I nodded. “A week or two, I figure. No more.”
14
The ice gave way to lashing sleet by afternoon, and the sidewalks were glazed and perilous in Brooklyn. Meltwater dripped from my parka and puddled at my feet as I stood in the vestibule of Holly Cade’s apartment building, which still smelled powerfully, though of bleach now rather than decay. The intercom speaker was still banged up, and if I wasn’t mistaken, a few more names were missing from the buttons.
I pressed the button for 3-G, Holly’s apartment, and got no response. No surprise. I tried her irate, curious neighbor, Mr. Arrua, in 3-F. Silence there too. I pushed another six buttons at random, but the three voices that replied- one in English and two in Spanishwanted to know who the hell I was before they’d buzz me in. The inner door was firmly locked, and though I had vinyl gloves, a screwdriver, and a small pry bar in my pocket, I wasn’t sure I wanted to use them just yet. I went outside.
There was a short flight of metal stairs under the stoop, and a metal door at the bottom. It was heavy and imposing and accessorized with a fat deadbolt that would surely have secured the basement against all comers, were it not for the folded paper coffee cup that someone had used as a doorstop. I went in, and past the darkened laundry room to the elevator.
The door to 3-G was still locked, and no more scuffed than it had been last time; I was relieved to see no crime scene tape on it. I knocked, expecting nothing, and wasn’t disappointed. Then I turned to 3-F. I rapped twice and heard shuffling and a scrape of metal by the peephole.
“Yeah?” said the reedy voice from behind the door.
“Mr. Arrua? I was here last week, looking for your neighbor, and I-'
“I remember you. You gave me your card and I told you to leave me alone.”
“That was me,” I said. “I was wondering if we could talk.”
“I had nothing to say then and I got nothing to say now.”
“Have you seen Holly lately?”
“You remember that number: nine-one-one?”
“I don’t need a lot of your time, Mr. Arrua, and I can pay for what I use.”
“I guess you’re still hard of hearing,” he said, but he didn’t threaten to call the cops. “You’re what, a private detective or something?”
“Yes.”
Arrua chuckled behind his door. “So, what’s my time worth?”
“You tell me.”
It was quiet for a while and I thought I’d lost him, but I hadn’t. “What’s the weather like outside?” he asked.
“Crappy,” I said. “There’s sleet coming down and the sidewalk’s like an ice rink.”
“Wait,” Arrua said. He shuffled away from the door and shuffled back in under a minute, and a slip of notebook paper appeared by my foot.
“The market’s around the corner,” he said.
It came to two bags of groceries: coffee, condensed milk, eggs, a sack of rice, a jar of dulce de leche, two papayas, a loaf of bread, and paper napkins. Arrua opened the door to 3-F and took the bags from me, and I followed him down a short hallway to his living room.
He was a small man, worn but well-kempt in khakis, a gray cardigan, and a white shirt. His apartment was much the same. The living room was a narrow rectangle with white walls, beige trim, and a hardwood floor that had seen rough use, but also a recent waxing. There were two windows that looked onto a fire escape, and that were fortified by metal accordion gates. In front of them was a sofa covered in gray fabric, with arms that had frayed and been carefully mended. There was a bookshelf in the corner, stocked with Spanish titles, and some pictures hanging above it. A photo clipped from a newspaper and yellowing under glass: Argentine soccer players in white and sky blue, and Maradona’s infamous “hand of God” goal against England. Next to it, a plaque commemorating twenty-five years of service to the Metropolitan Transit Authority- hail and farewell, Car Maintenance Engineer Jorge Arrua. Next to that, another photo, black and white, of a pale, pretty, sick-looking woman in a high-necked dress. Wife, mother, sister, daughter- whoever she was, I got the impression that she hadn’t survived her illness, and that it had all happened long ago.
Arrua pointed at the sofa and went into an alcove kitchen. I sat and watched him put his groceries in the half-sized refrigerator, and fix a pot of coffee on the half-sized stove. While the smell of brewing coffee filled the room, he toasted thick slices of bread and opened the jar of dulce de leche. A tabby cat appeared from somewhere and threaded itself between his legs and looked at me sideways.
Arrua was seventysomething and thin, with a soldier’s posture but a faltering stride. His hair was metal gray, cut short and slicked against his head, and his sallow skin was like parchment. He was clean-shaven and there were deep grooves around his mouth and pale eyes that gave him a stubborn, argumentative look even as he poured coffee and set the mugs on a tray. He carried the tray to an oak coffee table and sat opposite me, in an armchair. He added condensed milk to his coffee and sipped at it and sighed.
“Breakfast’s all I like now,” he said, “so I eat it every meal.” He spread some dulce de leche on toast. “Help yourself.”
I poured condensed milk in my coffee and drank. It was thick and sweet and powerful. I sighed too.
“When’s the last time you saw Holly, Mr. Arrua?” I said.
“I guess you can call me George. I saw her in the hall, a couple weeks ago maybe. I don’t keep track.”
“Do you usually see her more often?”
He shrugged. “I see her three, four times in a month. I go to bed early and get up early, and she’s on a different schedule, I guess. It used to be I knew this whole building- all my neighbors- but not now.” He shrugged again.
“So you don’t really know Holly?”
“I know her to say hello.”
“Is she a good neighbor?”
Arrua looked at me and drank some coffee. “Sure.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Last time I was here, you were complaining about the noise.”
“You made a racket outside my door.”
“You made it sound like it wasn’t the first time.”
He tilted his head. “I got no problem with her,” he said. “She keeps to herself and mostly keeps quiet. It’s the people she has over who make trouble. Shouting, banging, slamming doors- it sounds like they’re coming through the walls sometimes.”
“Are they fighting or partying?”
“It’s no party,” he said. The tabby rubbed its head against his trouser cuff and purred loudly.
“Is it yelling-fighting or hitting-fighting?”
“It’s yelling and throwing things. As far as anything else, I don’t know.”
“Have there been a lot of fights?”
Arrua thought about it. “Maybe ten altogether.”
“Recently?”
He shrugged. “Last time was a couple weeks back, I think. Before that, not for a long time- not since summer or beginning of fall.”
“Who is she fighting with?”
He took a bite of toast and shook his head. “I’m too old to be in the middle of anything.”
“I’m not putting you in the middle, George- I wouldn’t do that to somebody who makes coffee this good.” A smile flickered above his skeptical look. “This goes nowhere besides me.”
Arrua nodded slowly, as if against his better judgment. “Her boyfriend mainly- her old boyfriend, I guess.
