The Watchmaker’s Hand

“I wasn’t either. I don’t think she did, but I did. In public speaking, you’re not supposed to thank your audience. You’re doing the audience a favor by appearing. They should thank you. I keep forgetting.” He grimaced. “I get riled up.”

“You both thanked the moderator.”

“You have to thank the moderator. Even the bad ones.”

“A close race?”

“I’m way ahead in the polls, but it ain’t over till, et cetera. Marie’s got some momentum. Devoted following. She’s not rags to riches. More JCPenney to riches and she earned it herself, and she really did put cartel punks away. All right. What can I do for you, Detective?” From a case, he removed eyeglasses with bright red frames, replacing the black, apparently believing the midday audience would prefer a more studious and less stylish candidate.

“You study public speaking?”

“Not study. Debate club. Moot court.”

“How many of these do you do a year?”

“Maybe a dozen.”

“You know the crane incident?”

“Of course. Terrible. My colleague was on the scene. His district. They’re saying it’s intentional. Sabotage.”

“That’s right.”

“Domestic terrorism?”

Spencer nodded.

Cody said, “Right wing? Neo-Nazis? Racists? Plenty of those around, but people forget that the left have been pretty fast doing the bad stuff too. A horse-drawn cart blew up in front of J.P. Morgan in 1920, killing thirty-eight. Anarchists were suspected.”

“This is about affordable housing.”

Cody received a text, read, sent a brief reply. He looked up. “Housing.”

Spencer continued, “That’s one of your issues. I saw it on your website.”

“A serious problem, housing. Who are these people?”

“They’re calling themselves the Kommunalka Project, after a public housing plan in Soviet Russia.”

“Never heard of them.”

Spencer watched eyes, hands, legs. The trick in kinesic analysis is to get a baseline — how one behaves when telling known truths — compared to behavior when asked investigative questions. Hence, Spencer asking him about his history of debating — to which he knew the answers. Now he was looking for deviation.

“Either they’re new or they’re deep underground. We can’t find them. And they’re only communicating via the dark web.”

“What was their point with the crane?”

“Extortion. They’re demanding the city turn a couple dozen old buildings into housing units.”

“And if not? More cranes?”

“That’s right.”

“Sick.” Then he was nodding. “All right. Detective, let’s get to it. That’s why you’re here. I have a history of housing activism. And an arrest record, as you probably know. But that wasn’t for housing. It was environmental.”

“You vandalized a planning and zoning board office and a corporation accused of polluting an upstate river. You chained yourself to the gate of an oil depot construction job in Brooklyn.”

“Didn’t have to search very far for that. It’s on my website. And there’s nothing in the Constitution that prevents a criminal from holding office.” A chuckle. “Some would say it’s a prerequisite. You think I’m involved in this. Though I can’t help but notice you still have your handcuffs tucked away.”

“I read transcripts of your last three speeches. You don’t mention affordable housing once.”

“Like I’m trying to distance myself from the Kommunalka-ists.”

“That’s the impression.” He added, “In their note, making the demand for the housing, they used a quotation from you.”

“Ah. That’s it.”

“ ‘The city is the largest landowner in the area. It holds three hundred and seventy million square feet of property and its obsene how little of that is devouted to affordable housing.’ ”

“ ‘Devouted’? Didn’t read my statement that carefully, I guess.”

“And they misspelled ‘it’s’ and ‘obscene.’ ”

Cody asked, “How’d you find it?”

“A cheating website.”

He frowned. “Ashley Madison? That dating thing for married men?”

Spencer had to laugh. “Cheating on term papers. A professor uploads a student’s work and the software looks for previous published writing to see if he stole any of it. Or if a chatbot wrote it.”

Cody nodded. “I used ChatGPT to write a speech for me. It wasn’t bad.”

A large, somber man wearing a black suit stepped into the area. “Sir. The Alliance?”

“I’ll be right down.” The makeup was nearly gone. Cody examined his face, wet a paper towel and finished the job. “Detective, have to ask: Using one’s own public quotation in an extortion note? Doesn’t that seem pretty stupid?”

Spencer shrugged. “Are you in touch with affordable housing activists? From your website’s position paper, I’d think you have to be.”

“You want me to ask about this group?”

“Would you?”

“I will.”

Spencer handed him a card. The politician pocketed it.

Cody said, “When did you get here today?”

“Twenty-five minutes ago. Thirty.”

“So you missed my pledge to introduce federal legislation that would guarantee affordable housing to families making fifty thousand a year or less.”

Oh.

“I’m not avoiding the issue, Detective. I guess what I’d say is: so many problems, so little time.”

13

“Watch that phalanx.”

Ron Pulaski waited, tilting his head slightly.