The Chalk Girl

could be infuriating.

The den in Mallory’s condo had one wall lined in cork. She had stolen it from Lou Markowitz’s office after the old man’s death. As far as Riker knew, it was her only theft of sentiment.

To accommodate her electronics, the temperature of this back room was always on the chilly side, but it was ice cold by the looks of it – decorated with metal furnishings, wires and cables, steel shelves of manuals and gadgets. Even the damn carpet was gunmetal gray.

And baby had a brand-new toy.

The four computer monitors on workstations no longer had pride of place. They had been upstaged by a gigantic flat screen, and Riker gawked at it. A television set this size was every guy’s wet dream on Super Bowl Sunday. But he did not salivate; it was just another computer. No need of a keyboard or mouse – she only pointed to the picture of a file holder and pages tumbled out in animation. With two fingers, she caught them in midair and juggled them into positions across the wide field of electric blue. It was not bad enough that his partner’s only stable relationships were with machines – now she had found one that responded to her touch, one that could feel her body heat, and this vaguely creeped him out – possibly because he was drunk.

Riker had moved on to the good stuff, Mallory’s single-malt whiskey, as he watched glowing boxes of text enlarge their type for the benefit of his middle-aged eyes. Standing up as straight as the liquor would allow, he gave his best impression of actually listening to her lecture on a tired old theme: How to Buy a Politician.

Elected officials loved to see their names plastered on charities, so said Mallory. But all the worthy causes listed on her screen were funded by the Driscol Institute, and the Institute was funded by moguls in search of political whores to bed down with. ‘Good works get votes.’

When she turned around to see if he was paying attention, Riker recited what came to all New Yorkers with their mothers’ milk. ‘The politicians wow the voters and then screw ’em over after the election.’ He said this in the tone of Yeah, yeah, what else is new?

She rewarded him by refilling his glass. How many times had she done that? He had lost count of his shots tonight.

Mallory capped the bottle. ‘The mayor doesn’t run this town. Grace Driscol-Bledsoe does.’ She faced her giant screen and pointed to one of her lists. ‘These council members were bought with small stuff, their names on scholarship funds and after-school programs.’ Her pointing finger moved to the next column of more impressive charities. ‘The Driscol Institute funded a civic center with the mayor’s name engraved in stone. That bought him votes in a district that hated his guts. Coincidentally, that’s when he dropped his opposition to a building site for a high-rise on the West Side. The land was owned by a real-estate broker, one of the major donors to Grace’s family charity – and he made a fifteen-million-dollar profit overnight. I figure Grace’s cut was ten percent.’

And now Riker was paying attention. ‘Why didn’t the feds pick up on that? I thought they were tracking this stuff.’

‘They are. Corporations have to declare every donation to charity, but that has no effect on a money- laundering racket like this one. There’s nothing on paper that ties a charity donor to a politician. The trustees of the Driscol Institute are the middlemen.’

‘The money cleaners – and Grace is their leader.’ Riker looked down to see Mallory topping off his glass – a small bonus for staying awake. And so, just to prove that he was somewhat sober, he asked, ‘How does Grace collect her cut? Wouldn’t that show up in an audit?’

‘No. She gets paid by the donors.’ With a touch of the screen, Mallory opened another folder. ‘And here they are.’ This was an old client list for the late John Bledsoe’s consulting firm. ‘Grace used to channel the payoffs into her husband’s company. It looked good on paper – like legitimate earnings for a lobbyist. And the taxes got paid. No red flags for the IRS.’

‘So all that money her husband left to Humphrey – that really belonged to Grace? Well, that explains why the portrait of hubby and the kid was hung over a toilet.’ And now he could clearly see a pissed-off Grace Driscol- Bledsoe out in the woods, stringing up bodies, one of them her own son. ‘But can the lady climb a tree?’ He raised his glass for a deep swallow. ‘For a hundred million bucks, I say she can. That broad’s in better shape than I am.’

His partner smiled – she was smiling at his empty glass. And then she turned back to the screen. ‘After the husband sold his company, Grace had no holding pen for the next batch of money-laundering fees, and her personal finances had to jibe with legal earnings.’ Mallory touched another folder, and a slew of facsimile checks spilled out across the blue screen, all of them made out to the woman’s personal companion. ‘Here’s the weak spot, a stupid mistake. Hoffman is underpaid. I’m guessing Grace gives out weekly cash bonuses.’

‘I bet she does a lot of things with cash,’ said Riker. ‘She’d never trust another partner to launder her own money – not after what her husband did to her.’

‘Right. And the feds have been tracking large cash flows for years. I know she’s got big money squirreled away – but she’s been selling off her jewelry.’ With one finger, Mallory dragged a parade of photographs across the screen. ‘These were taken after her husband sold the company and walked out on her. Count the jewels.’

Riker stepped up to the screen and looked at the first photo of the society diva all decked out in shiny gemstones. Years later, in the final shot, she was almost modest. ‘So the lady’s down to her last strand of pearls – and that silver medallion.’

‘Grace really needs Humphrey’s millions,’ said Mallory. ‘It’s the only money she can spend in the open. Every cash transaction is a risk.’

‘Are we gonna share this with the rest of the squad?’

‘If we do, it’ll get back to Joe Goddard.’ One hand waved over her list of top politicians on the charity circuit – and on the take. ‘You want him to run this town?’

‘Oh, God, no.’ Crazy bastard – the chief of detectives was on a twisted mission, collecting dirty secrets for the good of the force, an extortionist on the side of the angels and the NYPD. It would be insane to give him the entire city. Yet Riker’s next thought was for a day down the road, when he might need to use all of this, trade the whole town to that lunatic to save his partner’s badge – and to keep her from waging a war she could not win.

‘It’s all about power with him,’ said Mallory, ‘but the chief’s just another version of Grace – just as dangerous.’

Amen to that.

‘So . . . if the bad guys don’t get us, the good guys will?’

‘Now you’ve got it.’ Mallory tilted the whiskey bottle, and when she had filled his glass to the brim, she looked deep into his eyes, as if she could extract his soul this way. ‘That day – when Goddard told us he planned to get rid of Rocket Mann – he put his own job on the line. So he already knew he could control us . . . but how? A blackmailer has to put his leverage on the table. There’s no other way to get what he wants.’

Through one clear spot in a fog of alcohol, he saw the true purpose of tonight’s civics lesson. Civics my ass. It worried him how often Mallory’s paranoia panned out. She knew the leverage had been laid out – for her partner.

Riker shook his head to plead clueless. He waited for the accusation of betrayal, but all that came back on him was heartache. She only stood there so quietly – waiting for the truth.

Standoff.

He set down his glass and showed himself out.

The alarm on the bedside monitor woke Grace Driscol-Bledsoe. The loud noise was enough to terrify her even before the door opened and the apparition flew into the room. By the poor light of a bedside lamp, she saw a disembodied head with balls of fire for eyes. Oh – only the nurse wrapped in a black robe. The lenses of Hoffman’s eyeglasses reflected the opaque globe of the lamp on the night table as she leaned over her employer to fuss with the tangle of sheets.

‘You slipped off the finger cuff, ma’am. Here it is.’ Hoffman had found the small device that was attached to the monitor by a cord, and she replaced it on Grace’s index finger.

So this was not a stroke – more like a rehearsal.

When the nurse had returned to her own room, Grace lay back on the pillows, but sleep would not come. After switching off the monitor and removing its connecting finger cuff, she rose from her bed with only the security of her emergency-alert medallion. With one press of the button at its center, a voice would boom from a box, seeking her out wherever she might be, increasing its volume and sound sensitivity until it found her and assessed her needs. During all her waking hours, this level of security would do. It was the nights that frightened her. She