gouged the reciprocating blade into the door crack, and guided it downward, cutting two brass dead-bolt locks in about ten seconds. A hell of a skreeling racket, too, metal on metal, bright brass sawdust spewing onto the carpet. Wake the dead, for God's sake. He waited for a door to open along the hallway, a head to pop out, but nothing happened. People were at work, maybe that was it.
He turned the handle and pushed open the door. The apartment was dark, and he shut the door behind him before turning on the light.
'Let's remember a few things,' his father had briefed him earlier. 'People live different ways. Young people are often quite messy but have places where there is order. Their music collections, their spices, that kind of thing. A bed with the sheets on the floor means nothing. Women are not necessarily neater than men, although what will be neat and messy will usually be different. People say gay men are the neatest but not in my experience. Blind people living alone are. They have to be. Anyway, you are looking for three things, the way I see it. You are figuring out if she left in a hurry, you are seeing if the place has been tossed by someone else, and you are looking for information about what kind of trouble she's in. The faster she left, the more information is available.'
He first checked the refrigerator, which was running. He opened the door. No mold on anything. Some Chinese vegetables in there. He sniffed the quart of skim milk-not sour. But that didn't tell him much. He needed a date stamp. She'd been gone at least five days. In the trash was a bill from the local supermarket, which included a quart of milk. The bill was marked the day before the murder of the Mexican girls.
He inspected the bedroom. The bed was unmade. What was missing? He saw no computer, no wallet, no cash. He checked the bathroom; her toothbrush and toothpaste were gone. He opened the cabinet; her birth control pills were there; this, as much as anything, suggested a hasty exit. She'd said she never missed a pill, ever. In the closet he saw her dresses hanging neatly, many with the dry cleaner's cellophane still on them. He recognized some of them, had run his hand over and inside them, too.
Had the place been tossed by someone else? Hard to say. The apartment was neither messy nor particularly orderly, just as he remembered. He checked the kitchen drawers, the living room table drawer, the dresser. He stared at the phone and then hit Play Messages. Nothing. That was in her nature. He tried scrolling through the numbers for incoming and outgoing calls; all had been erased. Come on, come on, Ray muttered. I'm not getting what I want. He went back to her dresser and opened up the underwear drawer. In a small silk box he found some jade earrings and a matching jade bracelet. He'd priced jade in Malaysia, and even to his unpracticed eye, this jewelry looked expensive.
Not getting much, he thought. He paced around the apartment a second time, peeking into the hall closet and under the bed, but found nothing. He crept out the door and pulled it shut, feeling defeated.
'I hope you have a good fucking reason for being in there,' a voice said.
Ray turned around. A man of about fifty with a red cane stood watching him. He was holding his portable phone.
'Hi,' said Ray.
'You hear me?' He pointed the cane at Ray.
'I did.'
'So what's going on? I hit the number one here, this dials 911, and the cops will come.'
Ray put down his bag of tools. 'I just broke into her apartment,' he admitted.
'I got that. What did you steal?'
'Nothing.'
'Right.'
Ray pulled out his pockets, one by one. He opened his tool bag and showed it to the man, who poked his cane inside.
'I'm her old boyfriend. She's in trouble. I'm trying to find her.'
The man smiled. 'Very romantic.'
'It's true. I'm surprised I didn't run into you before.'
'You've been here?'
'Lots. Nights.'
The man nodded in disgust. 'I work nights. I'm the light man on the Empire State Building.'
Appeal to the man's pride, Ray thought. 'All the colored lights, the reds and greens?'
'You got it. What's your name?'
'Ray Grant.'
The man nodded suspiciously, as if this was an obvious lie. 'You look like a fake fireman or something.'
'I was a real fireman.'
'Was? Can you prove it?'
'I got my old ID right here.'
'Oh, fuck you,' the man snarled. 'That's bullshit. Probably can buy them on the Internet, eBay or something.' He held up his phone menacingly. 'Okay, asshole, unless you convince me otherwise, I'm calling the-'
'The Empire State Building is sheathed in eight inches of Indiana limestone,' Ray announced. 'It is unlikely to ever collapse in a fire because of the high ratio of its poured concrete to its structural steel, and because every floor has its own ventilation system, meaning fire cannot easily travel from floor to floor… and the building's steel columns and girders are enclosed in two inches of brick terra-cotta and concrete, not spray-on mineral fiber as is common and increasingly controversial today. Also, as I remember, the elevators and utility shafts are masonry- enclosed. The building has a smokeproof stairway with independent vent shafts, a safety feature eliminated in the 1968 revisions of the city's building code, due to weight issues and cost considerations. Old-timers in the Fire Department say that if the 9/11 airliners had hit it instead, it never would have collapsed.'
The man nodded, even allowed a smile. 'That's correct.' He put the phone in his pocket and leaned on his red cane. 'Okay, Ray whoever you are. You got me.'
'You have any idea where Jin Li might be?'
'Nope.'
'She moved out. Really fast.'
'Scared?'
'I think so.'
'Why don't you call her?'
'I did. No answer.'
'No answer at work?'
Ray shook his head. The first place Chen had checked.
'That girl works hard. Long, long hours.'
'You know about the office-cleaning company?'
The man hesitated, unsure whether to answer. 'Well, she tells me sometimes, like how she works in midtown in the evenings at various locations but has to get out to Red Hook every day in the morning, to manage everything.'
'Red Hook?' An industrial area in Brooklyn, on the water.
'Sure, where the company keeps its trucks. Tough to park a lot of big mobile shredding trucks in Manhattan. You need parking space, Red Hook is pretty good.'
Ray had never considered this; it made sense. He picked up his bag. 'You got that address?'
'Nope. But Christ, drive around. Can't miss those trucks.'
19
Yes, there are a million great places to eat in New York City, the steakhouses, the celebrity chef halls of worship, the places to see and be seen (at Michael's: 'There's Henry Kissinger! There's Penelope Cruz!'), the stuffy theater district joints with timed seatings, Italian-Chinese-French-Vietnamese-Indian-nouvelle-fusion-whatever trend is next, the taverns and bars and clubs and eateries and saloons and bistros and cafes and sushi places frequented by skinny women and coffee shops and bookstore cafes filled with geniuses and depressives and bodegas and snack bars and pizza joints and espresso bars and fast-food places and emporiums of fish and
