Night Film(15)

She stared back at me, then plucked the phone off the wall behind her, dialing a three-digit number.

“It’s Nora. Could you come down? There’s a man here, and he’s …” She blatantly stared at me. “Mid-fifties.”

It wasn’t the reaction I’d hoped for. I exited the lobby swiftly. Outside under the awning I looked back. Little Miss Streep had put her glasses back on and was leaning over the door of the stall, observing me.

A man in a blue suit hastily appeared from upstairs—Carl to the rescue, I assumed—so I turned and headed back to Park Avenue.

That hadn’t gone well. I was rusty.

I checked my watch. It was after eight o’clock, cold, the night sky streaked with clouds that whitened and dissolved like breaths against glass.

I might be a little off my game, but I wasn’t going home.

Not yet.





9


Fifteen minutes later, I was in a taxi, cruising through Chinatown, past the shabby walk-ups and restaurants, dirty signs advertising BACK FOOT RUB and THE PEOPLE’S PHARMACY, awnings jumbled with English and Chinese. Men in dark jackets hurried past storefronts lit up in lethal colors—cough-syrup crimson, absinthe green, jaundiced yellow, all of it bleeding together in the crooked streets. The neighborhood felt thriving yet empty, as if the area had just been quarantined.

We passed a brick church—TRANSFIGURATION CHURCH, read the sign.

“Right here,” I told the driver.

I paid him and climbed out, gazing up at the building. It was a seven-story derelict mess with peeling white paint, construction scaffolding, every window boarded up. It was the warehouse where Ashley Cordova had been found dead. Flowers and handmade cards were piled around the front entrance.

There were bouquets of roses and carnations, lilies and candles, pictures of the Virgin Mary. Rest in peace, Ashley. God bless you. YOUR MUSIC WILL LIVE ON FOREVER. Now you’re in a better place. It was always surprising to me how ferociously the public mourned a beautiful stranger—especially one from a famous family. Into that empty form they could unload the grief and regret of their own lives, be rid of it, feel lucky and light for a few days, comforted by the thought, At least that wasn’t me.

I gently moved aside some of the flowers to reach the steel door. It was secured with two padlocks, CAUTION and DANGER signs. The POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS tape remained intact.

Behind me, a maroon sedan with a loud muffler cruised past, the dark silhouette of the driver hunched low. I stepped back, staying hidden in the shadows of the scaffolding as it coasted to the end of Mott, made a left, and the street went silent again.

Yet I had the unmistakable feeling that someone else was present—or had just been here.

I zipped up my jacket, and after surveying the sidewalk—deserted, except for an Asian kid darting into a store called Chinatown Fair—I turned and walked to the end of Mott where it intersected Worth. I rounded the sharp right, passing a red awning reading COSMETIC DENTISTRY, a dented chain-link fence spanning an empty dark lot. When I reached the next building, a mangy walk-up, and the one after that, 197 Worth, I knew I’d gone too far.

I backtracked, noticing that by the dentist’s office there was a hole cut in the wire fence. I made my way over, crouching down. A tiny black rag had been tied there—clearly to mark some kind of entrance. I could make out a narrow dirt path that twisted deep into the lot, leading toward an abandoned building.

That had to be it. The Hanging Gardens, Falcone had called it—a known squatters’ residence and crack den, according to the incident summary in Ashley’s file. Police had concluded Ashley entered 9 Mott from here, a building at 203 Worth, then climbed up a flight of stairs all the way to the roof, entering the adjacent Mott Street building from a skylight. Though the police’s canvass of the area turned up no witnesses and none of her personal belongings, this meant nothing. Detectives were notoriously lazy when they concluded early in a case that the death had been a suicide—often overlooking crucial details that told an entirely different story.

That was the reason why I was here.

I ducked through the opening, the rancid smell of garbage overpowering, unseen animals scurrying away as I made my way along the path. It was probably just New York’s mascot: the cat-sized rat. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I could see the crumbling brick exterior of the building, a door to my left. I stepped toward it, tripping on an old bicycle, some plastic bottles, and pulled it open.

It was a large warehouse, dim light trickling in from somewhere illuminating walls covered with indecipherable graffiti. The place was putrid and filled with junk, newspapers and cans, Sheetrock and insulation, sweatshirts and boxes, pots and pans. Squatters had clearly been living here—though they appeared to have vacated, probably from the recent police presence. I stepped inside, letting the heavy door screech closed behind me.

Now that Beckman’s deadly vodka had worn off, I realized how unwise this was, coming here without so much as the switchblade I used on my Central Park jogs. I hadn’t even thought to bring a flashlight. I took a deep breath—ignoring the voice in my head reminding me, Didn’t we just establish you were off your game?—and headed to the back in search of some stairs.

They were corroded. I grabbed the railing to see if I could pry the structure off the wall, but the bolts were surprisingly sturdy.

I started up, the metallic echoes of my footsteps jarring. I paused every now and then to look around, make sure I was alone, taking a few snapshots with my BlackBerry. With my every step, the old building seemed to growl and cough, protesting my scaling its rusted spine. This was where Ashley had climbed. If her intention had been to commit suicide—a conclusion I didn’t accept as gospel, no matter what Falcone said—why had she come here, to this derelict place?