The Allies almost lost World War II in 1936. Winston Churchill, who would stand up to Hitler and keep England in the war long enough for the military might of the U.S. and Russia to turn the tide and win it, was visiting New York City that year. He started to cross a street, but being from a country where people drive on the wrong side of the road on a regular basis, he didn’t look the right way for oncoming traffic and was run down by a taxi cab.

The accident wasn’t fatal. Churchill recovered. The Nazis were defeated. But for historians the lesson was clear. Little events that should never have happened can have big consequences if they do happen.

Which was exactly what Mitch Bernstein was thnking as he prepared to meet with a trusted aide in the Bernstein Building on Seventeenth and the Parkway in the heart of the city’s compact financial district, at about the same time that Bernie Kahn was being grilled in the Philadelphia police department’s Roundhouse a mile away. Bernstein had already decided what curtains to hang in the Mayor’s office when he moved in. Then, out of nowhere, this. A murder of one of his top people in his own building during working hours.

It would have been an intolerable personal as well as a professional afront
even if he weren’t running for public office. It tarnished the asset he valued most highly. His company’s reputation.

To the huge public audience for Bernstein Financial’s news programming, and the smaller but even more devoted subscribers to the company’s many investment related information services, “I got it from Bernstein” was the gold standard when it came to financial reportage and analysis. Even competitors privately acknowledged (though grudgingly) that Bernstein Financial Broadcasting had emerged in recent years as their industry’s pace-setter.

A very significant element in this reputation was related to the caliber of the people Mitch Bernstein employed and his treatment of these employees. He hired the best and he paid the best. He even offered something found almost nowhere else in these lean and mean times. Genuine job security. It was a perk made possible because Bernstein Financial was a very rare animal in today’s conglomerated economy. Mitch Bernstein personally controlled most of his company’s stock. So whatever Mitch Bernstein wanted to give “my people,” as he called his eighteen hundred employees, some six hundred of them working in this very building, was what they got.

The getting here was very good as long as employees went along with the basic guidelines set down by the company’s founder. They were expected to work ten or twelve-hour, high stress days and never complain. To demonstrate, in word and deed, absolute loyalty. And to take seriously their boss’s quirks. When he decreed, for example, that every employee with a a phone call at least a dozen company clients each week to thank them personally for putting bread in their mouths, most employees gagged but did it anyway.
Bernstein’s detractors, and they were legion in Philadelphia, claimed the man a was a paranoid control freak. That his generosity was just a way to paper over the hardball tactics he used in his business dealings, and to gain personal popularity for his boundless personal ambitions. Bernstein’s admirers, and they were equally legion in these latitudes, said his generous proclivities and obsession with loyalty and personalized customer service were just plain good management.

Detractors and admirers did agree on one thing. That compared to almost any other major financial services company, Bernstein’s was the best-paid and the safest berth around. Now someone had been killed on company premises during working hours.



“So how bad is it?” Bernstein asked.

“Depends,” replied Joe Connors. “Could blow over. Could cause you real trouble. Could go either way.”

“Could go either way? That doesn’t help me much.”

Bernstein unconsciously scratched his rather pointy chin as his face took on a sad, rabbinical, why-can’t-the-world-be-a-better-place smile. If you didn’t know him you might mistake the scratch for nerves and the expression for mild disappointment. If you did know him you realized these were early symptoms of a controlled anger. You also knew that you didn’t want to be around when the next symptoms appeared.

Joe Connors knew these markers all too well. He had been part of the Bernstein organization almost from the beginning. He’d signed on back in the 1980’s when his boss had gotten a multi-million dollar severance settlement from the brokerage firm where he was a star securities peddler, and instead of buying a yacht and living the cozy mellow life like so many other golden parachuted cast-offs, used this money to create his first financial news broadcasting outlet in Philadelphia. The station that was still the showpiece of the company. The one that now also functioned
as its headquarters.

Mitch Bernstein was a ferociously democratic boss in the days when his enterprise was still a fledgling. His office was just another desk in a row of desks with no partitions in between them and damn little space seperating one from another. Your personal life as well as your professional life were community property in a setup like this. Just the way Bernstein wanted it to be.

In those days any member of the staff could walk up to where the boss was sitting, say he had an idea to expand or improve the company, and Mitch would tell him or her to grab a chair while he went off to get them both a cup of coffee. Bernstein still occupied the same desk among ‘my people’ and any member of the staff could still approach unbidden. But no one had actually done so for at least five years.

Now Mitch wore hand tailored suits every day. His hair, once as wild and unpredictable as his moods, was under the permanent supervision of a stylist whose yearly income approached that of a top stock analyst. His Great Northeast Philadelphia accent had been homogenized and modulated to the point where it easily passed muster at the Union Club. A billion dollars in the bank does things like that to a guy.

Mitch still kept his old desk among ‘my people,’ even if he was now away from it most of the time, talking with local power brokers or out in the neighborhoods trading visions of the city’s future with voters. He also insisted, demanded in fact, that everyone at his company continue addressing him by his first name. But these were just leftovers. A free-wheeling, classless corporate culture had grown up and gotten real. Its feisty, unorthodox founder had become a well-entrenched CEO with a lot to lose.

Connors and Bernstein got comfortable in the Fishbowl, a soundproof area with thick glass walls set among the eighth floor’s rows of tightly spaced and cluttered desks. This was the company’s designated area to conduct private business. True, people could see who you were with in there, or guess what you were saying on the phone. Unlike every other part of the building, however, with the exception of the rest rooms, there were no obvious cameras and sound recorders monitoring the activity.

Anyone could use the Fishbowl for interviews or intimate telephone chats, and there was no company policy requiring the bowl’s occupants to get up and leave if the boss wanted it. They always did nonetheless. With great haste. And the billionaire who sat among ‘my people’ and liked to share democratic visions of Philadelphia’s future with folks in the neighborhoods now never gave it a second thought.



If any Bernstein employee had turned away from his computer screen or TV monitor to sneak a look at the two-man conference in the Fishbowl, he would have seen an overweight, red-faced man in his mid-forties who looked ten years older, leaning well forward in his chair as if in supplication while addressing a slender,
nattily attired man in his mid-fifties who looked ten years younger, the latter leaning well back in his own chair, seemingly at ease, fingers joined pyramid style.

Bernstein had clicked a little electronic gizmo on his lapel as he entered the Fishbowl. This deactivated the room’s cleverly hidden cameras and recording devices. The Fishbowl was not, as most employees believed, a truly private place, as distinguished from the building’s other obviously monitored areas. Its privacy was a pretense. Bernstein had told Connors years earlier: “On my turf, what you think is your business. Everything you say and do is mine.”

Connors felt occasional twinges of guilt about this deception. Almost as if it
were a violation of the confessional. Then he would remind himself that his days as a choirboy were long past and shrug it off. He had learned to shrug off a great many things over the years.

Now, leaning even further toward his employer, he hastened to clarify their present predicament. “We have a murder on our hands,” he said. “It happened here, in this building. The guy who got beaten to death was one of your employees. No one seems to know who did it. Or the motive. Or exactly how it was done without our monitoring system picking up the action. You’re running for mayor, so the media is on this like flies on shit.”

Connors stopped himself. Maybe putting down the media wasn’t a great idea when speaking to Philly’s biggest media baron. Bernstein, seeming to know his subordinate’s thinking, waved it off and let his fingers remake their pyramid.

“For possible suspects, “ Connors continued, “since the body wasn’t found immediately and the murderer had time to leave the murder scene, I figure we can initially include just about everyone who was in the building at the time. All our employees along with all non-employees who passed through building security that day and hadn’t left by the time of the murder.

“So who on this list had reason to hate Hamish?” Connors went on. “Counting you and me, I figure about five hundred and ninety-nine people on our company building roster of six hundred. I’m excluding the cleaning lady who does the bathrooms. She only speaks Ukranian and I understand Hamish once smiled at her. The UPS guy, and the guests in the building for interviews that day, they can probably be crossed off the list as well. None of them would likely know Hamish well enough to want him dead, or where he could be found at the time he was killed.”

“What do the police say?”

Connors was on very good terms with a lot of city police. As well as a lot of local pols, newspaper people, and assorted City Hall hangers on. That was his job, after all, what earned him his present six-figure salary. Originally just another Philadelphia Inquirer financial journalist hired by Bernstein, Connors had very quickly demonstrated a profound knowledge of Philadelphia’s convoluted political structure and an ability to work with its key players, people Bernstein didn’t have time to contact or couldn’t be seen to contact directly.

“The police, at least ones I’ve been able to talk with so far, don’t seem to know squat. They found the murder weapon. Some kind of heavy piece of cable that anyone who works around here could have picked up from a spare parts closet at any time in the last umpteen years. There were no prints on it, naturally.”

“Weren’t there cameras where Hamish was killed?” Bernstein’s expression hadn’t changed, but his eyes had a glint Connors knew meant that he was fully focused.

“Of course.”

“So...”

“All the monitoring equipment in the building was off for a half hour that afternoon. The half-hour during which Hamish got popped. No one knows why as yet, or how this happened.”

“Speculate for me, Joe. Why did the system go down just then?”

“If I were guessing, I’d say Leo Diamond had something to do with it. Diamond is way too candy-assed to murder anyone but he’s prone to mischief. He’s also got that crazy beef about our ‘intrusive office spying’ that we’ve talked about a couple of times. Mason is having a little chat with him in the security shack about now. After Mason finds out what he’s sure to find out, we’ll turn over what’s left of Leo Diamond to
the police.”

Bernstein gave a little snort of pleasure when his factotum mentioned the company’s security chief. “Clay Mason. Good man. Very effective. Tell me about this Kahn character. What’s his connection to all this?”

“Can’t place him yet. Maybe just an old pal of Hamish. Some kind of investigator. Bodyguard maybe. The police are giving him the once over. When they’re done, I’ll know about it and know where he fits in.”

“The freelance intellectual business. What’s that all about?”

Connors was taken aback. How did his employer know the silly title Kahn put on his business cards? Was Bernstein tracking developments in this case through other channels? The surprise lasted only a second or two. Of course Bernstein was getting multiple feeds. His dream of political power was on the line.

“That intellectual thing is maybe some kind of joke,” said Connors. “My sources tell me Kahn is more bouncer than big brain. That he might have done the odd bad boy jobs for Hamish in Boston. That Hamish reestablished contact in Philly just recently for some reason. Can’t tell you more than that now. Still checking it out.”

Bernstein took another big slug of coffee, then got up and refilled his cup from a carafe in the Fishbowl that was always kept filled and fresh. He grabbed Connors cup on the way and refilled it as well.

Connors hated this coffee. Everyone in the company hated it except Bernstein, who would frown if he passed your desk and didn’t see a half drunk cup, and click his tongue in disgust if the brew he saw had been lightened with milk.

The story around the office was that the boss had a source of mutated coffee beans roasted in a special way, the end result being a beverage that should have required a prescription. It produced what was known in company circles as “the Bernstein 24.” Your introduction to the job, the time when you were first being introduced to this brew, you reportedly stayed awake for days running. It was only in your second week, after you’d crashed during a coffee-free weekend, that a semblance of bedtime normalcy returned. This coffee was also reputed to be habit forming and another way Bernstein kept his staff from straying.

Bernstein himself drank quarts of the stuff daily and slept like a baby, though never more than five hours a night. When Connors once asked him if maybe, for health reasons, he should taper off a bit, he’d gotten back the usual abrasive reply to any question touching on his boss’s personal life. “I gave up smoking. I eat bark and berries in the morning instead of ham and eggs. I can’t even tell dirty jokes anymore because it’s not politically correct. The coffee rush is all I got left.” The power rush, too, Connors thought at the time.

Bernstein was about to adjourn the meeting when his associate threw out something that he’d been saving.

“You know, there might be a way to turn this lemon into lemonade.”

Mitch Bernstein settled back in his chair. His expression didn’t change, though his eyes narrowed a tad. “Tell me.”

“Combating violence in the streets, making people feel safer, is a big part of your campaign.”

“Which is one reason, Joe, I’m looking like a real schmuck just now. I say I’m going to stop murders on the streets but I can’t even prevent a killing, an unsolved killing, in my own fucking office.”

This outburst was a very bad sign. Bernstein didn’t curse these days the way he once did, even in private conversations. And he almost never used the f-word. The boss was clearly very pissed. Connors knew he better recover ground quickly.

“There’s another way to look at this situation.”

“Tell me.” The unspoken addendum ‘and it better be good’ hung in the air.

“You’re a certified victim now. Before, a lot of people in the neighborhoods might have pegged you as a rich guy who knew about violent crime only from what he read in The Inquirer. Who never had his house broken into much less seen someone he knew attacked or even killed. Now, a cherished employee, one of your closest friends, has been brutally murdered and you’ve seen up close what violent crime is all about. You can feel the pain of neighborhood people.”

“A victim. Feel their pain. Good. I like that.” The look Bernstein now bestowed on Connors reminded the latter of a nature film he had once seen. A close up shot of a mongoose just before it spotted a cobra’s point of vulnerability and moved in for the kill. “You can plant this in the press?”

“I know just the reporter at The Inquirer to break the story. She owes. I guarantee she’ll call no later than this afternoon. And if I might suggest...”

“Suggest..”

“Play up the cherished employee, close personal friend thing. It enhances the guy-who-has-learned-what’s-it-like-to-be-a-victim angle.

They shared a laugh. Cherished employee? Close personal friend? Myron Hamish? Yeah, right. Everyone hated the bastard. Everyone in the organization, including these two, were happy he had been dispatched. Except, perhaps, the Ukrainian cleaning lady.

“Another suggestion...”

“Suggest. Suggest.” The boss’s mood had clearly lightened.

“Maybe you could set up some kind of memorial foundation. ‘The Myron Hamish Foundation For The Study Of Urban Violence.’ Like that. And instead of
putting the usual academics on its board, fill the board with folks who understand violence at the grass roots level. Say, black ministers or their appointees. Comes election time, when you need endorsements...”

Connors knew from the way his boss looked at him that the mongoose had his teeth sunk in the cobra’s neck. “You do good work, Joe. Very good work. Drink your coffee. It will keep you sharp.”

Mitch Bernstein did a quick tap on the little device in his lapel that reactivated the Fishbowl’s hidden camera and voice recorder, making sure that Connors saw and acknowledged the motion. They spent the next ten minutes lamenting the death of their dear friend and business associate, Myron Hamish, so recently murdered in their very midst.

It was most unlikely that any law enforcement agency would ever know or care that this room was bugged, or have any reason to check what these two said here shortly after Hamish’s murder. If this unlikely occurrence ever did come to pass, however, the necessary step had now been taken to ensure it wouldn’t damage Bernstein’s interests.