Final Appeal

“The radio said they were locking down the prison tonight,” Ricki says. “What’s that mean?”

“It means all the prisoners have to stay in their cells.”

“Isn’t that what prison is?”

“They do it before executions, so the population doesn’t riot.”

Ricki leaps to her feet. “He scored! Way to go, honey! Way to go!” Applauding wildly, she looks down at me. “Clap, you! He scored!”

So I clap for Jared, who truly is a fine young man, all wiry legs in his baggy soccer trunks. He throws his arms into the air and beams at his mother and me, his mouth a tangle of expensive orthodonture. But somehow when I look at his face, flushed with adrenaline and promise, I think about Hightower, who had no suburban soccer field, no fancy jersey or hundred-dollar cleats. One will go to Harvard; the other will be put to death.

No justice, no peace.

Empty rhetoric, until I think of Armen and his killer.

That very night I’m on the warpath, rattling toward West Philadelphia in the dark. I’m heading for Armen’s secret apartment. Someone killed him; maybe the answer is there. And I’m the only one who knows about it, so it’s relatively safe. I decide to go, especially since Maddie is with Sam. I make the most of baby-sitter time; if you have children, you’ll understand. I’ve known couples to drive around the block just to enjoy that last fifteen minutes.

I’ve disguised myself as the high-priced lawyer I used to be, just in case anybody’s watching me: a monogrammed briefcase, overpriced raincoat, and pretentious felt hat. I check out the rearview mirror on the way to West Philly, but everything looks clear.

I open the car window into the cool night air. It still smells like hoagies at the corner of 40th and Spruce, like it did twenty years ago. I swing the car into a space and step out into a curbful of trash. Some things never change.

I lock the car and walk down Pine Street, which used to be lined with Victorian houses full of expensive apartments with hardwood floors and high ceilings. The richer students lived here when I was in school; it looks like they still do, judging from the cars parked along the street, bumper to exported bumper.

I reach the address on the checkbook and stand outside the brownstone in the dark. It’s a three-story Victorian, with high arched windows and a mansard roof. A light is on on the bottom floor, showing through closed shutters in what would be the living room. I straighten my hat, climb the porch steps, and ring the bell to the front door.

A porch light comes on. An older woman appears at the window, behind bars. Her gray hair is plaited into a long braid and she wears thick aviator glasses. “What is it?” she shouts at me, through the bars.

“I’m a lawyer,” I say, brandishing my briefcase.

She does an about-face. The light goes off.

Good move. I take another tack. “Please, I’m a friend of Greg Armen’s.”

The light goes on again and she reappears, friendlier in a colorful Guatemalan shirt. “What do you want?”

“I need to come in. I’m meeting him here. My name is Grace Rossi.”

She squints and I smile in a toothy way. She unlocks the several locks on the door and opens it, welcoming me into the foul odor of Indian curry. “Smells good,” I say.

“Do you work with Greg?”

“Yes. I was supposed to meet him, but he’s late. Do you know a way I could get into his apartment? To wait for him?”

I hear a cat meow from inside her apartment. “He didn’t come today. He always comes on Sundays.”

“I know, he got tied up. He asked me to stop by tonight. We just starting seeing each other.”

“You want to surprise him?”

“Right.”

“Interesting. Hold on,” she says, winking at me in a stagey way. “He gave me a key in case he forgets it.” She scuffs into her apartment in Birkenstocks and returns with a key on a ring. “He does forget it sometimes. He’s kind of strange, in that cap and sunglasses all the time. I like her, though.”

“Her?”

“Whoops! You didn’t hear it from me! Give him hell!” she says, slapping the key in my palm; then she turns on her heel and scuffs inside. I hear the cat meow again as she closes the door.

I trudge up the stairs with a sense of dread. I like her, though. Who is she? The shabby carpeted stair winds around to the left, and at the top are two doors, 2A and 2B. The checkbook said 2B, so I slip the key into its lock. It opens easily, eager to reveal its secret, even if I’m not so eager to know it.

The room is dark, except for a streetlight streaming through the bay windows at the other end of the room. It looks like an efficiency, with a single bed against the wall. A chain hangs down from an overhead light, and I yank it on.

What I see shocks me.

All over the apartment, everywhere I look, are toys. Against the wall are white IKEA shelves full of stuffed animals. A plush tiger. Pinocchio. A Steiff lion. Mickey Mouse. They’re crammed onto the shelves in all directions, sticking out by their cartoon feet and white-gloved hands. The lower shelves are stacked with an array of games. Candyland. Don’t Break the Ice. Clue. Monopoly.

Stunned, I close the door behind me.

A child’s room. Does Armen have a child? The woman downstairs said he comes on Sundays, like lots of divorced fathers. Like Sam. Is Armen divorced? Was he married before?

What is this all about?

I walk stiffly to the middle of the room and pick up a stuffed Dalmatian puppy from the couch. It looks back at me, round-eyed, blank.

Who is this child? Who is this woman?

I rummage through the stuffed animals on the shelves, then the games. Toy cats and teddy bears fly off the shelves in my wake. I feel myself getting angry, losing control. Who is this woman? Who is this child?

I tear the plastic lid off a white toy box full of blocks and root to the bottom. Nothing, except for plastic beads and a pirate’s scabbard.

I move to a bookshelf next to the toy box, also white. It’s full of children’s books, more than most libraries, and many in hardback. I snatch them out, one by one, enraged. Why didn’t he tell me, that night on the couch? I hear the sound of my own panting and watch with satisfaction as Goodnight Moon and Where the Wild Things Are fall to the soft carpet, littering it.

I take the next book from the shelf. Eloise. There’s a pang deep within my chest; I know this book, but I have yet to buy it for Maddie.

How do I know Eloise?

I open it, going through it page by oversized page, trying to remember. I come to a page that at first looks ripped but unfolds at the top. I trace the trail of Eloise from a distant memory, my nail running along the dotted red line that goes up and down on the elevator. I remember a thick fingernail tracing these same travels. See, here she goes. The finger is yellow-stained at the edge with nicotine, and the hand is warm as my own hand rides around on top of his. My father’s hand. See, Princess?

And then he left.

I love you.

Liars, liars all. I let the book fall to the floor.

Suddenly, I hear a noise at the windows behind me. I turn around, but nothing’s there. I hear the noise again, like a rustling outside. I reach overhead and turn off the light. The room goes black just as a figure climbs onto the porch roof outside the bay window.

I back up against the wall.

The figure creeps toward the window, silhouetted in the streetlight. I feel my hackles rise. Someone is about to break in. Who knows about this apartment? Armen’s killer?

The figure removes the portable screen from the window and places it on the roof without a sound. A professional. The streetlight glistens on his black leather jacket, stretched tight over a powerful back. I watch, dry-mouthed, as he jiggles the center window and it comes open in his hands.