Bill Smith Mystery

1

I don’t like the mayor, I said. Or her kids."

Oh, I didn’t realize you were acquainted. Aubrey Hamilton, in a familiar move, tossed her golden hair back off her brow. For the brief time, centuries ago, when we were together, that honey color had come out of a bottle. Now it was no doubt the result of a three-hundred-dollar-every-three-week touchup at some exclusive salon.

I’m a New Yorker. I have a God-given right to dislike politicians. Personal experience is unnecessary.

That right extends to politicians’ children?

Sitting across the marble-topped café table, Aubrey poured herself tea and gave me a conspiratorial smile. Not my kind of see-and-be-seen café. Not my kind of flowery tea. Not my kind of smile.

And New Yorker or not, your accent is still Kentucky, she said, putting the pot down. Used to be stronger, though.

So did I. What do you want, Bree?

The mayor has a problem.

I don’t care.

Her son’s run away.

Good for him.

Come on, Bill. He’s fifteen.

I rubbed a curl of lemon rind on the rim of my double espresso. According to the menu, Meyer lemons. They don’t make espresso taste better than other lemons do. But they’re expensive.

I told the mayor I knew the man for the job, she said.

Then go ask him. Seriously, Bree, you think flattery will work on me? Have some respect.

Mark’s a kid, Aubrey pushed. Out there in the big bad world.

Fifteen’s not such a kid. A couple of wars ago he could’ve lied about his age and joined the army.

Can’t do it now.

I bet he regrets that. I ran away half a dozen times before I was fifteen.

She arched her right eyebrow. Also familiar. She can’t do the left. And what happened?

My father beat the shit out of me each time.

So you went back home.

They found me and dragged me back.

If you find Mark no one’s going to beat the shit out of him. I promise.

I’m sure they won’t. Her Honor will lock him up in Gracie Mansion and go back to ignoring him.

What makes you think—

I’m Dr. Spock. If the mayor’s really worried about her kid why doesn’t she go to the cops? Conclusion: she’s not worried. Either she’s pretty sure she knows where he is and as soon as I sign on she’ll tell me and I’ll go fetch him, keeping her out of it—

And you’ll collect your fee for doing very little. Aubrey set down her cup. Her coral lipstick—probably this year’s hot color; Lydia would know—left not a ghost of a stain on the rim.

I took a sip. The espresso was good. Or she doesn’t actually know but she’s pretty sure he’s safe. Or she doesn’t know and doesn’t give a damn, but she can’t have him running around loose in case he holds a press conference or something and embarrasses her.

Mark McCann, the dark-haired, brooding male half of the mayor’s unmatched-in-every-way twins, had, as far as I knew, never held a press conference. His public presence was, generously put, negligible. But his ash-blond drama queen sister Madison Guilder—she still used their father’s name, while her brother had switched sides—had summoned journalists to an event simultaneous with their mother’s inauguration last winter as New York’s mayor. To those who showed—and every news outlet sent someone—she denounced New York City’s woeful lack of leadership on the world stage in seeking solutions to the existential threat of climate change and expressed an urgent hope that the new administration would do better. It was great political theater and one of the biggest birds I’d ever seen a child flip a parent, even including myself.

What’s wrong with that? Aubrey said now. Nobody wants to be embarrassed.

Don’t be coy. You don’t wear it well. Or, I went on, "there’s one more possibility. She is worried about Mark, but she’s at least as worried about why he ran away. What an investigation might find. Which is why she wants private talent and not the NYPD."

Aubrey sat back, silent for a moment amid hushed conversation and the refined ding of tiny silver spoons on porcelain. "No. She is worried, but none of that is why she wants you."

What is, then?

A sigh. Every second year the City enters contract negotiations with the municipal unions. First up is the Detectives’ Endowment Association. Those talks just started. Carole went to the opening round with the City’s team and she’s promised to go personally as often as necessary.

I said nothing, just circled my hand to get her to the point.

The big shot across the table is the DEA president, she said. A lieutenant named Herb Straley. ‘Bulldog,’ they call him, because he’s got a face like one and a personality—if you can call it that—to match. He’s got a whole Dog Pack in there with him. Honest to God, that’s how he introduced them, the DEA negotiators. The Dog Pack. Hand-picked by him. His right-hand man is a Sergeant Alex Bozinski. More of a Doberman, that one. Straley and about half the others have done these negotiations three times already.

If you’re trying to tug at my heartstrings—brave little lady facing down a ravenous dog pack—it’s not working. All I get is that picture they have in dive bars of dogs playing poker. The bulldog has a cigar.

You have no heartstrings. And I don’t know what goes on in dive bars.

Since when?

Oh, for God’s sake, can we knock this off?

If you come to the point.

She tightened her mouth and lifted her teacup. Without sipping, she said, The point is this. Whatever agreement they come to will be the benchmark for everyone else. There are parities and ratios, by law. It’s dominoes. The Sergeants’ Union, the PBA, the FDNY, Corrections, Sanitation…. The city’s budget for the next two years depends on this. Now she sipped.

Okay, I see where you’re going.

She went anyway. If Carole has the NYPD chasing after her runaway son the first thing that happens is her political capital takes a hit because she looks like a bad mother. Then her position as a tough negotiator evaporates. How’s she going to refuse to raise the salaries of the people who’re literally working overtime trying to save her child? She let out another sigh, this one hissing of suppressed irritation. Yes, she’s worried, yes, she wants him back, but she can’t afford to have the police involved. This is bigger than one kid and his mom.

Sounds very self-sacrificing, I said. Except for the part about political capital.

And personal capital. Yours. You want your taxes to go up because Carole can’t hold the line? No? So take the damn case.

Ah, now we get to the extortion part of the morning. If I turn the case down, it’ll cost every New Yorker, you’re saying. But no pressure.

Pressure. As much as I can apply.

I looked around. Populating the place were men in suits, elegant women, children with their hair brushed taking a break for treats on a trip to New York, New York. The silverware and china glowed in the warm lighting. People spoke softly and smiled knowingly.

I turned back to Aubrey. What actually happened?

Her smile went beyond knowing, to border on smug. Okay. The details. For one thing, Mark’s bank account has been nearly emptied. He left something like twenty dollars, I don’t know why.

Because it’s easier than closing it. Leave money behind, it’s just a withdrawal. Take everything, there’s paperwork. When?

When did he take the money? Tuesday afternoon.

How much?

About five hundred. Birthday and Christmas money.

Does he have another account? Credit cards?

He has a college savings account but he can’t access it without a co-signer. He has the use of one of his mother’s Visa cards. I told her to cancel it.

Why?

She missed a beat. So he couldn’t buy a plane ticket to Abu Dhabi, I don’t know.

Did he take his passport?

Head tilting, she said, I don’t know. You’re thinking to let him keep using the card because you might be able to track him through it?

If I were actually taking the case I might. What else?

Nothing. He took the cash and some clothes in a backpack.

How about his phone?

It’s not in his room. But the GPS is off. We assume he has it with him but he’s keeping it off because he knows it can be tracked.

You’ve tried calling?

The look she gave me could’ve frozen lava. Well, it was an obnoxious question. To keep my streak going I asked, Is there tracking software in the kids’ phones beyond the GPS?

Oh, come on! If there were I promise you I wouldn’t be sitting here watching you holding yourself back from going all bull-in-a-china-shop.

It’s that obvious?

You’re that obvious. Security suggested trackers to Carole but she wouldn’t have it.

Why?

She didn’t want the kids to feel like they’re on leashes.

But they have bodyguards?

Of course. But only when they’re out. To protect them, not to make sure they don’t escape.

This one escaped. Did he leave a note? ‘I hate you people, don’t try to find me, so long, suckers’?’

Is that the note you used to leave?

I never left a note.

Mark didn’t either. But the money, the clothes, the backpack—it’s pretty clear he ran away, and wasn’t the victim of something.

‘Victim of something.’ You mean you don’t think he’s been snatched by a perv with a taste for politicians’ kids?

Jesus Christ! Could you be more coarse?

Yes.

She pursed her lips and nodded. I remember. That’s one of the reasons I left you.

You didn’t leave me. You cheated on me and lied to me. I kicked you to the curb.

The first time I cheated on you, that was when I left you. It just took you a while to figure it out. Can we go back to Mark? He hasn’t been seen since the night before last. He didn’t come down yesterday for breakfast but he sometimes sleeps in, so that wasn’t unusual. It was when the bodyguard on duty—Danny Rodriguez—showed up to take Mark to school that they discovered he was gone.

But you waited until now to do something about it.

The police say twenty-four hours until they consider someone missing.

"Not a kid. Especially a celebrity’s kid. And if you didn’t call the police how do you know what they say? Oh, wait, I bet you watch Law And Order: Politics. I drank more coffee. And I have no twenty-four-hour time delay but you didn’t call me yesterday either."

Aubrey paused. The April sun, hidden behind gray clouds all morning, suddenly glowed through the sheer curtains. Carole thought he might come back.

Based on…?

She gave me a rueful smile. I don’t know. Hope?

Obviously false.

Apparently. The smile faded when I didn’t respond to it. The alarm system hadn’t been triggered. The readout shows it was disarmed, off for just under a minute, and rearmed.

The mayor’s kids know how to work the alarm system at Gracie Mansion?

The mayor doesn’t live at Gracie Mansion. A lot of mayors haven’t. She uses it ceremonially but they live in the townhouse she bought after the divorce.

And there’s no security detail there?

Of course there is. Inside and outside. They stay downstairs, though, not on the bedroom floors. Again, the point is to keep the bad guys out, not the good guys in.

How did the kid get out?

Through a first-floor window in the back. Close to the rear alarm panel.

But the inside security guy was there.

In the living room, apparently. Possibly asleep, though he says not. He’s been reassigned.

So your theory is Mark tiptoed downstairs, turned the alarm off, opened the window, rearmed the panel, slipped out and closed the window in the twenty seconds the system gives you to leave?

Why not?

No reason why not, actually. So I’m right. Her Honor figures the kid has money and a change of underwear. She’s not worried.

She still wants him back. I’m asking you to do a job. Not make a moral judgment.

I throw the judgments in for free. What about his friends? His dad?

I called around his friends yesterday morning. Said he’d left something behind that he needed. No one could tell me where he is.

You believe them?

I don’t have a reason not to.

Except they’re teenagers. They have a romantic sense of loyalty.

I’m glad someone has a romantic sense of something.

Jesus. Can I smoke in here?

Of course not. She offered me that conspiratorial smile again.

I took a breath, looked around—the sunlight had faded again—and came back. What about Mark’s dad?

His dad’s a shit.

Shits don’t get to see their kids? Wish someone had told my father that.

Mark wouldn’t go to him.

Have you asked him?

Jeffrey? Carole doesn’t want him to know there’s a problem. He’ll jump right up on his ‘unfit mother, unfit mayor’ soapbox. She paused. I called him anyway. I said I must have gotten the custody schedule wrong. He told me not to be stupid, that it wasn’t his week and, in any case, Mark’s been refusing to go over there on Jeffrey’s weeks since last fall. Which was fine with Jeffrey.

Did you know that?

That Jeffrey doesn’t want him, or that Mark doesn’t go? I knew both. Madison, the sister, spends a lot of time with her dad but he and Mark have a mutual dislike.

How about that, I have something in common with Mark.

You know Jeffrey? Or are you exercising another God-given right?

The latter. So, what happened?

I threw Jeffrey off the scent by saying someone had just slipped me a note about a school trip. Apologized. He said it figured Carole would hire an idiot aide. What’s funny?

You’re actually asking that?

Fine. Whatever. We still want Mark found.

But quietly so no one’s embarrassed. Even though he’s out there in the big bad world.

She bit her lower lip. The lipstick didn’t come off on her teeth, either.

Tell me something, I said. Why did you take this job?

What job? Working for the mayor?

When I knew you, you had your own PR firm.

With a partner. She decided to go in another direction. I think she’s in Namibia saving elephants. Bree stirred her tea idly. I ran the firm alone for a while and discovered something.

And that was?

I’m a better lieutenant than I am a general. She looked up at me. And I like it better. Carole’s smart, principled, and going places. She’s a visionary. I’m a detail woman, a planner. I plan for myself, I run a PR firm. I plan for Carole, I work for the mayor. Maybe one day the governor. Or the president.

I hear the racket of a bandwagon.

I’m the one choosing the music. Are we done analyzing me? Can we get back to Mark?

I just like to understand who I’m dealing with. Apparently I didn’t, before.

I think you always did.

You never had any idea, did you? But okay, as you say, let’s get back to Mark. Why did he pick now to leave? Trouble at school, at home, any issues? Does he have a drug problem?

A drug problem? I don’t think so. He probably smokes a little weed, they all do. But he’s not withdrawn—at least, not more than usual—or hostile or any of the things druggie kids are supposed to be. His grades are good.

Anything else? Girl trouble? Boy trouble?

Not that I know about.

What about that anyone else knows about? His sister?

Madison says she has no idea who Mark hangs out with because they’re in different schools but that he’s been talking about running away for a couple of weeks, at least.

But no one paid attention.

He has a therapist.

Oh, there you go. Nobody in your family has time for you, but they’ll get you a shrink so you can talk about it.

You’re one hostile bastard.

To the mayor because she’s a politician. To her ex because he’s as scummy as his clients.

You know that for a fact?

You want to contradict me? She didn’t. And to you because after everything you have the balls to come ask me for a favor.

It’s not a favor. You’ll be well paid. And the other thing was a lifetime ago.

I hold grudges.

Does that mean you wouldn’t want me to… make it up to you now? Her smile was sweet and playful.

I stared, then laughed. Oh, Jesus. You’re still a helluva piece of work, Bree.

She gazed steadily at me. I finished my coffee.

So, I’ll tell the mayor no? she finally said.

A waiter in a white apron wafted past carrying a tiny pitcher of almond milk to a dairy-free patron. As much as I’d like to hang you out to dry, I said, you can tell yourself no, but tell the mayor I’ll do it.

But— She shook her head. Bastard. You were just pulling my chain?

No. I meant every word.

Then why?

Because, I said, standing, I ran away half a dozen times before I was fifteen. I turned and walked out of the tea shop, sticking her with the bill.

2

I called Lydia as soon as I hit the street.

How did it go? she asked.

She made it clear she’d sleep with me if I took the case.

Old school. What did you do?

I took it anyway. She can’t scare me.

I thought the point was she did scare you.

Different point.

What’s the case?

I’ll tell all. Did you take that one you had the meeting on this morning, or are you free for lunch?

Amber Shun? I’m going to turn it down. Just waiting for another couple of details. We going someplace fancy?

How can you afford fancy if you go around turning down cases?

You’re buying.

You should’ve volunteered this time, you’d have gotten off cheap. We’re dining al fresco in City Hall Park. That tearoom filled my fancy quota for the month.

I stopped at a deli for sandwiches and soda, and subwayed downtown. Lydia was waiting for me on a bench by the fountain. What a relief, I said. Cloudy sky, crapping pigeons, honking traffic, and you.

That bad?

The place had flowered wallpaper and petit fours. When was the last time you saw a petit four?

I don’t know if I’d recognize one if it tried to mug me. What are we eating?

I’m eating salami. You’re eating sardines.

What if I want salami?

Then I’m eating sardines.

I held out both foil-wrapped sandwiches. As we ate—she took the sardines—and watched the fountain splash I laid out the case.

The mayor’s son, she said. Wow. And we’re buying the idea he ran away, no foul play involved?

I’m not ready to go that far. Out-and-out kidnapping, no. I guess it’s possible he was persuaded, or even coerced. But I do think he took himself out of there. The alarm system had been disarmed and rearmed by someone who knew how to do it.

He locked up after himself? Conscientious. So what’s the plan?

We have an appointment with the mayor at one.

An appointment? Her son is gone, we’re supposed to find him, and we have to see her by appointment?

Adding weight to my theory, I said, that she’s not really worried.

Because she knows something, do you think, or she doesn’t care?

You mean, is she a close-to-the-vest scheming politician, or a negligent parent?

Kind of.

I shrugged. Do you have a preference? I wadded up our trash.

No. But if I’d known I was going to see the mayor I’d have dressed up a little.

You look gorgeous. She wore hunter-green slacks, a white shirt, a short swingy tweed jacket, and brown Oxfords, and she did look gorgeous. Besides, I knew I was going to that fancy tearoom this morning and I didn’t dress up.

She looked over my jeans and bomber jacket. You wore that to be annoying. I’d rather wait to annoy the client until I know them.

It’s that delicacy of judgment that makes you so admired in the profession. I stood and she did too. What was the case from this morning, that you’re turning down? I asked.

Also a teenager, but worse, because dead. Amber Shun, one of those model-minority over-achievers. Straight A’s, Drama Club, voice. Found hanged. The medical examiner says suicide. The parents say no way.

In Chinatown?

Chinatown kid but going to a ritzy Upper East Side school on scholarship. Macauley Prep. Chris Chiang sent the parents to me.

Chris Chiang, a high school friend of Lydia’s, was a Fifth Precinct detective. He caught the case?

No. She was found uptown, in a park near the school. But it’s Chinatown, Jake. You understand that’s a racist line?

Hey, I didn’t use it.

Just don’t. The point is, Bing Lee called Chris.

And Bing Lee is?

Head of the Chinatown Improvement Association. Kind of the unofficial Chinatown mayor, I guess. She nodded through the trees, in the direction of both Chinatown and City Hall. The Shuns went to him because they felt they were getting the brushoff from the cops. Bing called Chris because Chris is a cop and his mother and Bing are close. Chris comes from Chinatown royalty, you know.

I didn’t even know Chinatown had royalty. Your mother must be the Dowager Queen.

I don’t know what that means but it better be a compliment. Anyway, Chris can’t touch the case himself, of course, which Bing may or may not understand, or want to understand. But Chris thought I could do some looking around and that might satisfy Bing and make the parents feel better.

They give you a reason, the parents?

"Nothing except she was a good daughter, she’d never leave them like that, she was doing well in school, had friends, had summer plans. Looking back, they