He remembered the twenty-year-old intern who had shown him how to do it: “See? He looks like the little guy on a bathroom door.” Like she was teaching a computer class at the senior citizens’ center.
He dragged the cartoon man up Washington Street. It seemed that every other click, he did something wrong, shifting out of street-level view, or zooming in to a close-up of broken concrete. He started to get a hang of the movement, taking a virtual stroll past Perry, past West Eleventh, past Bank, until he found the BMW’s parking spot. He rotated the view to home in on the side of the street where Larson had disappeared. He saw two empty storefronts and a laundromat called Happy Suds.
Problem was, the images on Google Maps could be several years old. He was pretty sure the shoe store he’d seen on that street yesterday morning occupied the same space as Happy Suds in this picture. He called information for the number at Happy Suds, but there was no such listing. No surprise. Retail turnover in that neighborhood was faster than the $20 tricks that used to be turned under the Highline before the gentrification. Yet another business owned by one hardworking person to service the needs of other hardworking people, probably closed to make room for a shop hawking thousand-dollar handbags.
He needed another strategy.
He “walked” his little orange bathroom guy down Washington, jotting down the street addresses that appeared at the top of the screen as he passed each of the three storefronts that lined the portion of the street where he’d last spotted Larson. Then he Googled each address to determine the current occupant of the space, wondering whether Larson might have reason to go there early in the morning. The Happy Suds address came back to the designer shoe boutique. He tried not to think about the half a paycheck he’d blown on a pair of those shoes for Jen’s birthday. Three weeks later, she had moved out. He skipped the second address, which he recalled as being papered over, and moved on to the third address. It currently belonged to Pete’s Flowers.
He knew no more than he had yesterday.
He went ahead and entered the address of the abandoned storefront in the middle. It pulled up mentions of two different businesses: a frame shop and a gallery.
He searched for the name of the frame shop and learned that it had moved three months earlier to Chelsea.
And then he typed the gallery name: Highline Gallery.
Interesting. Larson was a man who lied for money. Art held far more promise in that arena than either flowers or high heels.
Even as he hit the enter key, he recalled a headline he’d seen tucked into the back pages of today’s paper. By the time the search results appeared on his screen, he remembered the story of a body found at a gallery that had just opened two days earlier.
He double-clicked on the first news story. Highline Gallery. Plagued by trouble since its initially successful opening. Protesters alleging child pornography. Body of an unidentified male adult found yesterday morning. The contents of the gallery missing. Windows papered over. Gallery manager no stranger to either the limelight or controversy. Former child actress. Daughter of womanizing director Frank Humphrey.
He pulled up a photograph of Alice Humphrey. Red hair. Good-looking. He could picture her with big sunglasses and hot shoes, just like the woman he’d seen enter Larson’s apartment. How had the QuickCar employee described the woman who cruised away in the BMW? “A pretty white girl with long red hair.”
Shit. Hank’s little hobby wasn’t going to remain secret much longer.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
T he city of New York claims more than eight million residents. It is the financial and media capital of the world. Photographs of its iconic skyline are recognizable by children raised in villages on the other side of the globe. And most of the majesty-the power, the deals, the fame-unfolds on the tiny little island of Manhattan. About thirteen miles or so long, north to south. Only 2.3 miles wide at the fattest part of the island.
One might think that a person who had spent nearly her entire life on that tiny little island would have long ago memorized its every last square inch. Certainly Alice had noticed in Missouri that her ex-husband’s hospital colleagues-the ones who’d been born and bred in St. Louis-could rattle off directions to any spot in the region, even the outskirts. But New York was different. In New York, where people walked to their local grocer and newspaper stand, neighborhoods still meant something. To a resident of Chinatown, the Upper East Side might as well be Rhode Island.
Alice had lived in the East Village since graduate school. Her apartment was less than two miles from Centre Street, but she could count the number of times she’d been down here in those eight-plus years on three fingers: once for jury duty, once to accompany her father to a radio interview on the
Now, though, she knew she needed legal advice.
“Here we are. Eighty-six Chambers. See how easy it is for the nice taxicab driver when you know the address?”
Alice was tempted to stiff the driver for the snarky remark, but kept her promise, tacking a 25 percent tip onto her credit card tab before dashing through the bitter cold wind to the lobby of Jeff’s building. She hollered at the sight of the closing elevator doors. “Can you hold that?”
Apparently not. She managed to nudge one knee in front of the sensors, absorbing a hard blow before the doors bounced back open. The messenger inside, clad in cycling gear and tattoos, didn’t even bother to look sheepish. As they ticked past the fourth floor, he threw her a glare and she realized she was clicking her nails loudly against the wall behind her.
Too fucking bad, dude.
“Wait. Drew told the property management company that
Every square inch of Jeff’s desk had been blanketed by papers and open books when she’d arrived unannounced at his office, but Jeff somehow managed to appear as if he had time only for her.
“Yes. And the police must be buying it. They came to my apartment today and were asking me all these questions. Had I ever used an alias. Whether I ever knew Drew by another name. The cop told me yesterday that they didn’t find Drew’s wallet or anything else with his body. They must not have been able to confirm his identity, so now I’m wondering whether anything the man ever said to me was true. Basically, I have no fucking clue who he actually was, but now the police seem to think that I was the one who started the gallery, and I did it using a fake name.”
“How could they possibly believe that? It’s crazy.”
“Any crazier than a complete stranger offering me a dream job with a rich, anonymous boss?”
“Sounds like it was a con. Maybe he was planning to ask you for money to keep the place afloat but got himself killed before the ask.”
“The ask, huh?”
“The grift. The pigeon drop. The swindle. The scam. I’ve got the lingo, babe.”
“Campbell played me like a fiddle. Coming across as an art expert. Being all self-deprecating about his work, saying his client was one of his dad’s old friends. He even threw in a martini-drinking mother for good measure, the ultimate bonding experience.”
“Let me call these detectives and try to get a read on the situation. Maybe we can get them to see this in another light.”
“I don’t think it’s going to be that easy.” She pulled the print out of the digital photo from her purse and unfolded it on his desk.
“Is that-”
“No. It’s not me. He must have found a shot of someone who looked like me and then Photoshopped it onto a picture of him kissing someone else.”
Jeff squinted as if sheer will might bring focus to the grainy picture. “I don’t know, Al. That’s some damn good Photoshopping.”
“He was also pretty good with fake IDs. He gave the property management company a supposed copy of my
