she came close to winning a jail sentence for contempt of court, for not giving up her contact at the HHSA. She knew never to turn on a source—especially one like Gottfried Sliplitz. As a result of that code, she had come perilously close to jail for contempt on several other occasions as well. Now she needed the man’s help again. And with his adoration for her still in bloom, he was more than willing to oblige.
“You look vonderful,
“Thanks for the offer, Gottfried, but I don’t have time. Were you able to get me what I need?”
“I am chief analyst for ze New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene,” Gottfried said. “Big step up from Rockville. Good money, too.”
“Strange name, though.”
“It could have been vurse. Ve are also responsible for dog licenses, developmental disabilities, und STD prevention, to name just a few.”
He extracted a manila envelope from a drawer and handed it to her. “With these papers, you are officially an investigator in our department.”
Angie kissed Sliplitz on the cheek and hugged him.
“You’re the best, Gottfried. I promise, soon as I can I’ll make it up to you.”
“On a date?”
She smiled at him.
“I’ve just started seeing a terrific man. Besides, I need to keep our relationship professional. Think of what could happen if we turned sour? I would lose a dear friend and an invaluable resource.”
“I’ll take ze risk.”
“But I won’t. Look, I have lots of friends I can hook you up with,” she promised. “Just not right now.”
“You break my heart.”
She kissed him again on the cheek.
“Luckily, you heal quickly. Between us, right? Nobody knows about this?”
“Between us,” Sliplitz confirmed.
Angie gave the man a final embrace before she departed. As she headed down the staircase she passed a man on his way up. He was wearing dark sunglasses, and grunted a greeting as he brushed past her.
Once on the street, Angie flagged another cab. As they pulled away, headed downtown, the driver of the Town Car parked behind them set his cell phone aside and followed.
CHAPTER 34
Angie stepped from her cab into a world as far from the rolling plains and bison ranches of western Kansas as imaginable.
Chinatown.
The lower Manhattan neighborhood featured pungent odors, tightly packed shops and apartments, cracked sidewalks, brick buildings with red-painted fire escapes, double-parked trucks casually blocking traffic, and nerve- shaking noise from blaring horns and a dozen active construction sites. Storefront signage was in Chinese with a smattering of English subtitles. Many of the goods displayed in windows underneath neon signs were unlikely to be found in any other part of the city. Fruit stands, fish markets, and shops selling knickknacks to tourists lined the narrow, winding, overcrowded streets.
Angie stood in the entrance of a redbrick building she guessed might have once been a tenement. There was no sign identifying the nursing home, although she confirmed the address was the one on the brochure she had found in Sylvia’s office. She pressed the only button on the building’s facade and a high-pitched voice on the intercom said something in Chinese.
“Department of Health and Mental Hygiene,” Angie said, holding up her fake ID badge to the security camera installed overhead. The photograph laminated into the card was one Gottfried Sliplitz had taken from her Facebook page.
There was a lengthy pause before the door buzzed. She entered into a cramped, poorly lit hallway, dominated by an ornate, rickety wooden staircase that ascended steeply in front of her. The unmistakable odor of cooked fish and salt drifted down from the floors above.
Stepping into character, Angie hid her suitcase behind the stairwell. She looked around for an elevator, but saw none. Curious. Surely a nursing home had to have one.
Eschewing the stairs, she headed down the hallway, which turned once to the right and ended at a heavy metal door that was locked. It was possible there was an elevator somewhere behind it, but that made little sense. Perhaps the nursing home had been merged with the building next door and that was where the elevator was.
Finally, she returned to the front hallway and trudged up the steep stairs, still wondering how a nursing home could exist without some sort of transport for disabled and wheelchair-bound residents. As she ascended, the sound of voices grew louder. She stopped on the fourth floor, where the chatter was the loudest, the odor the strongest. A small sign nailed to a shuttered door read RIVERSIDE beneath its corresponding Chinese characters.
Angie paused to catch her breath, then knocked. A haggard, middle-aged Chinese woman responded. She had short dark hair streaked with gray, and wore a black blouse with a swirling, orange floral design. Angie held up her Health and Mental Hygiene identification card, and was suspiciously invited one step inside. She felt slightly foolish at having come so far on such little evidence. If she were wrong about the Riverside, she would be flying back to Garden City by morning.
“Does a Mrs. Chen reside here?” she asked.
The woman shook her head, shouted something into the space behind her, looked quizzically back at Angie, and shook her head again. Angie wished that she had the picture of Sylvia and her mother to show, but Griff had warned her that the chemical and ultraviolet decontamination process required to remove it from the Kitchen would have ruined the image altogether.
“May I come in?” she asked.
The woman nodded, spoke again in Chinese, and then motioned for Angie to enter. They stepped into a narrow, oak-floored hallway that featured rows of doors with numbers, but no glass, presumably residents’ rooms, extending in both directions. It was more dormlike than any nursing home Angie had ever visited, but the corridor was also remarkably clean and fairly free of clutter. Several walkers and wheelchairs were pushed up against the wall, plus an empty hospital bed provided the only visible clue as to the building’s function.
Angie followed the woman until they came to an open, brightly lit common area. There were two dozen or so elderly Chinese women and men seated on couches and easy chairs, or clustered around foldout bridge tables. Many of them were talking, seemingly at the same time. Some of the residents were playing games—backgammon, cards, and Mahjong. Others were watching television. A few were simply staring off, perhaps at their memories.
Angie scanned the room for Sylvia Chen’s mother. Lack of any possible candidates continued to erode her confidence in her conclusions about the place. Had she put Gottfried at risk for nothing? Melvin too? Suddenly the nonlinear thinking of her ADD, which had so often helped her break a story, seemed childish, misguided, and even worse, potentially dangerous.
A stunning young Chinese woman approached from across the lounge, requested her credentials, and examined them with care.
“Hello, Ms. Donna Prince,” she said finally, in perfect English. “My name is Wu Mei. Please call me Mei. I am the floor manager and duty nurse in charge. My aunt told me you are looking for someone.”
“Yes. I’m looking for a woman. Her family name might be Chen. I have reason to believe she’s a resident here.”
“We have several Chens living here,” Mei said with a brief laugh. “It is a very common Chinese name. Perhaps if you could be more specific.”
