Dead Street

John Peter Boyle at the development office took my questions over the phone and called back with the answers. He confirmed that a charitable organization operating homeless shelters owned the building. This had held things up, but the charity rep said a deal had been worked out with both the city and the new Saudi ownership. In two days, the building known in its time by two numbers — 703 and 4428 — would be just another pile of debris.

“But here’s the funny thing,” Boyle said. “Funny odd, I mean — the kind of circumstance that doesn’t get into the public record.”

“Not following you.”

“It’s just this, Captain — the rep of that charitable group mentioned that they had a sort of silent partner in that old building. Dating back to when the ownership was transferred over to them.”

“Interesting.”

“The old tenement was renovated twenty years ago, you know — nothing fancy, just efficiency apartments. Still, it generated decent revenue.”

“Housing in the big city always does.”

“Yeah, until lately. You know what that neighborhood’s been like, last five or six years. That building either needed another renovation or a wrecking ball.”

“And the latter is what it’ll get.”

“Cheaper for these developers to put up new buildings than try to gentrify these old tenements, even one that had been renovated a couple decades ago.”

“Understood,” I said. “You get the silent partner’s name?”

“Yeah, and you’ll love it: John Smith. Lives upstate somewhere. Address is a P.O. Box. Look, Captain, I didn’t dig deep — this was a friendly conversation, off the cuff... and I could tell if it got serious, the charity rep might clam up.”

“It can be tracked....”

“You’re the detective.”

“Mr. Boyle, you’re not a bad one yourself.”

Two days, and 4428 would be rubble and dust.

Two days for something to happen, if that old pile of brick and wood and glass really meant a damn thing.

But two days was also manageable. I could set up an operation within those parameters, no problem.

Which is how I ended sitting at old Bessie’s window. I didn’t hang out over the sill — she had taken her red velvet elbow pillow with her, and anyway I didn’t want to be seen. This was surveillance.

And like all surveillance duty, it had its drawbacks. The stripped shell of the tiny old apartment, with its faded floral wallpaper and ancient creaky floors, stunk with decades of cooking smells. I never saw a rat, but I could hear them in the walls and halls, tiny claws scratching, scurrying.

But I was looking for a bigger rat, name of Bucky Mohler.

Mohler had been a gang kid coming up strong, back in the old days, an up and comer who suddenly up and went. The old gal who’d sat in this very window had seen his return, and I hadn’t believed her at first.

I believed her now.

With no heat in the building, and the fall air turning from crisp to cold, I was glad to be in a black corduroy jacket over a black sweater. T... .45 was on the hip of my black jeans. I looked half cop, half ninja.

The dark attire was strictly in case Bucky showed up after sundown. But I doubted he would. With the street damn near dead, and only a few street lamps to light the way, Bucky returning in the daylight made sense.

I intended to put in the long day shift myself, seven am till nine pm. For nightshift duties, I had lined up retired brother cop Pudgy Gillepsie for the first night, and an off-duty Sgt. Davy Ross himself for the second one.

The officials were in the know, but I was playing a hunch. Or call it an educated guess, yet none of the evidence that provided that education would be enough to get the NYPD or the Feds on the front line. A phone call, though, would bring the cavalry on the run....

I didn’t mind a long surveillance. I’d done it enough times, and for every splashy shoot-out the papers had written up from my so-called exploits, there were a hundred days of dull damn tedium. If pressed, I’ll admit my bones and muscles did some complaining. With sixty looming up ahead like a speed limit sign, I was bound for a little discomfort.

Luckily I’d been able to improvise. A few abandoned items of furniture were to be found in Bessie’s building, including a well-worn lounger that a thrift shop would’ve junked, but it still allowed me to sit looking out that window at the Padrone building like I was watching football or an old movie on the tube.

As the guy who was throwing this party, I had brought along a Styrofoam ice chest filled with Cokes and Millers. Also a grocery bag filled with bags of chips and four plastic-bagged sandwiches — Swiss cheese and pastrami from a good deli. Wanted to do right by my pals helping me out, plus I had to eat, too.

I spoke to Bettie by cell phone in the morning and she reported nothing suspicious. On the other hand, nothing got past her — she was aware that I had Darris Kinder and Joe Pender keeping an eye on her.

“Darris stopped by yesterday morning,” she said, “and Joe came by in the evening — just saying hello, seeing if I needed anything. But it’s more than that, isn’t it, Jack?”