New York Night

by Leather, Stephen

Nightingale got to the fifth floor before he started breathing heavily and by the time he reached the tenth Perez was already there, grinning at his discomfort. They walked along to the apartment and Perez rang the bell. There was a buzzing from inside and a few seconds later the door opened on a security chain. A middle-aged black woman blinked at Perez.

  ‘Mrs Alexander?’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Mrs Alexander, my name is Cheryl Perez, is your daughter at home?’

  ‘You police?’

  ‘No, we’re private investigators, we just...’

  The door slammed shut. Perez grimaced. ‘That could have gone better.’

  Nightingale gestured for her to move out of the way. ‘Let me have a go.’

  ‘Use your negotiating skills, you mean?’

  Nightingale flashed her a tight smile. ‘It can’t hurt.’ She moved out of his way and he knocked. Nothing happened so he knocked, harder again. The door opened again, still on the chain. This time it was a teenage boy wearing a baseball cap. ‘Mom says you’re to fuck off,’ he said and began closing the door.

  Nightingale put his foot in the gap and took out his wallet. He pulled out a hundred dollar bill and handed it through the gap. ‘That’s for you. Show it to your mum and tell her I’ve got more for her, we just want a quick chat.’

  The boy looked at the money, back at Nightingale, then stamped on Nightingale’s foot. Nightingale yelped and pulled back his Hush Puppy. The door slammed shut. Perez looked at him in amazement. ‘That was your plan? Offer him a bribe?’

  Nightingale shrugged. ‘I didn’t think I could beat him at netball.’

  ‘Basketball.’

  ‘Potato, tomato,’ he said, putting away his wallet.

  The door opened again. This time it was the woman. ‘How much money you got for me?’

  ‘A couple of hundred dollars,’ said Nightingale, taking out his wallet again.

  ‘Five,’ said the woman.

  ‘Three hundred,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘Four,’ said the woman.

  ‘Okay. Four hundred it is.’

  ‘Show me the money.’

  Nightingale took three hundred dollars from his wallet and looked at Perez. ‘Can you lend me a hundred? I’m good for it.’ She gave him five twenty-dollar notes and he waved the money at Mrs Alexander. She reached for it but Nightingale moved it away. ‘We just want a few minutes of your time.’

  She glared at him suspiciously, then closed the door. Nightingale looked across at Perez. ‘It was worth a try,’ he said, but then he smiled as he heard the security chain being taken off.

  Mrs Alexander opened the door and held out her hand. Nightingale gave her the money and she turned her back on him and walked down a hallway.

  Perez and Nightingale followed her. There were two doors leading off to the left. The second one was open and the boy in the baseball cap was sitting at a computer, his face just inches from the screen. At the end of the hallway was a large sitting room. There was a big screen TV showing a soap opera facing a sofa large enough to seat five. Nightingale wrinkled his nose at the musky smell of cannabis. There was a large man sitting at one end of the sofa. He was obese, with rolls of fat hanging over the top of his sweat pants and jowls that gave him the look of an overfed bloodhound. His right eye was almost closed amid a swelling that had gone blue. Three of the fingers of his left hand were bandaged and there was a brace on his right leg. There was a pack of cigarette papers on a coffee table in front of the sofa and an ashtray with a half-smoked joint smouldering away. Mrs Alexander lowered herself down onto the sofa, linked her hands over her stomach and looked up at Nightingale. ‘So what do you want?’ The man reached out his hand and clicked the fingers of his good hand. The woman handed him the money, though Nightingale noticed that one of the hundred dollar bills seemed to have gone missing.

  ‘Is Dee-anne here?’ asked Nightingale.

  ‘The bitch has gone and if she comes back she’ll wish she hadn’t,’ snarled the man. There was a large purple bong on a side table and he reached for it. He took a deep pull on it, held the smoke in his lungs for several seconds, then exhaled. He passed the bong to Mrs Alexander.

  ‘Are you Todd Sanders?’ asked Nightingale.

  The man screwed up his eyes as he stared up at Nightingale. ‘Who wants to know?’

  ‘My name’s Jack. I heard you were the head of the household.’

  ‘In his dreams,’ chuckled Mrs Alexander. She took a pull on the bong and ignored the withering look Sanders gave her.

  ‘Have you been in an accident, Mr Sanders?’ asked Nightingale.

  ‘You could say that,’ said Sanders. He wrenched the bong away from Mrs Alexander.

  ‘It looks painful.’

  Sanders didn’t answer. He looked at the TV as he drew smoke into his lungs.

  ‘Do you know where Dee-anne is?’ Perez asked Mrs Alexander.

  The woman shook her head. ‘She left.’

  ‘But she lives here?’

  ‘She left,’ repeated the woman.

  ‘When will she be back?’ asked Perez.

  Sanders blew a cloud of smoke in her direction. ‘I told you, if she shows her face here again she’ll….’

  ‘Did she hit you, Mr Sanders?’

  ‘She caught me unawares,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t looking. Sucker punched me.’

  There was a framed family photograph on the wall by the door. A younger Mrs Alexander with four children, two were teenagers and two were toddlers. The oldest boy was the one who had opened the door the second time. He was good-looking and smiling proudly at the camera, his arm around his mother’s shoulders. Standing on the other side of the woman was a slight girl who couldn’t have been much more than five-three. In front of Mrs Alexander, grinning as if their lives depended on it, were two small boys, toddlers separated by a year at most. They were all smiling at the camera. A happy family. Perez pointed at the girl in the photograph. ‘That’s Dee-anne?’

  Mrs Alexander nodded.

  ‘Lovely girl,’ said Perez. ‘Nice smile.’

  ‘She’s a no-good disrespectful bitch,’ snarled Sanders.

  ‘When was that taken?’ Perez asked Mrs Alexander.

  ‘Two years ago.’

  Perez nodded and looked over at Nightingale. She was obviously thinking the same thing. It must have been one heck of a sucker punch for a small girl like Dee-anne to cause that much damage to a man possibly four times her size.

  ‘What were you arguing about, Mr Sanders?’ asked Perez.

  ‘She’s a bad kid. A pain in the butt. Answering back. Staying out late. Talking shit to her mother.’

  Perez looked over at Mrs Alexander who was trying to pry the bong out of her partner’s good hand. He reluctantly released his grip on it and Mrs Alexander took a long pull on it. ‘You were arguing with Dee-anne, Mrs Alexander?’ asked Perez.

  The woman nodded and blew smoke. ‘She came in late and wouldn’t say where she’d been.’

  ‘How old is she?’ asked Nightingale.

  ‘The bitch is seventeen but so long as she lives under my roof she follows my rules,’ snapped Sanders.

  ‘Does she have a boyfriend?’ asked Perez.

  Mrs Alexander shook her head. ‘She was too busy at school.’

  Sanders scowled up at Nightingale. ‘What’s she done, anyway?’

  ‘Nothing that we know about,’ said Perez. ‘We want to talk to her about a friend of hers. Leon Budd. Did she ever mention him?’

  Mrs Alexander shook her head. ‘She didn’t bring her friends home.’

  Nightingale nodded. He could understand why. He felt a sudden tug of sympathy for Dee-anne, forced to share her life with Mrs Alexander and Mr Sanders.

  ‘So we’re done, right?’ said Sanders. ‘She’s not here, we don’t know where she is and we’re not expecting her back.’ He pointed at the door with his bandaged hand. ‘You can let yourselves out.’

  Perez looked over at Nightingale and he shrugged. I
t didn’t look as if there was anything to be gained by hanging around. As they walked down the hallway to the front door, the teenager came out. He hurried ahead of them and opened the door for them, then followed them into the corridor. ‘What did he say?’ he asked.

  ‘Your dad?’ said Perez. ‘He said Dee-anne had gone.’

  ‘He’s not my fucking dad. He’s not blood, He’s nothing to do with me. Did he tell you why Dee-anne went?’

  ‘They had a row,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘Fuck they did. He was touching her. He’s been touching her ever since he moved in. I seen how he looks at her and how he’s always putting his hands on her. Mom sees too but she’s too scared to do anything.’

  ‘You sure?’ asked Nightingale.

  The teenager’s eyes blazed. ‘Fuck you, man, you think I’m making this up.’

  ‘He says they argued because she came home late.’

  ‘Fuck that. He went into her room. Then bang crash and he was all smashed up. Then Dee-anne left.’

  ‘Did she say anything to you before she went?’

  ‘Didn’t even look at me. Pushed me out the way like I wasn’t there.’

  ‘Has she been all right recently?’ asked Nightingale.

  ‘Whatchya mean?’

  ‘Did she seem different?’

  ‘If she did, it’s not surprising, is it? Not with that fat fuck touching her up.’

  ‘But you said he’s been like that for years. Did she ever lash out before?’

  The boy shook his head. ‘She just kept out of his way and kept her door locked at night.’

  ‘But that night she hadn’t locked her door, right?’

  The boy shrugged. ‘She must have forgot.’

  ‘Was she forgetting much else?’ asked Nightingale.

  The boy’s eyes narrowed. ‘What you mean?’

  ‘Did she seem different? Recently? Had she changed?’

  The boy nodded. ‘Yeah. She was, you know, distracted. Like she had something on her mind.’

  ‘Do you know Leon Budd?’

  The boy pulled a face. ‘Nah.’

  ‘Did she ever mention him? Budd. Leon Budd. They went to the same school.’

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘Do you have any idea where she might have gone? Does she have any friends she might have gone to stay with?’

  The boy shrugged but didn’t answer.

  ‘Who is her best friend?’ asked Perez.

  The boy shrugged again.

  Perez sighed and took out her wallet. She gave him a couple of twenty dollar bills.

  ‘Makayla Jackson. She lives in the next block. Ninth floor.’

  ‘School friend?’ asked Perez. The boy nodded and hurried inside as if he feared she would take her money back.

  Perez headed for the elevator while Nightingale pushed open the door to the stairwell.

  CHAPTER 25

  Nightingale walked up to the ninth floor to find Perez already talking to Makayla Jackson’s mother. The door closed as Nightingale walked up. ‘She’s at school,’ said Perez. ‘Community College.’ She laughed at how out of breath he was. ‘Jack, if you’re going to insist on climbing all these stairs you might want to rethink the smoking.’ She patted him on the chest. ‘I’ll see you back at the car.’

  Nightingale went back down the stairs. Perez was standing by her car with two coffees by the time he got there and he took his and thanked her.

  The Community College of Philadelphia was a ten-minute drive away. Perez parked at a meter in the street and they went inside. They found an office where a very efficient receptionist pointed them in the direction of the lecture theatre where Makayla was supposed to be learning the finer points of Java programming. The receptionist also let them have a look at her photograph on the screen so that they would be able to pick her out.

  They got to the lecture theatre ten minutes before the session was due to end. When the doors eventually opened, Nightingale and Perez stood either side, scanning faces. Nightingale saw her first. She was a pretty black girl with short dreadlocks, with a tiger-patterned messenger bag across her chest and a heavy textbook in her left hand. ‘There she is,’ he said to Perez. ‘Best you do the talking or we’ll get into the whole “are you English” thing.’ She was deep in conversation with a lanky Hispanic teenager and Perez had to interrupt. ‘Hi, are you Makayla?’ she asked. ‘Makayla Jackson.’

  She frowned. ‘Yes?’

  ‘We just need a few words with you, Miss Jackson,’ said Perez.

  ‘Are you police?’

  Perez shook her head. ‘We’re private investigators, we’re trying to find Dee-anne Alexander.’

  ‘You don’t have to talk to them,’ said the teenager next to her. ‘They can’t detain you.’

  Perez smiled at the teenager. ‘Law student?’ she asked.

  ‘No, but I know my rights.’

  ‘It’s okay, Santiago,’ said Makayla. ‘I’ll talk to them. You go ahead, I’ll catch you later.’

  The teenager looked as if he wanted to argue, but then he nodded, flashed Perez a peace sign, and walked away.

  ‘Has something happened to Dee-anne?’ asked Makayla.

  ‘We just want to talk to her,’ said Perez. ‘Do you know where she is?’

  ‘I haven’t seen her for a while. Has she done something wrong?’

  Perez shook her head. ‘No, we want to talk to her about a friend of hers. We’ve been to her home but she isn’t there. Do you have any idea where she might have gone?’

  Makayla looked at her watch. ‘I need a cigarette. Can we do this outside?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Perez.

  They followed her outside. Makayla took a pack of cigarettes from her bag. Camels. She lit one and offered the pack to Nightingale. He wasn’t the least bit surprised that she had recognised him as a fellow smoker. Smokers had an inbuilt radar that picked up anyone who shared their habit. Nightingale wasn’t a big fan of the Camel brand – he had tried them but much preferred his Marlboros – but he took one and let her light it for him. He nodded his thanks and blew smoke at the sky. Perez waited for them to finish bonding before asking her question again. ‘So, do you know where Dee-anne is?’

  Makayla grimaced. ‘I haven’t seen her for a while. Sorry.’

  ‘You’re friends, aren’t you?’

  ‘Sure. At least we were. BFFs for a long time.’

  ‘But not for ever?’

  Makayla blew smoke. ‘She changed.’ She shrugged. ‘People change.’

  ‘And when was the last time you saw her?’

  ‘A week or so ago.’

  ‘In class?’

  ‘No, she’s stopped coming to college. I saw her in the street. Called out her name but she didn’t hear me. Maybe she had earphones in or was on her phone. She was on the other side of the road and there was traffic. I was going to go after her but I couldn’t cross and when it was clear it was too late, she’d gone.’

  ‘And before that?’

  ‘Less than two weeks ago. She was in Wal-Mart. I thought then something was wrong because she didn’t seem to be remember me.. Then it clicked and she hugged me and said she missed me but…’ She shrugged. ‘There was something not right. Like she was in another world. If I didn’t know better I’d have thought she’d taken something, but she was always anti-drugs. She’d seen what they’d done to her mother.’

  ‘So she’d dropped out of school?’

  ‘I asked her that and she said she had better things to do with her time. I asked her what and she just grinned and said she wanted to have some fun.’

  ‘Fun?’ repeated Nightingale.

  Makayla nodded. ‘That’s what she said. Fun. Then she laughed. Except the laugh didn’t sound like her. It sounded like...’ She shrugged, unable to finish the sentence.

  ‘Did she have many friends?’ asked Nightingale.

  ‘Are you Australian?’ asked Makayla.

  ‘Yes,’ said Nightingale. ‘Could she be staying with a friend?’


  ‘I suppose so,’ she said. ‘But if she is, I don’t know them. No one has mentioned it.’

  ‘What’s she like, what sort of person is she?’ asked Perez.

  ‘She’s lovely. Really caring. I always used to tell her that she cares too much. She was involved in the college’s StressLine project.’

  ‘StressLine?’ repeated Perez.

  ‘A confidential phoneline that students can call if things are getting on top of them. Like the Samaritans but students doing it for students.’ She forced a smile. ‘Philly’s a tough town at the best of times, and a lot of kids at the college have problems. Family break-ups, drugs, gangs. Plus there’s the stress of exams and stuff. StressLine is a free number for you to call so that you can talk to a peer. They run a drop-in centre where you can talk over coffee. Dee-anne was there two or three times a week.’

  ‘Do you know if she met a guy called Leon Budd there?’

  ‘She’d never tell me their names,’ said Makayla. ‘It’s totally confidential.’

  ‘But you heard what happened to Leon, surely?’

  Makayla frowned. ‘Leon?’ Hey eyes widened. ‘The boy who was murdered? You think Dee-anne knew him?’

  ‘Well he went to this school.’

  Makayla laughed. ‘There are something like twenty thousand students here.’

  ‘So you didn’t know him?’

  ‘Definitely not.’

  ‘And you don’t know if Dee-anne did.’

  ‘She never mentioned it. And like I said, she would never tell me the name of anyone she dealt with at StressLine.’ She blew smoke down at the ground, her brow furrowed. ‘What do you think happened? Why do you think she’s connected to what happened to Leon?’

  ‘We don’t know, we’re not even sure she knew him. We’re just trying to find her at the moment.’

  ‘Well, I just assumed she was at home.’

  ‘She isn’t,’ said Nightingale. ‘The family say she’s moved out.’

  She nodded. ‘That’s probably for the best. Her stepfather is a nasty shit. I told her, she should go to the cops but she said he never did anything other than leer and grope and that she could handle it.’

  ‘Where do you think she would go?’

  Makayla shrugged. ‘I don’t know. She could have stayed with me if I’d known.’ She flicked ash on the floor. ‘Have you tried calling her?’