Where Nobody Dies

by Carolyn Wheat

  I caught sight of two things that cut off my heated retort. One was a huge oxlike man with a hammer in his hand who stood on the edge of the building, eyes fixed on Bellfield. From what the boys had told me, I decided he had to be the building super, a part-time wrestler who worked out in one of the front rooms. Evidently Bellfield was the one who felt the need of a strong man to hold his hand.

  The other person who caught my eye was Angie, my investigator. She was coming down the street at a fast clip, the press camera swinging at her side. Her mass of dark curly hair was windblown, and her bootheels clicked on the broken pavement.

  “The only reason I even need an investigator,” I explained to Bellfield, “is that I’d rather not become a witness in this case. If I took the pictures, I’d have to take the stand.” I was annoyed at myself for needing to explain, but I wanted Bellfield to know I wasn’t afraid to be there. The problem was, glancing uneasily at Gorgeous George idly swinging his hammer, that it wasn’t entirely true. I was afraid of what Ira Bellfield could do, or have done, to me.

  “If you’ll excuse me, Mr. Bellfield,” I said, reverting to a coldly professional tone, “I’d like to consult with my clients and my investigator. In private.”

  He gave me a smirk as he turned and walked toward the huge super, who stood immobile, looking like a robot in a science-fiction movie. I suspected Bellfield of having a remote control box in his pocket, and I pictured him pushing buttons, causing the massive torso to lurch forward in huge, awkward strides.

  With Bellfield gone, the atmosphere lightened considerably. Using Frankie as interpreter, I introduced Angie to the boys. She produced delighted grins by greeting them in sign. “You learn a little of everything,” she explained with a smile, “in the cops.” Angie was a retired Housing policewoman who’d incurred bad back damage in a fall down some concrete steps, a fall engineered by a startled burglar. She was on disability but did some investigative work for the panel that assigns lawyers to the poor. “I can say hello in Vietnamese and Arabic, too,” she added proudly. “In addition to the more conventional languages.”

  “I don’t know what language you’d need to talk to that super of Bellfield’s,” I remarked. “How’s your gorilla?”

  “Let’s see the police and fire reports,” Angie said with a laugh.

  I dug into my Channel 13 tote bag, having left my new leather briefcase home, along with my three-piece suits. Professional image is well and good in its place, which is not climbing over charred timbers in an abandoned building. I pulled out a sheaf of papers. Police reports, fire marshal’s reports, interviews with witnesses—all pointing the finger at the Unknown Homicides in general and Tito in particular.

  “The fire started in Tito’s apartment,” I said. “His mattress was doused with kerosene and lit up like a bonfire.” Angie nodded. “But there was also, according to these reports, a pool of kerosene in front of Tito’s room. In fact,” I went on, “Tito’s story is that he slipped in the puddle on the way to his room and that’s how the stuff was all over him when the cops arrived. Of course, the DA says ‘a likely story,’ but the fire marshal’s report does confirm the puddle’s existence. Not conclusive either way, but I’d like to see where the puddle was.”

  “And where everyone says they were when the fire started?” Angie asked. I agreed, then turned to Frankie so he could let my client in on the discussion.

  Given the shabby nature of the building they had called home, the Unknown Homicides seemed inordinately eager to show it off, laughing and pointing at the melted windows as though they couldn’t wait to get inside the soot-streaked walls. I decided finally that it was the visual nature of the investigation that appealed to them. So far the case had consisted of words laboriously translated, abstract. Now for the first time it was concrete, something everyone could see, something in which they could participate equally.

  I waved at Bellfield, and he started forward, accompanied by the wrestler. I suppressed a smile as I noted Bellfield’s hand in his pocket—fingering a little black box with buttons, no doubt.

  “You finally ready?” he whined. “You sure been taking your sweet time.”

  “Listen,” I pointed out, “you don’t have to be here. You can go do whatever it is you have to do. Get a cup of coffee, whatever.”

  “Listen, lady,” he snarled, “you’re gonna be inside my building, I’m gonna be there. I don’t let nobody mess around behind my back. Understand?”

  I understood, all right. What I wasn’t sure of was whether I was understanding more than was really being said. We turned and went into the building in a silent, incongruous parade. Bellfield and the wrestler led the way, while Angie and I followed and the boys, subdued by Bellfield’s presence, brought up the rear.

  It still smelled of fire, an acrid, ugly smell that emanated from torn walls, charred beams, bits of burned mattress. Apparently no effort at cleaning up had been made. Which meant that maybe I’d get a better idea of what had really happened that hot August night that seemed so remote in frozen January.

  The ground floor was a rabbit warren of rooms. Once a longshoremen’s boarding house, the building had become, in New York parlance, an SRO. Single-room occupancy, rented out to the poorest and most isolated men in the city—the winos, the junkies, the wackos, and the Unknown Homicides. The rooms were cheap, and enough of the boys had lived there to turn the place into an unofficial clubhouse, much to the annoyance of Bellfield’s wrestler, who even now stood glaring at the boys as though they had insulted his manhood. Was it possible, I asked myself, watching his hostile glances, that he had lit the fire himself, not on Bellfield’s orders, but for his own purposes—to drive out and discredit Tito and his friends? It was an idea I couldn’t ignore. It would be a mistake to get so caught up in the case against Bellfield that I missed other lines of defense that could help Tito in front of a jury. Once again, I gave myself a sharp reminder to think like Tito Fernandez’s lawyer and not Linda Ritchie’s avenger.

  We stopped at Tito’s room. He pointed to it excitedly and tapped his chest to denote possession. The door had been removed; I looked inside. The mattress was a black lump, one or two springs sticking out to identify what it had been. The walls were black, and water had ruined whatever fire hadn’t. A sooty plaster saint lay in a corner, one arm broken off; a green votive candle lay nearby.

  “Saint Jude,” Frankie translated Tito’s fingerspelling. “Tito say he prayin’ to Saint Jude alla time. Patron saint of the impossible, that’s Saint Jude.”

  Behind me I heard a guttural voice. “Goddamn spies and their superstitions. Candle prolly started the fire inna first place.”

  I turned to Frankie and in a voice only slightly louder than usual told him to tell Tito to keep up the prayers even without his statue. Tito smiled at me and made the promise. What the hell, I thought, to soothe my atheistic conscience, it couldn’t hurt.

  “Okay, Tito,” I said, “show me what you did that night. Where you came from, what you saw. You’ll have to get out of his way, Mr. Bellfield,” I said, motioning him to stand behind me. I wasn’t crazy about my clients’ telling their story in front of the enemy, but Bellfield did have a right to be in his own building, so I made the best of it.

  Tito pointed to the front stairway, walked up it about three steps, and then, putting on a face that registered panic, he rushed down and started toward the door of his room. Stopping abruptly, he pointed at the concrete floor and spelled something out to Frankie.

  “The puddle of kerosene,” I guessed. Frankie nodded.

  Tito mimed slipping in the puddle. He had gotten up and was about to dash into his room when the same guttural voice said, “There wasn’t no puddle. He’s lyin’. The little dummy’s lyin’ to save his ass.”

  All eyes turned to Gorgeous George. Even the Homicides, who couldn’t hear him, sensed he had challenged Tito’s version of events. I willed myself not to look at Angie lest some hint of triumph cross my face. Evidently the burly super didn’t know
that the puddle was more than a figment of Tito’s imagination; it had been seen and noted by the fire department itself. The super was looking at Bellfield expectantly, like an obedient dog who’d just earned himself a juicy bone.

  “When were you in this hallway, Mr.—” I tried to keep my tone neutral, but Bellfield wasn’t as stupid as I’d hoped. Before his employee could answer, he broke in. “Hey, you got no right to ask my man questions,” he protested. “You got a court order says you can look at the building. Okay, take a good look. But this man’s got nothing to say to you.” He glared at me and at the wrestler, daring either of us to continue. I stared back defiantly, but finally I gave in, knowing that once the order had been given, I could expect nothing more from the massive super; his master had muzzled him once and for all.

  I turned back to Tito. “After you fell in the puddle, what happened?” What I saw was a replay of what the boys had already told me in court—the door flung open, the flames beating Tito back, the retreat out of the building, where he was seen, captured, and held for the police by Gorgeous George. Angie took pictures of the room, of the hallway where the puddle had been, and of the front stairway, while Bellfield made exasperated noises.

  When we were finished, the boys led us upstairs to where they had been when they first noticed the fire. We walked down a dark, narrow hallway to a room in the back. It had been relatively untouched by flames, but was unoccupied, Bellfield having used the fire as an excuse to empty the whole building.

  Even without fire damage, the room was no place I’d have cared to call home. The peeling paint had been put on so long ago, it had to be the deadly lead-based stuff outlawed a good ten years ago. Part of a naked bulb hung from a cord in the middle of the ceiling; I guessed the bulb had filled with water from the firemen’s hoses, then cracked and fallen of its own weight. The remaining filament dangled from the socket like a translucent spider.

  There was no closet in the bare room; I noticed two stout hooks on the wall and imagined all of Julio’s clothes draped over them in a huge layered bunch. The last time I had seen anything like that was in a photograph in Jacob Riis’s classic How the Other Half Lives. Apparently, in Bellfield’s building, the other half still lived the same way. Yet Julio pointed delightedly at the window facing the courtyard, paved with cracked cement, through which now-bare trees poked spindly branches. And he smiled at the tattered, water-damaged Clash poster on one wall. I guess my surprise showed in my face, for Frankie explained, “He can feel the vibrations.”

  Remembering the group’s raucous sound, I smiled. “I’ll bet he can.”

  “Okay,” I said briskly, “who was where?” There was some good-natured shoving among the boys as they arranged themselves into the group that had been in Julio’s room and the group that had come running from further down the hall. There were gestures of dismissal and contempt when someone had it wrong, but finally it was settled to the satisfaction of the majority. Again the story was much as I’d heard it in court, but it made a difference to see the boys together, as seven of them headed down the back stairs to safety, while Tito ran against the crowd to the front stairway to check on his room. A few more pictures and we were finished.

  Back on the sidewalk, I thanked Angie warmly and told her I wanted the pictures rushed. She agreed and dashed off, with a quick wave as she reached the corner. I was ready to say good-bye to the boys and head home, when Tito suddenly began making agitated gestures toward the building. Frankie told me there was something important Tito wanted to show me. I turned to follow him inside, when a groan from Bellfield stopped me.

  “You’re jerkin’ me around here, lady,” he complained. “I told you, I got things to do, and you’re bustin’ my chops.”

  “I already told you,” I replied tartly, “you don’t have to stay.”

  “Just make it quick,” he said, glancing at his watch. “I got a phone call to make.” He headed toward a phone booth as I followed Tito and Frankie to the building.

  At first, in the dim light, I had no idea what Tito was pointing at, but when my eyes adjusted to the dimness I saw rusty inoperative sprinkler heads in the hall ceiling. I nodded at my client and made a note to check it out. I wished I had Angie to take photos, but it was certainly a violation Bellfield should have had repaired before the fire.

  I was making a note in my file, oblivious to my surroundings, when I felt myself grabbed from behind and dragged. I flailed around, dropping my file folder, too paralyzed to scream. As I saw Frankie and Tito walking out of the building assuming I was behind them, I realized that screaming wouldn’t help.

  I was pushed into a room, falling so that my knees skinned the concrete floor. The door slammed, and I heard a key rasp in the lock.

  If I’d had any doubts about who had dragged me here, they were banished with one look around the room. It was a makeshift gym, with chest developers and jump ropes attached to the walls, weights ranging in size from little hand jobs to enormous circus-style dumbbells, a rowing machine and a stationary bicycle. It was a one-man Stillman’s gym, a ghetto Jack LaLanne’s. It could belong only to Gorgeous George. The sole decorations were bodybuilding posters so exquisitely photographed as to raise serious doubts about the gorilla’s sexual preferences.

  I couldn’t believe what had happened. I stood a moment, catching my breath and trying to put the whole thing in perspective. Ira Bellfield was no fool; he wasn’t about to let me come to harm, when it was well known where I was. It could only mean trouble, and he had enough of that already without having to explain dead lawyers turning up in his buildings. Besides, how did he know my death would solve his problems? For all he knew, I’d done what everyone does in books, sent the incriminating contents to my lawyer in an envelope to be opened upon my death. I hadn’t in fact done anything so melodramatic, but it was beginning to sound like a good idea.

  At any rate, I decided, taking off my coat and sitting on the stationary bicycle, there was no sense in panicking. Gorgeous George had probably acted on the same kind of stupid impulse that had led him to lie about the kerosene puddle, and Bellfield would probably have his hide for it and then run into the building, eager to release me and offering profuse apologies. Insincere, but profuse. No need to panic at all, I told myself, idly beginning to pedal the bike.

  Then I smelled smoke.

  14

  I panicked.

  Jumping off the exercise bike, I dashed to the door and began pounding as hard as I could. Against the hollow steel, my blows fell like thundering timpani crashes at the end of a rousing symphony. My hands felt like raw hamburger, my voice sounded cracked and witchlike, but the door gave not an inch.

  Exhausted, I turned and saw smoke seeping through the walls. I could already feel its harshness in my throat, but the sight got me crazy. I ran to the window. Barred, of course, with good thick bars that would give a crowbar-wielding burglar pause. Like Julio’s window upstairs, this one faced the rear courtyard; I could see only a sliver of the alleyway that led to the street.

  Screaming would do no good, I reminded myself. The building was empty except for the makeshift gym, and my research had told me the surrounding buildings had also been emptied, Bellfield-style, by fire and harassment. The only people who cared if I lived or died couldn’t hear me; those who could didn’t care. No, screaming would be stupid.

  I screamed anyway. Running back to the exercise bike, I grabbed a hand-weight and threw it at the window. The gesture and the satisfying tinkle of glass that followed gave me new energy. I ran to the window and screamed my guts out. As the smell of smoke grew strong, screams subsided into sobs of frustration and fear.

  I knew only one thing—I wanted to be out of this place as much as I’d ever wanted anything in my life. Never before claustrophobic, I hung on those bars and gulped air from that window as though my life depended on it.

  After what seemed an eternity, panic began to ebb. I still smelled the smoke and now heard an ominous crackle to go with it, but I had some control
of myself. I forced my rubber legs to walk to a small sink in the corner of the room. I ran water, first dashing some onto my flushed face, and then dousing my white shirt in it. Thank goodness, I thought wryly, for fashion—the oversized white shirt I’d tossed on over my turtleneck would make a perfect mask. Holding the wet shirt to my mouth, I began to explore the room, hoping against hope that the gorilla had left a spare key. Coughing and gasping, I walked to where the smoke was strongest, wanting to get it over with quickly. It was the wall with the jump ropes. I started in one corner and methodically searched the dull gray surface for a key-hook. Halfway across, I had to run back to the sink to re-wet the shirt. The air was stifling, worse than the oppressive heat that hits New York in August.

  I ran back and finished that wall, my shaking hands roaming the surface I could barely see, my streaming eyes searching for any place a key might be hidden. I checked under the bike and the rowing machine for magnetic key-holders.

  Seven trips to the sink later, I’d done all the walls and was reaching the door. My hands were spastic as I reached up above the jamb in the place a lot of householders leave their spares. My hopes were waning, and yet my mind refused to accept the inevitable. I was on the verge of doing what I’d done as a kid, promising the God I no longer believed in a virtuous life if only He’d get me out of this one. I even gave a passing thought to Tito’s favorite saint—the one who specialized in the impossible. I laughed harshly at myself as I realized what I was doing: plea-bargaining.

  No key. I sank to the ground where I stood, my legs folding under me like a secondhand bridge table. My wet shirt was drying out from the heat, filling with the acrid smell of smoke and denying me the tiny taste of oxygen I’d been getting. The sink would help; the window, away from the engulfing smoke, would help even more. I could scream again, I thought in despair, knowing how futile the act would be. I could search again, knowing I’d already done a thorough job. I could—