Bad Blood by Linda Fairstein Page A

never tension between them before this? Hard to believe.”
    “From time to time, sure. But once you’re hundreds of feet down in the hole with someone, you trust him with your life every time you start a new shift, even if — you’ll excuse me, Detective — you wouldn’t necessarily want him marrying your sister.”
    “What’s the beef now?” Mercer asked.
    “So many of the jobs in the dig have been replaced by new, advanced machinery that not all the men can promise work to their sons anymore, like we did for generation after generation. The blacks are complaining that they’re being forced out first, even though as many of them have been there for generations, like we have. I’ll be giving Mike the names of guys he needs to talk to. It’s not everybody, you know.”
    Mike went to the refrigerator and helped himself to a large glass of milk. He walked behind me and leaned against the dining room wall.
    “You may think you know what you’re dealing with, but believe me, you don’t,” Mike said, trying to imitate someone, although I couldn’t make out who it was. He went on with the accent. “That’s what the DA used to tell me — in Chinatown… Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown.”
    I rubbed my eyes. “What does this blast have to do with Chinatown?”
    “Now you really do sound like a dumb blonde. Didn’t you get my best Jack Nicholson impression? My John Huston?
Chinatown
— the movie, not the neighborhood. The flick was all about stealing water to get it to Los Angeles, don’t you remember? You could tell the same story about New York — we had to steal the water from somewhere, only nobody remembers that.”
    I walked to the den and checked the television before returning to the table. Julie Kirsch was still live from Tenth Avenue and still speculating wildly about the cause of the explosion.
    “Can you put on a pot of coffee for Teddy and me before we get back to work?”
    “Sure.”
    “How old are you, Teddy?” Mike asked.
    “Forty-three.”
    “Same as Mercer. You married?”
    He nodded and picked at the crust of another slice.
    “Be on the lookout underground for a man who likes black coffee, English muffins, and a dinner of strong runny cheese and stale crackers. That’s all she knows how to cook. Coop’s available, and maybe a guy who packs a mean sledgehammer could handle her. Your wife from a hog family?”
    “Course she is. Father, grandfather, brother,” Teddy said, smiling. “Nobody else understands what it’s like.”
    “What exactly
are
sandhogs?” I asked.
    Mike said, “Tunnel Workers Union. Maybe fifteen hundred guys total.”
    Teddy gave the more elaborate answer. “Local 147, Compressed Air and Free Air Shaft Tunnel Foundation, Caisson, Subway, Cofferdam, Sewer Construction Workers of New York, New Jersey, and Vicinity.”
    “So you save time just saying
sandhogs
— but why that name?”
    “You know the Great Bridge?” Teddy answered my question with a question.
    You couldn’t be a New Yorker if you hadn’t ever had a love affair with the Eighth Wonder of the World, the magnificent result of John Roebling’s 1867 plan to build the world’s longest suspension bridge across the East River, connecting what were then the separate cities of New York and Brooklyn.
    “The Brooklyn Bridge, of course. I can see it from the window of my office.”
    The bridge played a vital part in the life of the city, standing grandly at the foot of the harbor, its gigantic stone towers and elevated promenade remaining one of the most beautiful vantage points from which to enjoy the ever-changing Manhattan skyline.
    “You know what a caisson is?” Teddy asked.
    “Not really.”
    “Roebling’s idea was a mighty risky one, Alex. The whole design plan balanced on the strength of the towers, and to build them meant sinking huge wooden boxes — 27,500-ton caissons, each of them more than half the size of a city block — into the riverbed.”
    “How did that work?”
    “They