'Liar,' snarled Shassad. He looked down at the license and registration.
'How do I know this is you?' he asked.
'Of course it's me,' said Corescaneu defensively.
'Prove it Indignantly, Corescaneu did what Shassad wished. He produced a passport. Hearn noted the number.
Corescaneu was obviously concerned now. Not by any legal trouble that he'd be in, his diplomatic status would protect him. What he feared was harassment from an enraged local police officer. Shassad paced up and down beside the car, looking for something wrong.
'I say this is a hot car,' he finally decided.
'Hot?'
'He means stolen' Hearn offered.
Corescaneu kept l'looking around, feeling trapped and in danger.
'Is not a stolen car,' he said.
'Prove it.'
He pointed to the registration.
'That don't mean nothing,' sneered Shassad.
'Hey, Aram, take it easy,' said Hearn.
'I want this fucker fingerprinted. I want the car searched' He looked back to the diplomat.
'What's in the trunk?' he asked.
'Nothing' 'Bullshit,' Shassad said.
'I'm having you towed in' Shassad went back to his car, as if to use a radio, which he didn't have. Corescaneu protested heatedly.
'Why don't you let him look in the trunk' suggested Hearn.
That'll cool him down. If he's convinced you haven't got anything, he'll let you go.'
The diplomat looked back and forth between the two cops.
'All right,' he finally said.
'There is nothing' With amazing eagerness, convinced that the detectives would never understand the implication of what they were looking at, Corescaneu opened the burlap sack and pulled out one dozen empty film cans, cans used to store movie film, the size of reels used for a standard professional projector.
'What's all this for?' Shassad asked.
Corescaneu explained. He pointed to a name tag on the sack. He had a friend who worked for a Romanian film company, Rota Films, located on Vaiick Street. The friend didn't own a car. So Corescaneu, good Samaritan that he was, was helping his friend move the dozen empty film cans.
'I just picked up the bag down on Varick Street,' the diplomat offered.
'Is that a fact?' mumbled Shassad, apparently appeased.
'See?' said Hearn to his partner, appearing to grow bored with their captive.
'He's just a wild foreign driver. But there's nothing in his car.'
Corescaneu nodded eagerly.
'Is nothing' he said.
'Come on, Aram,' said Hearn.
'Let's have some coffee and forget about it' Shassad shot Corescaneu a withering look.
'Get those cans together and get out of here' he said.
'And if I ever see you run a light again, I'll run you in for reckless endangerment' 'You can't' said Corescaneu without thinking. Shassad's eyes blazed. The diplomat quickly turned, fumbled the loose cans together, closed the trunk and hopped back into his car before Shassad could change his mind.
Shassad and Hearn sat in the warmth of their car.
'I got a hunch,' said Shassad, perfectly calm, lighting a cigarette.
'I say we scored. I say now we snoop around Rota Films.'
Chapter 20
He looked at her from across the city newsroom. Andrea was seated at her desk, leaning back in her chair. A man two decades older than she, a professorial-looking man who'd gracefully entered his later years, sat on the edge of her desk and engaged her in a subdued but intense conversation. Even before they saw him, Thomas Daniels knew who the man was. He had a sense of intruding.
'Thomas' she said with animation when she spotted him. She leaned forw'and quickly, then stood.
'You're just who we were talking about ' She embraced him fondly.
'I'm sure you were,' he said flatly.
The older man was on his feet now. He was standing uncomfortably, waiting to be introduced.
'This is Augie Reid,' she said.
'He covers Albany and the idiots in the state legislature for us ' 'I know,' Thomas said.
'I've seen the by-line' The two men extended their hands in a chilly, if nonetheless civil, greeting.
'Don't let me interrupt anything' Thomas said, perfectly pleased that he had interrupted.
'If you're having an intimate chat, newspaper work or otherwise, I could come back' 'Not a chance' Andrea said, leaning over and pulling a chair from a neighboring desk.
'Sit.' A woman with an insatiable appetite for gossip or argument, she wanted to see the two men faced with each other. Thomas knew it.
'I was just leaving, anyway,' offered Reid politely. His pipe went from his left hand back to his mouth. A thin stream of smoke drifted upward.
'Maybe all three of us should talk,' Andrea suggested. Thomas looked at Reid with thinly veiled displeasure. Reid shook his head mildly to Andrea.
Thomas. sat and threw a jaundiced eye upward toward Reid.
'Do we have something to talk about?' he asked.
'Oh, I doubt it'' offered Reid amiably.
'Maybe your father.'
Daniels was quick to frown and pursue the point.
'What?' he asked, a suggestion of anger in his tone. Everywhere, everywhere, William Ward Daniels.
Reid offered a smile.
'Met him once' said Reid, teeth clenched on the pipe. -The man impressed me. Only reason I mention it is my older brother knew him well' Reid perceived that Thomas was annoyed at something.
'No offense intended' he said.
'None taken,' said Thomas slowly.
'When did your brother know him?' The question was cautious, exploring the territory.
'City College,' said Reid. Thomas could see that the reporter was studying him as he spoke. Daniels disliked people who seemed to look through him when conversing. He'd seen too many of them.
'They were classmates together. Prelaw'Another puff of smoke was launched toward the ceiling.
'Knew each other very well there, in fact. Debating team. Political Science Union. Chess Club. My brother,' added Reid, changing pace just slightly, 'he died about two years ago-' 'I'm sorry.'
Reid shrugged, as if this were the accepted course of things, and continued, 'my brother said that your father possessed the most overpowering intellect he'd ever met' Thomas shrugged in non commitment He'd heard it all before, too many times.
'Only one thing puzzled him. Mind if I tell you?'
Andrea took in the exchange greedily. She loved it. Reid waited for a response and when Thomas acquiesced in silence, Reid continued.
'City College back in the thirties,' the reporter said.
'well, I'm old enough to remember a bit of that myself. Great ideologists.
Reaction from the Depression. Reaction to capitalism. Know what I'm going to say?'
