Chapter 7 - The Currency of Shame
By noon, the rain had returned, drumming against the high windows of the Providence City Hall. In the small, wood-paneled hearing room on the third floor, seven council members sat behind a curved dais of carved walnut, their papers arranged before them in neat, official piles.
The room was nearly empty. Three reporters from the local news desks sat in the second row, their recorders resting on the armrests, looking bored and damp.
The clerk stepped to the microphone. “Item four-B: Petition for Special Zoning Variance, South Water Street Maritime District, Hollis Development Consortium.”
A door at the rear of the chamber opened.
Vance Hollis did not enter. His senior counsel, an elderly man with thinning silver hair and an overcoat that smelled of wet wool, walked down the center aisle alone. He did not look at the reporters; he did not look at the gallery where Auggie Renshaw sat quietly in the back row, his hands folded across the silver head of an umbrella.
The attorney reached the lectern, cleared his throat, and adjusted his spectacles.
“Mr. Chairman,” the attorney said, his voice shaking slightly. “On behalf of the petitioner, we formally request the withdrawal of item four-B from today’s docket. Subsequent engineering reviews have indicated that the load-bearing capacity of the underlying strata along the maritime corridor is insufficient for the proposed residential construction without extensive municipal mitigation. The petitioner wishes to thank the council for its consideration.”
A rustle of paper went through the dais. The council chairman, a heavyset man whose campaign had received forty thousand dollars from Hollis affiliates the previous August, looked down at his desk with an expression of profound, weary resignation.
“The petition is withdrawn,” the chairman said, his gavel striking the wood once with a dull, hollow thud. “Next item.”
In the back row, Auggie Renshaw rose slowly. He did not smile; he did not nod to the attorney who was already packing his leather briefcase with trembling hands. He walked out of the hearing room, down the marble stairs, and into the wet gray light of Kennedy Plaza.
Across the street, parked beside the bronze statue of General Burnside, the black Buick waited.
Auggie climbed into the passenger seat, shaking the rain from his coat before closing the heavy door.
“It’s done,” Auggie said.
Elias Ferraro sat in the back, reading a small notebook filled with handwritten names and addresses. “Did Vance appear?”
“Sent his counsel,” Auggie replied. “Pike was cleared out of his office at the Meridian by eleven. They had two maintenance boys carrying his personal effects out through the laundry alley in cardboard tomato boxes.”
Elias turned a page in the notebook. “And the boy?”
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“Preston is at the house on Blackstone Boulevard,” Auggie said. “Two Ferraro cars are parked at the end of the drive. He won’t leave the property until the settlement with Margarite Voss’s family is signed tomorrow afternoon.”
Elias looked out the rain-streaked window toward the low brick silhouette of the East Side. “Drive to Transit Street, Auggie. Miss Marsh has had a very long morning, and she still needs to move her mother’s things.”
