“We think there might be more paintings, too. We’re going to my grandfather’s apartment to see if we can find some clues there,” Elvin said.
“Sounds like a plan.” T.J. seemed distracted. “Sorry, dudes, don’t mean to bail, but there’s something I gotta do. I’ll look into those paintings for you,” he said, and quickly left the park.
“We should go, too,” Alex said to Rad. “Thanks for your help, but we’ve got a lot to do before dark.” She raised her eyebrows at Jin and Elvin.
“Oh, right.” Jin suddenly felt queasy. She had forgotten about the second half of their mission, the breaking-and-entering part, and she was not looking forward to it.
A lex charged ahead, propelled by the prospect of a new, and possibly dangerous, adventure. Jin walked slower, peering up at the sky, which was overcast and damp, like a sink full of wet rags waiting to be wrung out. She thought about Halmoni, who was probably at this very minute standing at her laundry basin at the back of the store, soaking the day’s aprons and towels before dinner. If Jin were there, she’d be hanging up the clean towels on the clothesline that stretched across the storeroom. That was their routine, what they did every afternoon. Jin was only a few blocks from the bodega, but she suddenly felt like she was miles away.
“I’m still not sure this is such a good idea.” Elvin fell into step alongside Jin, following her gaze up toward the sky.
“Yeah, I know,” Jin said as they slowed down a little more to watch fast moving clouds greedily devouring the meager daylight. Now the sky looked like a heavy balloon threatening to burst and cover the city in thick gray fog.
“What’s taking you slowpokes so long?” Alex stopped to wait for Jin and Elvin to catch up. Once they were within reach, she clamped down on each of their arms, dragging them forward.
When they got to 135th and St. Nicholas Avenue, Elvin pointed toward a community garden on the corner. “This is where I found my grandfather. He was right by the entrance here.” He shuddered. Alex and Jin took a few tentative steps into the garden.
“That must be where Jarvis Monroe found the painting.” Jin pointed to a wooden bench. A series of small holes, where someone had obviously been digging, surrounded it. In fact, as Jin looked around, she noticed there were holes everywhere. “I don’t think Jarvis could’ve done all this on his own. Someone else must’ve been digging here,” she guessed. She reached for her phone to take a picture but realized in her rush to leave she had forgotten it back at the store. She called Alex over and asked her to take a few shots.
“This garden has more craters than the moon,” Alex said, aiming her phone at the ground.
“Can we please get out of here? This place gives me the creeps,” Elvin called to the girls.
“Coming!” Jin answered as she and Alex trudged back to where Elvin was standing at the entrance. They kept walking.
At 138th Street, Elvin slowed down. “The apartment building is at the end of this block, but the entrance is around the corner. I think one of you should go ahead to make sure we can sneak in without being noticed.”
Alex volunteered and ran to the end of the block. She peered around the corner and then ran back. “We’ve got a problem. There’s a squad car with two cops parked across the street from the building. I’m thinking our best bet is to go up the fire escape. I’ll show you.” They inched closer to the building, and Alex outlined her plan. “We’ll have to drop down on all fours when we’re passing a window, and each take one landing at a time, but other than that, it should be easy peasy,” she explained.
Elvin shook his head. He was starting to get a little frustrated. “I thought the whole point was for us to sneak in. If we go up the fire escape, one of the neighbors, maybe even the police might see us.”
“What if I distract the police?” Jin suggested. “I could go over to the car and ask a question while you guys climb up.”
“It could work,” Alex mused, sizing up the black metal fire escape snaking along the side of the five-story building. She turned to Jin. “You sure about this?”
Jin gave her a thumbs-up. Alex jumped and yanked down the lowest rung of the fire escape. Once they started up the stairs, Jin took a deep breath, gripped her notebook tightly in her hands, and marched over to the police car. She tapped lightly on the driver’s partially open window. The officer, who was just about to bite into a sandwich, sat up abruptly and nearly dropped his food.
“Sorry,” Jin said, and took a step back.
“Something we can help you with?” the officer grumbled, annoyed to have his meal interrupted.
“Um, I live over there.” Jin gestured vaguely behind her. “I just happened to see you two officers out here, and I was wondering if you could help me with my homework.”
The driver looked over at his partner. “Eh, Ricky, she wants us to help her with her homework.” He chuckled.
“Not if she wants to pass, she don’t.” Ricky nudged the driver and the two burst out laughing.
“What is it you need help with?” the first officer asked.
Jin quickly came up with a standard, garden-variety career question. “We’re supposed to interview people from different professions to find out more about what they do. For example, what is the day in the life of a police officer like?”
The officer leaned back in his seat, the vinyl covering squeaking beneath him. “That all depends. Most days it’s breaking up fights, responding to burglary calls, you know, your run-of-the-mill criminal activity. Some kid gets his bike stolen, or somebody’s car or house gets broken into, stuff like that. Every now and again, we get to chase somebody. Remember that guy last week, Rick? The one running off with the TV? Tackled him before he got two blocks.”
“Interesting.” Jin tried hard not to roll her eyes as she pretended to take notes.
“Sometimes, though, a special assignment comes up, like now.” The officer motioned her closer to the window. “You didn’t hear it from me, but we’re on a stakeout, looking for a missing kid. Higher-ups are really interested in this kid for some reason. Got strict instructions on this one to bring him in.”
Jin scribbled quickly and glanced over her shoulder just in time to see Elvin’s feet sliding through a top-floor window. Alex was nowhere in sight. She must already be inside, Jin thought as she slammed her notebook shut. “That’s all I need. Thanks officers,” she said, scurrying away.
“Hey, kid, stop for a sec. We want to ask you a couple questions,” one of the officers called from the car. Jin pretended not to hear and kept walking. When she heard the creak of a car door opening, she broke into a run. She lept up the front steps of Elvin’s grandfather’s apartment building and swung open the heavy entryway door. She slammed her palms against the two rows of buzzers, ringing several at a time. Someone buzzed her in just as the police officers reached the front stoop. Jin slid through the second door and pushed it shut behind her, then ran up the stairs to the fifth floor, where Alex and Elvin were waiting in the hallway.
“They’re looking for you,” Jin told Elvin once she’d caught her breath. “The cops said that they have orders from high up to find a missing kid. I think they wanted to ask me some questions about you, but I got away.”
“Great. Now I’m officially a wanted man,” Elvin sighed.
“It’ll be okay.” Jin patted his arm.
“Can we just do what we came here to do, before we all end up in jail?” Alex pushed past the two of them back into the apartment. Jin and Elvin followed her into the pitch-black living room. Within seconds, they heard a loud thud and metallic clank.
“Yeow!” Alex groaned. “I just crashed into something. I think I killed my shins.”
“Could you please not use that word?” Elvin grumbled. A small sliver of light peeked into the room as Alex inched back the curtain of one of the windows overlooking the street. “The cops. They’re gone. Maybe they went for backup,” she whispered. “Let’s hurry up and look around so we can get out of here before they come back.” A
lex flicked on her phone’s flashlight and shined it around the living room, which was overflowing with books. “How are we ever going to find anything here?”
“Why don’t we start in a less crowded room,” Jin suggested, and Elvin led them into the tiny kitchen. After a quick look around, they moved on to the bedroom.
“Light’s not coming on.” Elvin flicked the switch on and off.
“With your grandfather in the hospital, maybe the electricity got turned off,” Jin suggested.
Elvin was glad it was dark so that the girls couldn’t see him blush. “My grandfather paid the bill, if that’s what you’re getting at,” he said.
“I didn’t mean that he didn’t pay, I just … never mind,” Jin said, flustered.
“Let’s just look around. Jin, you take the bed and nightstand. Elvin, you take the dresser. I’ll take the closet,” Alex directed as she placed the cell phone with the flashlight shining on the nightstand. The light fell on Elvin’s cell phone and keys, which he’d left behind the night of the attack. He put them in his coat pocket before heading over to the dresser.
Jin riffled through the nightstand drawer and poked her head under the bed. She didn’t find anything, so she meandered over to the dresser to help Elvin inspect the drawers.
“So are you and your grandfather close?” she asked as they searched through rolled-up pairs of socks and neatly folded shirts. Elvin shook his head.
“To be honest, I never knew he existed before my mom got sick. She left home and moved out to Cali when she was seventeen. I guess she must have cut things off with my grandfather because, up until now, I didn’t think we had any other family. But I guess I was wrong. She knew about him, she just never bothered to tell me,” Elvin said with a little sharpness in his voice. He and his mom had always told each other everything. How could she have kept such a big secret from him? He felt a small lump of sadness mixed with anger rising in his throat. But now was not the time to think about that, so he swallowed hard to keep it down.
Jin sighed. “I never knew my mom, either. But neither did my grandparents, or at least that’s what they told me. My mother left me at their church in Queens. Halmoni said she knew I belonged to her before she even saw me.”
“Aren’t you ever curious about your mom?” Elvin asked.
Jin considered the question for a minute. The fact that she didn’t know her mother was simply that, another fact. Her mother leaving her was like the breath that singers take at the beginning of a song. Just a thing that happened before her real life began. She shrugged. “I keep these notebooks where I record the stuff that I observe every day. Maybe one day I’ll get a clue about her, but I don’t really think that much about it. ”
“Hey, guys, a little help!” Alex called. Jin and Elvin ran over to the closet. “There’s a box back there,” Alex pointed. “I need help reaching it.” Jin and Elvin dove into the packed closet, kicking aside shoes and pushing coats and suits out of the way to make a path for Alex to climb through. She got on all fours and crawled to the back of the closet, grabbed a shiny black box and crawled back out.
“What’s in it?” Jin asked. Alex lifted the lid. Inside was a woman’s hat, shaped like a half sphere, with a small bouquet of feathers sewn onto one of the sides. A plain white business card rested on top of the hat. Alex grabbed it and held it up to her phone light. “ ‘Compliments of I. Drummond,’ ” she read.
“Drummond? That’s Henriette’s last name!” Elvin remarked. But before they could examine their find more closely, they heard a scraping noise coming from the living room.
“What’s that?” Elvin asked.
“I don’t know. Sounds like it’s coming from the front of the apartment. Let’s go back into the kitchen. We can check out the living room from there,” Alex suggested. “In the meantime, this is coming with us.” She slammed the lid back on the hatbox and tucked it underneath her arm, then grabbed her cell phone and led the way into the kitchen, just as a small pool of light from the outside hall fell across the living room floor.
“Someone’s here!” Jin started to panic. Elvin and Alex put their fingers up to their lips to quiet her.
“These old apartments always smell like cabbage,” a whiny male voice said from the now open front door. “And they’re so tiny. How do roaches even live in these boxes?” The voice moved closer. “It feels different in here tonight. Does it feel different to you?”
“No, it don’t feel different. Why should it?” a second, gruffer male voice asked.
“And what about the lights?” Whiny Voice demanded.
“You told me to cut the electricity, remember?”
“Why would I tell you to do something so stupid? We have to go through this place top to bottom, and we can’t see anything. How are we going to find a bunch of paintings in all this junk? Did you at least remember to bring the flashlights?” The man angrily swept a stack of books from the coffee table.
“Yeah, got ’em right here in the bag.”
“Did you hear that? Paintings!” Alex whispered.
“Yes, but we’ve got to get out of here before they find those flashlights. Let’s go back to the window.” Jin pointed and they tiptoed in the direction of the bedroom.
“You guys go first. I’ll keep watch,” Elvin said.
“Call the police,” Jin whispered.
“Can’t. My phone is dead. It hasn’t been charged for a week.”
“Mine just died, too,” Alex added. “Let’s just get out of here.”
Carrying the hatbox, Alex carefully slid out of the window onto the fire escape. Jin followed. Elvin was about to climb out the window when he remembered that he’d left his phone charger in the nightstand drawer. He made his way over to the nightstand and grabbed the charger. As he headed back to the window, his foot tugged the cord of the nightstand lamp, sending it crashing to the floor.
“What was that?” shouted one of the men from the kitchen. They ran to the bedroom. Elvin dove for the window, but he was too slow. He only managed to get half of his body out before the men grabbed his legs. He gripped the windowsill, kicking wildly. His foot made contact with one of the men’s faces. The guy reeled backward, releasing Elvin to grab his own nose. It gave Elvin just the leverage he needed to wriggle out of the other man’s grasp and onto the fire escape landing, scraping his cheek on a nail sticking out of the window frame in the process. He felt his skin opening, like a zipper coming apart. Cool blood oozed down his cheek, which began to sting once the chilly fall air hit the open wound, but he didn’t stop moving.
Elvin scrambled to his feet and flew down the fire escape’s narrow metal stairs. He jumped off the bottom step and kept running, until his toe caught on something on the sidewalk and, suddenly, he was facedown, staring at a patch of broken concrete. He thought he heard someone calling him, but he couldn’t answer. Instead, he curled up in the cloud of dark fog that was settling over him, and let it carry him, far, far away.
A s Elvin’s eyes fluttered open, the kindly face of an old man staring down at him slowly came into focus. The man had a white beard and bushy white eyebrows that stood out against his sandy skin. When he smiled, as he did now, his eyebrows rose then fell in one fluid motion. Elvin imagined they were waving at him.
“Welcome,” the man spoke in a hushed tone. “You’ve been gone for a little while.”
“Elvin, this is Dr. Whitmore. He’s the doctor at the shelter where I volunteer, so you’re in good hands.” Elvin heard Alex’s voice behind him, but when he tried to sit up to look at her, his head started spinning and he felt a searing pain on the right side of his face.
“Take it easy, young man,” said Dr. Whitmore. He placed a hand on Elvin’s shoulder, easing him back onto the pillows of an antique sofa where he had been resting. The doctor shined a small light into his eyes and made him follow his finger up and down, right to left. “I don’t think you have a concussion, but you did bang yourself up pretty badly, so you have to be careful. No strenuous activitie
s for a while,” he instructed Elvin.
“Wait a minute, what happened? Where are we?” Elvin tried to sit up again.
“Didn’t you hear the doc? You need to rest,” Alex admonished as she and Jin sat down next to him on the couch.
“Okay, I’m resting. Now tell me. Everything,” Elvin demanded. The girls exchanged glances before Jin started to speak.
“When we got out of the building, we realized that you weren’t behind us and thought that something must be wrong. The police we saw earlier hadn’t come back—not that I would’ve gone to them anyway, so I ran to the corner store to get help, and Alex kept a lookout for you at the building. I told the store owner that someone had broken into your apartment and that you were still up there. He sent several of his sons rushing over to the building with baseball bats. Then you came running from the fire escape and slipped on some uneven pavement.”
Elvin frowned. He couldn’t help but feel a little bit cheated. He had fought off and escaped two dangerous thugs, only to be taken down by … the sidewalk? It didn’t seem fair.
“Did the guys from the store catch the men who broke into the apartment?”
“Unfortunately, no. The burglars must have heard them coming. We didn’t get a look at them, and we left before the police arrived,” Jin explained.
“What about my face?” Elvin touched his bandaged cheek and then he remembered. “I think I cut myself on a nail as I was going through the window.”
“I knew we couldn’t go to a hospital, since everyone seems to be looking for you, so I figured Dr. Whitmore was the next best thing. Even though, technically, he’s retired, he still knows his stuff.” Alex gestured toward the doctor.
Dr. Whitmore grinned and extended his hand. “I’m happy to be of service, and pleased to make your acquaintance, Elvin.”
“Yours too, sir. Thank you for helping me.”
“Now, if I may be so forward as to inquire, what’s this about people looking for you? Am I harboring a wanted man?” Dr. Whitmore asked, raising his bushy brows. Elvin squirmed.
The Harlem Charade Page 8