by Andrew Grant
I took a breath and entered the project. I couldn’t see anyone, but right away I felt eyes watching me. I stayed in what little light there was, looped around an adjacent building, and approached Davies’s block from its front. An intercom had been installed next to the double glass door, but now it was just a jumble of components—a speaker, a microphone, a keypad—hanging impotently from its wires. I pulled on a pair of thick blue latex gloves that I’d taken from my janitor’s cart—old habits—and tried the door. Its lock was also broken. The oil-starved hinges put up a valiant fight, but I soon got it open.
I immediately wished I hadn’t. Going through that doorway was like walking into a latrine. One that was long overdue for a cleaning. The stench was almost overpowering. I forced myself to pause, despite the unpleasantness, and wait for my eyes to adjust. Details of my surroundings gradually became visible. I saw that the floor had once been tiled with bright blue and white squares, but now more than half were missing. There were beer cans strewn all around. Vodka bottles. Burger wrappers. A pile of dried vomit in one corner. Three syringes discarded in another. The outer wall was badly stained from a water leak, and the others were a patchwork of overlapping blocks of varying shades of cream. I guessed that was the result of graffiti being repeatedly painted over. There were also two elevators, but you couldn’t have paid me to go in either of them. In a place like that, they would basically be coffins on steel cables, if they even worked at all. So despite having to go up nine floors, I took the stairs.
I climbed slowly, because you never know who or what might be waiting on the next landing. At least the smell eased with each floor I passed. I reached the ninth unmolested and found the fire door. I had to lift the handle to get through because only the bottom hinge was still attached to the frame. The door led to a corridor that cut the building in half. There were windows at either end, but they were covered in grime. Three lights were evenly spaced out along the ceiling. Their cloudy glass globes were covered with wire mesh. Only one was working. I took out my pocketknife, unscrewed its cover, and loosened the bulb until it went out. Then I approached Davies’s door.
I stood to the side and knocked. There was no reply. I knocked again, harder. There was still no answer. Leaning across from the side in case Davies was shy but trigger happy, I started to work on the lock. It took fifteen seconds to pick. I stayed crouched, covered by the wall, and held my flashlight up high and to the right. No shots rang out, so I risked peeking around the doorframe. I could see that the entrance foyer, at least, was deserted.
The foyer was small. Its off-white paint was dirty and marked. There were five coat hooks, and all were empty. A pair of filthy sneakers lay on the floor. The floor itself was covered with cheap vinyl, which was bubbled and blistered in places. That was probably just due to its low-quality materials, but I took care not to tread on any of the raised patches, just in case. You don’t have to be house-proud to know how to set a booby trap.
I moved into the hallway. There was a thin brown carpet on the floor. A signed Mets team photograph on the wall. And doors leading to four other rooms. Three were on the left-hand side, and one was on the right. Two of the doors on the left opened into bedrooms. One was completely empty. The other had a queen bed with a knot of nasty turquoise sheets on the floor next to it. There was nothing under them, or beneath the bed. Nothing was in the nightstand drawer, but I found tape residue on the back of the unit. That would be a good place to conceal a gun. It would be in easy reach if you were surprised in the night. A bunch of wrinkled clothes was shoved over to the left-hand side of the closet, next to six empty Nordstrom hangers. Two more pairs of worn sneakers had been tossed on the floor, and there was an empty John Varvatos shoe box on its side at the front.
The shower curtain in the bathroom was covered with mildew. There was a toothbrush on the side of the sink—only one, not surprisingly—with worn, splayed bristles. The basin was plastered with dried toothpaste stains. A Burberry cologne box was alone in the trash. It was empty. A thin, beige bath towel lay crumpled on the floor. And the toilet was like something out of a bacterial warfare experiment. I pulled on a second pair of gloves—you can’t be too careful—and checked the cistern. Nothing was stashed inside or wedged down behind it.
The final room was a combined cooking and living area, and it took up half the apartment’s overall floor space. At one end, a couple of the kitchen cupboard doors were missing. I could see cheap, mismatched plates stacked up haphazardly on their flimsy interior shelves. A door was hanging off another cupboard. The countertop was caked with grease and dust for most of its length, but a section in the center had recently been cleaned and now housed a new microwave and a shiny chrome Nespresso machine.
At the other end of the room a sixty-inch Sony TV had been mounted on the wall. Someone had made a clumsy attempt at wiring it to a Bose surround-sound system with little black cube-shaped speakers dotted around on spindly metal stands. A new-looking leather couch was positioned in front of it, and a ratty fabric armchair had been shoved to the side. Its cushion was all askew. Its base had been slashed open, but I couldn’t find anything hidden inside.
There was nowhere left to check so I considered switching off the lights and settling down to wait. That wasn’t an attractive prospect, given the surroundings. And I figured the odds of Davies returning any time soon were low, so I nixed the idea and headed for the exit. There’d be other ways of getting to Carrick. More sanitary ways. I was confident of that.
* * *
—
There were four guys waiting for me in the lobby when I emerged from the stairwell. Two were standing directly in front of the exit door. Two were on either side, a yard farther forward, forming a C shape. All of them would be in their early or mid-twenties. They were short and stocky, with sneering expressions on their faces. One had a bat. Two had pickax handles. And the other, a crowbar.
The crowbar guy took a step forward. “You a cop?”
I stayed where I was and smiled pleasantly. “Me? No. Listen carefully and I’ll explain what I do. And how you’re going to help me.”
Chapter Fifteen
I arrived at the courthouse early the next morning. Images of the Pardew file turning to ash before my eyes had plagued me all night, disturbing my sleep, and I wanted time to search at least four more rooms on the third floor before it got too late to go and take care of another piece of business.
The janitors’ room was the busiest I’d ever seen it when I walked in. There were half a dozen guys in a circle by the line of carts, caught up in some kind of animated conversation. Frank Carrodus was in the center. After a moment he saw I was there and beckoned me over to join the group.
“You’ve got to hear this, Paul.” He shook his head like he didn’t believe what he was saying. “My sister works as a civilian aide for the cops, at the Fifteenth Precinct. Last night they get this 911 call from one of the projects. There was some kind of disturbance, late in the evening. Nothing unusual there, right? Wrong. Some officers responded—not too quickly, would be my guess—and do you know what they found? Four local hoodlums, all beat up. One had to go to the hospital. He’d been whacked in the head with a crowbar, they reckon. The other three just had cuts and bruises. But get this. They said the guy who hurt them made them break into a supply closet, take out a bunch of brooms and trash bags, and start cleaning up. The building. The courtyard outside. All over the place. And the best part? When they asked the guy what his deal was, he wouldn’t tell them anything. He just said he was a janitor. A janitor! Like us. Have you ever heard anything like that?”
“Me?” I shrugged. “No. It sounds crazy. The guys were probably on drugs. They probably imagined the whole thing.”
* * *
—
By the time I left the courthouse three hours later I’d discovered that one judge liked to bring more than coffee to work in his thermos. And that another was pla
nning a surprise trip to Jamaica for her husband’s birthday. But I’d found no sign of Pardew’s file. I was disappointed, but I know what my father would have thought. It was too soon. I had to work for it. I had to keep looking.
I took the subway to Forty-second Street, made my way across to Eleventh Avenue, and turned north. The place was a maze of scaffolding and portable generators and closed sidewalks. I guess it was true that the neighborhood was hot. Taller buildings were going up south of Forty-third. New ones were being squeezed in, and old ones replaced, north of that. I wondered where exactly my father’s building was. The one that had led him to discover Pardew’s fraud. I wondered who wanted to buy it. And what they wanted to do with it. I’d have to check. I wasn’t too enthusiastic, though. Hell’s Kitchen had never been my favorite area. I think that stemmed from the first time I’d visited it as a kid. My hopes had been high for evidence of demonic activity, or at least something good to eat, but I hadn’t seen a single devil or the first sign of cooking. False advertising sucks, especially when you’re young and pedantic.
The building the Masons lived in was on Forty-ninth Street, between Eleventh and Twelfth. It was a six-floor walk-up, frayed around the edges but oozing old-school charm. I went up the short flight of outside steps. The front door was the original wood. Its white paint was chipped in places, and several of its stained-glass panels were cracked.
There was an intercom to the side of the door. It had twelve buzzers. There was a card next to each, but they were all handwritten and too faded to read. I tried each buzzer in turn. There was no reply from any of them. I tried the door instead, and it opened. Inside, the hallway smelled damp, and there was a hint of raw sewage in the air. It was like an old people’s home I’d investigated in England one time, which was involved in raising money to send recruits to terror training camps in Syria. That operation hadn’t ended well. I hoped it wasn’t an omen.
The wooden floor in the hallway was in desperate need of a polish, and in some places, repair. Several of the blocks were raised, I guessed by damp. The walls were paneled, and four lighter sections revealed the places where pictures had recently been removed. A modest chandelier hung from the ceiling, with several crystals missing. There were two doors, offset, so that neighbors couldn’t see into each other’s apartments if they came out at the same time. I listened at both of them, and heard nothing.
Next I made my way to the staircase. It was nicely proportioned, from the days when form was as valued as function and both were more important than price. The banister was made of rich mahogany, but four spindles were missing and the top of the newel post was loose. Deep scratches ran down its length, and the carpet on the treads was threadbare. The iron was also missing from the bottom step.
I decided to start at the top of the building and work my way down. I made my way slowly upward, and when I reached the highest landing I saw the source of some of the dampness. The roof had been leaking. The floor on that level was simpler than in the hallway. It was made of planks rather than blocks, and many were now warped and twisted. Gaps had appeared between them and they creaked alarmingly when stepped on. The wallpaper was peeling, too, and there were chunks of plaster missing from the ceiling. The place was going to need some serious TLC to get it back in shape.
I was about to head down to the fifth floor when I heard a scraping sound behind me. I looked around, and an apartment door abruptly closed. I went over to it and knocked, but there was no answer.
“Hello?” I knocked again. “Would it be OK to speak with you for a second? Don’t worry—I’m not selling anything.”
There was no response.
“My name’s Paul McInally.” I knocked a little harder. “I’m working for your landlord, Mr. Carrick. He asked me to put together a quote for building renovations. For the common areas, mainly, plus—”
The door jerked open and a woman appeared. She’d be in her seventies, I guessed. Her hair was steel gray. Her face was deeply lined. Her eyes were blazing. And she was wearing a giant thick cardigan, blue slacks, and pink furry slippers. “Finally!” Her eyes narrowed. “Wait. You don’t look like a contractor. Let me see some ID.”
I took out a black leather wallet that contained a generic gold shield—one of the little souvenirs I’d kept from my time working undercover—and showed it to her. “You’re very perceptive, Mrs….?”
“Milner.”
“Well, Mrs. Milner, you’re right. I’m not a contractor. I’m a consultant, and right now I’m assisting the NYPD. Specifically, I’m looking into what happened to your neighbors, the Masons. Could you tell me, how well did you know them?”
Mrs. Milner took a step back. “OK. You better come in.”
I followed Mrs. Milner to her living room. She had a low, sleek couch with mustard-colored upholstery. Two matching chairs. A glass-topped coffee table. A long, low wooden media unit. Everything was beautifully coordinated, and all the items in the room—apart from the flat-screen TV—could have been lifted directly from the ’50s. They looked strangely familiar, and I realized they were the original versions of the items I’d seen the day before in the store windows on Broadway.
“Have you lived here long, Mrs. Milner?”
“All my life.” She nodded. “My parents lived here, and we stayed on after they died. Me and my husband. He’s not here right now. He volunteers at a center for seniors. He’s older than half the people he helps, but that’s Bryan. He can’t keep still.”
“You must like it here.”
“I love it!” There was no missing the passion in her voice. “The building. The view. Look! You can see the Hudson. The river changes all the time. It’s better than television. And the ships. There aren’t as many as there were, but I still love to see them coming and going.”
“Have things changed much over the years?”
“Oh yes.” She looked down at the floor for a moment. “It used to be wonderful, with our first landlord. Mr. Cumbes. It was the same with his son. Nothing was too much trouble for those guys. Everything was always pristine. Then young Mr. Cumbes died, and his daughter sold the building to Mr. Carrick. It’s been downhill ever since. Look at the place now! It’s getting almost unlivable. Mrs. Graydon, who lives opposite—she got hit on the head by a huge hunk of falling plaster after the heavy rain last year. Mrs. Leonard, on the second floor, her baby wound up in the hospital. The poor little guy couldn’t breathe because of the mold spores. She’s staying with her mother now, in Florida, until things improve around here. Mr. Nicholl, who lives on one, his wife died, then on the day after her funeral he woke up and found that the toilet had overflowed in the night. His whole bathroom floor was covered in—you know what. He still can’t shift the smell all the way. And poor Mrs. Aitkin. She has the other apartment on one. Her daughter came to visit, with her brand-new baby. And do you know what? The little girl got bitten in the night by rats. She had to go to the hospital. They gave her rabies shots.”
“Have you tried talking to the landlord about all this?”
“We can’t. No one knows how to reach him.”
“So how do you report your maintenance issues?”
“That used to be easy. We had a super who lived in the building. Old Mr. Cumbes hired him. But the guy retired, and he still hasn’t been replaced. Now we have to call a number if we have a problem. And we always just get a machine. I’ve never actually spoken to Mr. Carrick. Sometimes I wonder if he even exists.”
“If you leave a message, do you at least get a response?”
“Hardly ever. Basically all he does is take our money.”
“Why don’t you stop paying him. That would get his attention.”
“Are you crazy?” She stood up. “This apartment’s rent controlled! We want the building fixed up, not us kicked out.”
“Do you think with all this neglect, he could be trying to drive you out?”
&n
bsp; “That had crossed my mind.” Mrs. Milner moved to the window. “I’m sure he could make a lot more money if he got new tenants. Or sold to a developer. Or demolished the place and started again. You’ve seen all the construction work around here. The neighborhood’s trendy now, all right. You should have been here in the seventies. I tell you, I survived that, so I can survive anything. If someone wants me out, they can carry me out in a box.”
“Do you think Mr. Carrick could have had anything to do with what happened to Mrs. Mason?”
“That had crossed my mind, too.” She came back to the couch and sat down. “I hope not. But…”
“But?”
“Lydia Mason and me, we’re the same. We’re obstinate. Some of the others were starting to waver. Lydia was worried. She thought, if they start leaving, that’ll make it harder for us to stay. So she offered to be our spokesman. To represent all of us. To make a nuisance of herself till we got a result. She’d been doing it about a month. Calling. Leaving constant messages. Saying we’d get a lawyer if we had to. She’d made a little progress, too. She found the number for Mr. Carrick’s secretary. He’s a man—and European—but that’s still better than an answering machine. Then the attack happened.”
“Had you seen anyone loitering around near the building?”
“Me, no. Nothing like that. But Bryan thought he had. He told me he’d yelled at a young guy a couple times. After the attack, I begged him to stop doing things like that. It’s asking for trouble.”