'Will you promise me one thing?' Dom asked, frowning even more than usual. When Jack nodded, the one- armed man in front of him said, 'I may be older than shit but I still know a thing or two about the streets. So let me help you if you get into any trouble.'
'Trouble?' Doing his best Bogart, Jack winked and added, 'Trouble's my middle name.' Then, when he saw how serious Dom was, he touched the old man on the shoulder. 'My whole life,' Jack said slowly, 'people I've loved have died around me. And I've never been able to understand why. They've died and I've survived. Just once, I want to find out why. If you want to help, you old bastard, it's more than okay with me.'
THIRTY-FOUR
As Jack Keller stood in front of the building at 487 Duane Street, the only thing he could think of was that he must have the wrong address. The late-afternoon sun was bright and the glare made him squint as he stared up. He was clutching the envelope that Kid had mailed to him and he looked back down at Kid's handwritten return address. He matched it up once again to the number on the twenty-story red-brick building for the third time and, for the third time, it was a match. He put his finger to the buzzer that had the word 'Super' printed to its left and rang.
It took several minutes for the superintendent to make his way to the front of the building. He didn't come out the front door but from around the corner. He had a slight accent, Jack thought Russian, and he wore overalls that were covered with paint. Peeking out of one of the overall pockets was a tattered paperback copy of Beckett's The Unnamable. He seemed impatient and Jack wondered if it was to get back to work or to get back to his near impenetrable choice of reading material.
Jack had rehearsed his story in his mind several times, even once in front of his bathroom mirror, but now, translating it into real life, it sounded forced and hollow. He hoped that was just because he'd practiced it so many times.
'I know this is out of the ordinary,' he told the super. 'But I saw the story in the paper about the suicide.'
'Yeah, it was horrible,' the super said. The way he said 'horrible' convinced Jack it really was a Russian accent. 'I was here. You a reporter?'
Jack was tempted to say yes, to improvise a whole new tale, but then he decided to stick with his original plan and see what happened. 'No,' he said. 'It's a little more ghoulish than that – I'm a New Yorker. I'm desperate to live down here and I figured the apartment's free now.'
'You want me to show you the dead guy's apartment?' the super snorted.
'That's right,' Jack told him.
The super shook his head, almost in admiration. 'You gotta go through the agency,' he told Jack. 'I'd like to help you, but…'
'I've called them already.' Jack was prepared for this. 'But it's not available yet. I guess there are some legal entanglements.' That was a lie, of course. He hadn't called any agency. In fact, the story he'd seen in the paper didn't even give the exact address of the building – a detail which he hoped the super wouldn't realize.
'Well, there you go.'
'But that means nobody else has seen it either. I figure this'll give me a head start. If I like it, I can just call the office and make an offer. Sight unseen, so to speak.'
'It's a good plan,' the super said. 'You're a sick fuck and I like that. But I can't help you.'
'How about for twenty bucks?' Jack asked. 'All I want is a few minutes to look around the apartment.'
'Sorry.'
'How about a hundred dollars?'
The super cocked his head to the side now. 'A hundred bucks to see the apartment?'
'That's right.'
'Hey,' the super said, 'who am I to stop you from getting the place of your dreams?'
– '-'-'THE SUPER TOOK Jack up in the elevator to the penthouse apartment. They stepped out of the elevator and the super steered Jack to the right.
'Two apartments on this floor,' he said. 'Most of the others have three or four. Some even have five.'
He took out a large ring of keys, found a master, and inserted it into the lock. The door swung open and the super stepped aside. Jack stepped into the apartment, stopped cold the moment he crossed the threshold.
'There's got to be some mistake,' he said.
'What kinda mistake?'
'The man who… who fell… did you know him?'
''Course I knew him. He lived here.'
'Demeter. That was his name, right?'
'Yeah. Kid,' the super said. 'Everybody called him Kid.'
'And he lived here?'
'Mister, you want to see the apartment or not? This is the place and I only got a few minutes.'
The sun coming through the curtains played tricks with the light. The room was covered in shifting shadows. But as Jack stared, one thing was very clear: he was standing in an extraordinary apartment. One that was way beyond Kid's financial means.
Jack stepped through the small entryway to find himself in an enormous living room. The floors were thick pine planks and they had been sanded and then pickled with an off-white paint so it felt as if you were walking on clouds. The furniture, too, was mostly white. Two enormous easy chairs that looked like they came from Shabby Chic. Two full-sized couches covered in a linen with a fine and elaborately stitched pattern. Arranged on built-in, handmade oak bookshelves stood colorful Chinese vases and small modern sculptures. The artwork on the walls was modern, too, several abstract nudes. A few boxes stood in one corner, packed up, some taped shut with industrial tape, some still open. Kid's belongings, Jack thought. Someone's packing up Kid's stuff.
But who?
'You gonna look at the rest of the apartment,' the super said now, 'or you just wanna take it after seeing the living room?'
Jack turned to him and very quietly said, 'I'll give you another hundred dollars if you give me half an hour in the apartment.'
'Hey,' the man said, taken aback. 'I don't know… what's the story here?'
'No story,' Jack told him. 'And I'll make it five hundred. Five hundred dollars cash if you let me have half an hour alone.'
The super stepped away from Jack, scrutinizing him. 'I don't know if I can do that. Lotta valuables in here. Lotta valuable shit.'
'I'm not going to steal anything,' Jack told him. 'If you want, you can wait right outside the front door. You can search me when I come out. I'm not interested in taking anything.'
'What exactly is it you're interested in?'
'Privacy. Half an hour. You want the money?'
This time the super didn't hesitate. 'Pal, I always want the money.' He put his hand out, Jack handed him five one-hundred-dollar bills, and the guy headed for the front door.
'Wait a second,' Jack said. And when the super stopped, he asked, 'What's the rent on this apartment?'
'It's not a rental, pal. We're co-op.'
'You're saying Kid owned this place?'
'All I'm saying is that I'll be in the lobby while you're in here. And I will search you when you come out. If you're not down in thirty minutes, I'll come up and get you. I could get fired for this, you know.'
Jack didn't even respond and the super let himself out, closing the door behind him.
Jack stared for another few moments, still stunned by the splendor of the living room before him, then realized he didn't have a lot of time to waste, so he began a tour of the apartment.
The next room he entered was the master bedroom. The only phrase that Jack could come up with that would do it justice was a rather crude one: he was standing in the middle of one giant fuck palace. There was a huge round bed, covered with large pillows, and even larger pillows were strewn all over the floor. There was thick, plush
