by S. J. Rozan
“You seriously think I’m that cheap? That after you blew me off last night I’m going to trot along to your place now just because you’re going to be naked and dripping wet?” She matched my steps down the subway stairs.
“The thought never crossed my mind.”
“It better have.”
I kept my arm around her all the way on the swaying ride downtown. At my place, she waited for me to unlock the street door, then sprinted up the two flights to my landing. “Go ahead,” I said from a flight and a half behind her. “You have a key.”
“No, it’s okay, I have plenty of time.”
“Very funny,” I said, reaching the landing and unlocking the door. Inside, I disarmed the security panel, pushed the door shut, reached for her, and followed up the subway kiss with one that took a good deal of the plenty of time she claimed to have.
“You know,” she finally said, breaking away, “there may be a better place for this.”
“You don’t like my doorway?”
“I love it. I love all doorways. Let’s go through that one.” She nodded toward the one leading to the bedroom.
* * *
Eventually I got my shower. As I was finishing up, Lydia stuck her head in the bathroom. “Your phone’s ringing. It’s Sam.”
“Go ahead and pick it up.”
I shut the water, grabbed a towel, and came out to hear, “All right. Stay where you are. We’re on the way. Yes, really. Yes, him, too. Of course he will. Don’t worry about that. Yes, right now. Wait, here he is.”
I reached for the phone. “Sam? What’s up?” But Sam had clicked off. So I repeated to Lydia: “What’s up?”
“Sam wants us to come out there. Someone broke into his apartment.”
“Shit! Is he okay?”
“He wasn’t there. He’d gone out for a drink and discovered it when he got back. He ran right back to the bar. I told him to stay there.” She looked at me. “He was afraid you wouldn’t come because he fired you. He fired you?”
“Christ. No, he didn’t fire me.” I started to pull my clothes on. “He said he would if I didn’t either clear him or incriminate him. If I can’t do either of those things, I’ll fire me, too.”
We jogged the two blocks to the lot where I keep my Audi. I stuck the phone in the hands-free and tried to call Sam as I drove, but he didn’t answer. In a little over twenty minutes I pulled into a loading zone in front of Victor’s, a bar a couple of blocks from Sam’s building. Sam, just months in the neighborhood, hadn’t wasted any time establishing his local. He was on a bar stool, halfway into what was clearly not his first scotch, when we pushed through the door. He turned to face us. I wouldn’t say he lit up, but some of the misery in his eyes seemed to fade.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I’m sorry I fired you.”
“That’s okay. What happened?”
“Will you still work for me?”
“Yes. What happened?”
He nodded, apparently reassured. He swirled his scotch, watched it circle, and seemed to forget why he needed me to work for him.
“Sam? What happened?”
“Oh.” He looked up. “They broke into my apartment.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t stay around and ask them.”
“You mean they were still there when you got there?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see anyone.”
“Did they take anything?”
“I don’t know. I ran out right away.”
“How did they get in?”
“I don’t know.”
“What—”
“I don’t know!”
“Okay,” I said. “Okay. Let’s go have a look.”
Sam pulled back. “What, go there? Are you crazy? You can go if you want. I’m staying here.”
Lydia said, “Forever?”
Sam looked at his drink. “Why not?”
“Sam,” I said, “we need to know why they came. What they wanted.” Though what Sam could have that anyone would want, except maybe sketches and the unfinished canvas, wasn’t clear to me. “You’re the only one who’ll know if anything’s missing.”
“What if they’re still there?”
“Lydia has a gun. If they’re dangerous, she’ll shoot them.”
Sam turned to Lydia. “You will?”
“Of course.” She gave him the kind of reassuring smile that would never have worked on her mother, but Sam’s shoulders relaxed a little. He looked at me.
“What about you?”
“I have a gun, too. But Lydia’s a better shot.”
Lydia pulled her jacket back just enough to show Sam the gun at her hip. She raised her eyebrows. He met her gaze, grinned, threw back the rest of his drink, and jumped off the bar stool.
“See ya, Vic!” He saluted the bartender and headed for the door.
I pulled out my wallet to cover Sam’s drinks, but the bartender waved me off. “He runs a tab. Good tipper, too. A crazy nut, but a good customer.”
“Glad to hear it.” I walked out into the sunlight, where Lydia and Sam waited for me. “Come on, get in. We need to move the car anyway.”
“We’ll meet you there,” said Lydia. “I’ll walk with Sam.”
Sam smiled.
I met her glance, nodded, and watched them walk away, heads together in a friendly chat. They were waiting for me when I pulled into a place a few doors up from Sam’s. When I joined them, Sam handed me his keys. “You go.” Only when Lydia started down the steps after me did he say, “Be careful.”
Gun drawn, I unlocked the door, eased it open. Unsurprisingly, it was latched, but the bolt wasn’t thrown. Sam hadn’t taken the time to do that before he’d run. Still, this lock was no high-security device. Even if it had been bolted, I might have been able to pick it; anyone better than I am would have had no problem. Lydia moved in right behind me. Sam, up on the sidewalk, watched anxiously.
Once we were inside, it took about thirty seconds to ascertain that the place was empty. All we needed, besides a glance around and a walk through the kitchen to the bathroom, was a peek in the closet, accomplished with a dish towel on the doorknob just in case. The windows, this time, were all closed and locked. There wasn’t any way to hide under the bed. The unfinished canvas was still pinned to the wall, with the sketches taped around it. Nothing, to my eye, looked disturbed.
“Okay, Sam,” I called, sliding my gun into its shoulder holster. “No one’s here. Come on down.”
Sam took the steps from the sidewalk warily. He walked through the door and flinched. He sidestepped over close to Lydia.
“Tell me,” I said. “How do you know someone was here?”
Sam pointed to the table. “The red pencil. It goes over there.”
“That’s it?”
“I never put the red one on that side. Never. And they’re not lined up right.” The pencils were, in fact, a degree or two off of parallel from each other. He spoke as though this were wild chaos. “And the coffee cups. In the dish drainer. I left them with the handles between the wires.”
“All right,” I said. “Let’s look around. Carefully. Tell us anything else you notice.”
Sam turned to Lydia. She smiled, kept her gun out, and stayed at his side. While they checked the place out, I did the same, looking for small changes, missing sketches, even missing tape. My only conclusion was that the place was even more organized and orthogonal than it had been when we’d walked in last night.
Sam prowled in small steps, peering at the bed and the kitchen counter, into the cabinets and the closet and the laundry basket. He had nothing more to say until he came to the bathroom. “They opened the medicine cabinet! See? You have to move the toothbrush to do that, and they put it back in the wrong direction.”
“That might just mean they moved the toothbrush.” Or you put it back in the wrong direction, I didn’t say aloud.
“Why would they move the toothbrush?” he asked, not b
elligerently, just with interest. I had to admit I didn’t have an answer. I couldn’t see any prints on the mirror; if someone had actually been here, they must’ve worn gloves. I used a towel to keep my own prints off the glass and pulled the cabinet door open.
“See anything missing? Out of the ordinary?” The cabinet held nothing but dental floss, Band-Aids, comb, aspirin.
“I… No, everything’s good.”
“Okay,” I said. “All right, Sam. Maybe someone was here, but they’re not here now. You might want to get bars on the windows and change the lock on the door.”
“I might want to not be here anymore! What if they come back?” He looked at Lydia. “Can you stay here with me?” Before she could answer, he shook his head. “No, that won’t work. If you’re here, I can’t paint.”
I thought. “You want to go to Peter’s?”
He spun to me. “You’re as crazy as I am! The Crazy Brothers! No, I don’t want to go to Peter’s. I can’t paint there and Leslie hates me. They’ll fight and then pretend they’re not fighting and everything’s fine. Mom and Dad used to do that. I hate that.” He scowled, then brightened. “I want to go to my studio. Yes! Good idea. Come on, let’s go there.” He frowned. “But they know the combination. Peter and Sherron. They can come in. But!” He looked at us in hope. “But if no one tells them that’s where I am, they won’t! You won’t tell, right?”
Lydia said, “No, Sam, we won’t tell.” I nodded my agreement.
“Okay,” Sam said. “That’s a good idea. Let’s go.”
Remembering how Cromley had buzzed me in, I almost pointed out that the security in that building was a little soft. But the idea of going there was cheering Sam up, and I didn’t believe he was actually in danger. If anyone had been here, and I wasn’t convinced of that, they’d waited until Sam was out. They’d come for something, not for him.
I asked, “Do you want to take anything?”
“Like what? Everything’s there. Oh, you mean like the scotch! Good idea.”
“I really meant like clean clothes.”
“What for? No one’s going to see me.” He opened a cabinet and took out the bottle he’d told me was up there. Lydia raised her eyebrows, I shrugged my shoulders, and, using Sam’s keys, locked the place up. We all got in my car for the drive to West 39th Street.
19
As we rolled over the bridge, I caught glimpses of Sam in the rearview mirror, oscillating his fascinated glance from the windshield to the windows on either side as though he’d never seen the Manhattan skyline before. If he remembered the dread that was taking us there, I didn’t see it. No one spoke, but Lydia, with a look, conveyed her question to me: Had anyone really been in Sam’s apartment? I shrugged my answer. Given Sam’s OCD, it was possible that the items he saw as having been moved actually had been. Given the lunacy of last night and this morning, it was also possible that he had been less assiduous than usual and what he was seeing—and reacting to with fear—were marks of his own loosening of control. As usual with Sam, what you saw depended on where you stood.
At the studio building, I parked in another loading zone, this time sticking the DELIVERY sign in the windshield. It’s surprising how often this gives me half an hour or so before some traffic cop begins to question why an Audi would be making a delivery. Lydia and I took the elevator up with Sam. Before he could get his studio unlocked, the half-opened door down the hall flew wide and Ellissa Cromley rushed out.
“Sam!” She threw her thin arms around him. Sam staggered, but he looked pleased. “Are you all right? Oh my God, look at your face! Why didn’t you answer my calls? Where did you go?”
Sam tilted his head.
“I called you!” she said. “Like a million times! I was so worried last night, that mob! You shouldn’t have gone out there. By the time I got out I couldn’t get to you, and people said you’d run away. Then the police came. And then some woman got killed. Everyone in the building is talking about it. But I know you didn’t do it.”
Cromley gave me a reproachful glare, including Lydia in it in case she was guilty of Criminal Disregard of Sam, too. I answered with a steady gaze, Lydia offered a warm smile, and Sam, missing all this, took out his phone and poked buttons.
“Oh,” he said. “You did call. I guess I had it off since last night.” He looked at me. “Hey, you called today, too.” I didn’t know if I was supposed to respond to that, but before I could he said, “Oh, look! Tony called, too! And Peter.” He looked at Cromley. “I think I did kill that woman.”
He turned to the door, and before Cromley could respond, he’d managed to punch the right numbers into the keypad. He ambled into his studio, leaving the door open for the rest of us to trail in his wake. Lydia and I did, but Cromley apparently wasn’t in a sociable mood.
“Don’t call them back!” she yelled from the hallway. “Tony or Peter. Do not call anyone back. You didn’t kill anyone. I need to tell you something. Come over later.” She swept me and Lydia with the glare again. “When you’re alone.” Her skirt swirled as she spun and stalked back to her own studio. Her slamming door echoed in the hallway.
“Wow,” said Lydia. “What did I ever do to her?”
“Nothing, but you’re about to and she knows it.”
Sam looked bewildered by Cromley’s exit. He shrugged and lifted his phone. He listened to his messages with a growing smile. When he lowered the phone he said, “That’s what she says on her voice mail. Ellissa. That she wants to tell me something. And you know what? Tony says that, too. And Peter, too. Everyone wants to tell me something. And you know what else? I don’t care! I want everyone to shut up. I have work to do. Good-bye.” He took a close look at Lydia and gave an apologetic nod, though I got the idea he was apologizing more to himself than to her. “Yeah, you, too. Bye-bye.”
He stood, head tilted, smiling, until we caught on. We walked to the doorway, Sam right behind us. I turned to speak but had to jump back as Sam shut the door in my face.
Lydia laughed, probably at the close call my nose had had. “I think that’s what they call a mood swing, yes?”
“He does have those,” I agreed. “But he likes you.”
“He may be crazy, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have good taste.”
“Which, according to his buddy Oakhurst, is the enemy of good art. But you know what I want to know?”
“What all those people want to tell him?”
“Exactly right.”
We looked at each other, then started down the hall to Cromley’s studio, to begin asking.
20
Our knock on Cromley’s door produced immediate results. When it opened, the sight of Lydia and me produced predictable ones.
Cromley’s triumphant look morphed immediately into a scowl. “I thought it was Sam.”
“Sorry to disappoint you,” I said. “Can we come in?”
“Why?”
“Why not?” Lydia said, walking past Cromley as though she’d been invited. Cromley’s eyes widened, but she stepped aside, and I decided to let Lydia take the lead on this one, since she obviously had a better sense than I of how to play it.
“What do you want?” Cromley asked, recovering. She shut the door.
“Actually, I want to see your work,” Lydia said.
A beat. “You do?”
Lydia nodded as she threaded the path to the easels by the window. “Bill told me about it. I don’t know much about art, but I’m interested in any work by women and people of color that interrogates the straitjacketing patriarchic norms.”
I was impressed as all hell. Cromley gave me squinty eyes, probably dying to know exactly what I’d said about her work but not wanting to ask for fear of looking like she was dying to know. Lydia, hand behind her back, gave me a quick “stay away” gesture. I worked at keeping my expression neutral.
Cromley turned to the easels by the windows as Lydia picked her way from one to another, returning to each and finally stopping at one and saying, “Tell
me about this. What is it you want me to see?”
While Cromley hurried to where Lydia stood, I took my phone from my pocket, checked it, and turned my back as though listening to my messages. I gave it a few minutes, during which I couldn’t make out Cromley’s or Lydia’s words, but I could hear Cromley’s tone changing slowly from defensive anger to near eagerness. I pocketed the phone and turned back toward them in time to hear Lydia say, “I understand completely what you’re getting at. I also see why you had to open your own gallery. It would be hard to get any established dealer to take a chance on work like this.”
Well, I thought, that’s true.
“Bill,” Lydia said, “why don’t you go take care of that other business? I want to talk to Ms. Cromley for a while.”
“Ellissa,” Cromley said generously. Her generosity did not extend to me, though; she waited pointedly beside Lydia, saying nothing else.
Contrary to popular opinion, I can take a hint. “Good idea,” I said. “I’ll text you.” I left, closing Cromley’s door behind me.
I stood in the paint-spattered corridor, thinking. Since Lydia had been referring to no particular business, I was free to take care of any business I wanted. I was pretty sure she’d annihilate me if I went to talk to Tony Oakhurst without her, but everyone else was fair game. I’d just taken out my phone again to call Grimaldi and see if she had the details on the Jersey victim yet when Sam burst out of his studio.
“They were here!” he shouted, waving his arms. “They were here, too!” He showed no surprise at finding me hanging around the hallway. I got the feeling, not for the first time, that in Sam’s world, offstage characters had no separate lives but waited in the wings for a cue to return to his drama. He grabbed my sleeve and started hauling me into his studio.
“Look!” he said, yanking me over to the table that held the sketches he’d been so on edge watching Konecki and Sanger go through. They’d been neatened to Sam-approved standards, but a drawer in the table gaped open. Boxes of pencils lined it, with erasers stacked at the back behind them.
“Tell me what I’m seeing,” I said.
