Three-Day Town

“It’s not a secret. Everybody knows that those two are like a cat and a dog with their tails tied together. Phil, he wants us to do everything by the rule book. Me? I don’t care. Sidney don’t care. You know the rules, you follow them, everybody’s happy, true? But Antoine, he doesn’t want to follow the rules if the owners don’t. Or the owners’ kids.”

“Boys like Corey Wall?”

Vlad clapped his big callused hands together in delight. “You got it! Corey Wall. He’s a little bastard right now, but his people are good people and he’ll be good people, too, when he finishes growing up. But Antoine gets mad every time Corey or his friend talk back to him or steal the elevator. Last time it happens, Antoine wants to ring the bell on 12-B and hit Corey with a glove.”

Bemused, Sigrid said, “With a glove?”

“Like those old movies where one guy hits another guy in the face with a glove.” He pantomimed the act with a backward flip of his hand. “Then next thing you see, it’s swords or pistols and somebody dies.”

“He wanted to challenge Corey to a duel?”

“No, no. Not really. I mean that’s how Antoine feels. Like Corey’s insulting him, and he wants to insult back. But Phil says he can’t and keep his job, so today it’s like take this job and shove it. He just quit. But Mrs. Wall swears it couldn’t be Corey who took the elevator. Not today. She says the only time he left the place today was to go sledding in the park. Besides, we don’t even know what floor the elevator was on. When I got here this morning, it’s right there in the lobby.”

Vlad Ruzicka could tell them nothing new about the Rices, although he would have happily walked them through the board meeting where it was decided to begin the eviction process. “Well, no, I wasn’t there, but Phil tells us about it. The Rices say they’re going to sue him and the board and the whole co-op.”

They thanked him for his help, but he was reluctant to take the hint that they were finished with him for the time being.

“I just hope you find whoever it is that sneaked in and did that to Phil.”

Hentz frowned. “Sneaked in?”

“Yeah. See, everybody thinks this place is like a bank vault. No way, Jose. I’m here six years but the locks on the service doors have never been changed. And people aren’t always careful with their keys, are they?”

CHAPTER

15

Inevitably comes the snow; and that in a city is always regarded as something of a misfortune. Up in Central Park and along Riverside Drive it looks very beautiful.

—

The New New York

, 1909

The street in front of the apartment building had not been plowed when Dwight and I got outside, although it was clear that some trucks or other vehicles had driven through, because the snow had been flattened down to ice in the middle. The sidewalk out front was fairly clear but elsewhere there was barely enough room for two people to pass. We walked single file around the corner to Broadway, where the boot vendor had spread his wares on a plastic shower curtain atop a pile of snow. His boots had flat heels and were made of clear plastic with elastic loops and some buttons near the top so that they could be put on over shoes and slacks and then tightened around the calf. They reminded me of my Aunt Zell’s gardening boots except that hers were made of heavy vulcanized rubber. I rather doubted these flimsy things would get through more than one or two wearings, but at least they would keep the snow and ice out for now.

We walked down Broadway to 72nd, then two blocks over to enter the park near Strawberry Fields and the memorial to John Lennon. With the temperature hovering right around freezing, there were lots of puddles and slushy patches, but Dwight swung me over the rougher spots.

The park was magical. All the lampposts and every twig of every branch was rimmed in soft white. The benches carried thick cushions of snow, but someone had cleared the “Imagine” mosaic and a bouquet of fresh flowers made a bright spot of color against the black-and-white tiles.

A mother and child passed us on skis, and we followed a family carrying inflated pool tubes to a slope where dozens of children were sliding in high glee. I never saw so many different contrivances: tubes, sleds, and molded plastic sliders of every description. Maybe two years out of seven, Colleton County will get enough snow to go sledding. When that happens, we rummage through the sheds and barns for old patched inner tubes and flat- bottom trays or makeshift sheets of heavy plastic.

As we stood at the top of the rise to watch the activity, a nearby couple picked up on our accents and said, “Guess you guys don’t get much of this, do you?”

“We were just saying we never knew anyone with a real sled,” I told her as two red-cheeked preadolescents trudged up the hill with their tubes and announced that they were ready for some of the hot chocolate from the Thermos their mother was holding.

The dad conferred with his sons, then said, “Want to take a turn?”

We didn’t have to be asked twice. Seconds later we were spinning downhill laughing like kids when our tubes collided.

“You could go again if you like,” said the boys, who were now dunking cookies into their steaming cups of hot chocolate.

After two more runs, we were pretty winded and they were ready to reclaim their tubes. We thanked them profusely and moved on.

Crossing a humpbacked little stone bridge, we paused to look down at the water. Although there was ice on each side of the stream, enough of a channel remained that a mother wood duck and some half-grown ducklings were able to swim past. The mother duck wheeled and paddled back to look up at us with a hopeful gleam in her black eyes. She quacked and I patted my pockets. Empty. But Dwight found a little packet of crackers from God knows when. The cellophane was wrinkled and the crackers were already reduced to crumbs. He emptied them into