Peter Spiegelman - Death's little helpers

I signaled for the check and thought about Pratt and her conflicting fears. The breakins and the tails had scared her, but she was also wary of me and anxious about her own indiscretions. It was only because her alarm had outweighed her other worries that she’d called me at all, and I got the sense there were things she hadn’t said. Which made her no different from most people I meet.

I’d meant what I said about whoever was watching her- that their interest was probably in Danes and not her- but the breakins worried me. They implied an unhealthy appetite for risk, or maybe a certain desperation. I shook my head.

A familiar buzz was running through me, a palpable mix of anticipation and anxiety. It was the leading edge of recognition, the sense that something was emerging from murky waters, but whether wreck or sunken treasure, I still had no idea. And it was inchoate worry, too- about Irene and Nina and Ines and Billy. About Danes. I paid the tab, found a quiet corner in the Warwick’s lobby, and pulled out my cell phone.

Nina Sachs was in a foul mood when she answered, and it only got worse when she realized who was calling. She flatly refused to see me at first, and for a while it was all I could do to keep her on the line. But I was insistent and, despite herself, she grew curious and a little anxious. She was downtown, at Ines’s SoHo gallery, and she agreed to meet me at a bar on Broome Street. I took a cab there.

Siren was a hip, high-ceilinged place done in blues and sea greens, and outfitted like a Philip Johnson aquarium. The lighting was cool and dim and shifting, and the background music was Brian Eno. The tiny aluminum tables were topped in frosted green glass, and at just past five on a rainy Saturday they were mostly empty. Nina was seated at the back of the room, with a bottle of merlot, two glasses, and Ines. They were vigorously ignoring the city’s smoking ban, but no one at Siren seemed to care.

“What is it with you?” Nina asked as I approached. “You can’t take rejection?” Even in the submarine light I could see the veins in her eyes and the grainy texture and sallow cast of her skin. Her hair was loose and limp, and her hand shook as she raised a cigarette to her lips. Hangover. Her jeans and shirtsleeves were stained with paint and charcoal.

Ines sat close by, and though she was better groomed than Nina, and more recently washed, she too looked unwell. Her coloring was gray, and her face was gaunt and dyspeptic. She motioned to one of the little metal chairs.

“Please sit, detective.” Her voice was furry. Nina drank off her merlot and refilled her glass and looked at me belligerently.

“This better be fucking good, March.”

I took a deep breath. “I told you that someone besides me has been looking for Danes- sniffing around at his apartment, out in Jersey, maybe other places too- and I told you that someone has been tailing me. Well, it seems I’m not the only one.” Nina Sachs looked at me over her wineglass and Ines was perfectly still, and neither one said a word as I told them about Irene Pratt. When I finished, Nina blew smoke at me.

“That’s the big deal: Irene the librarian thinks someone’s been peeping at her window and stealing her office supplies, and she calls on you to protect her?” Nina took a gulp of wine and I looked at Ines. Her face was empty and her eyes were far away. I sighed.

“This is an organized thing, and-”

“That’s old news,” Nina said.

“- and if they’ve been watching me and Pratt, there’s a good chance they’re watching other people too- people like you, for instance.”

Ines drew an audible breath. Nina waved her hand dismissively.

“This is bullshit.”

“You may think so, but it doesn’t change the fact that they’re out there. And judging by what’s happened at Pace-Loyette, they may do more than just watch.”

A deep crease appeared on Ines’s forehead, and she touched her long fingers to the side of her neck. Nina pointed across the table with her cigarette. Her mouth was an angry wrinkle.

“This is crap, March; this is about you being pissed off because you got fired. This is about you looking for work.”

A knot of tension formed at the back of my neck. “Believe what you want, Nina. I’m just asking if you’ve noticed anything.”

Nina snorted derisively but Ines leaned forward, worry in her eyes. “Anything like what, detective?”

“Don’t encourage him, Nes,” Nina said.

“Any strange cars parked nearby, any strange people hanging around your block or around your building- that sort of thing.”

Nina’s laugh was nasty and forced. “Strange people? We live in New York City, March- we got nothing but strange people. We are strange people, for chrissakes.” She looked at Ines, who worried her lower lip and looked at the floor.

“What about breakins?” Ines asked.

Nina slapped the tabletop. Smoke exploded from her mouth. “Jesus Christ, Nes, how many times do I have to tell you? That was not a breakin. That was nothing.” Ines ignored her and so did I.

“What breakin?” I said.

“It was two weeks ago- no, longer: the week before you came,” Ines began. Nina rolled her eyes and muttered something; Ines paid no attention. “It was midday. Guillermo was at school and Nina was in Manhattan. I was working in the gallery and I had gone upstairs for my agenda. I had some calls to make and I had left it in the kitchen. I had taken the elevator, and as the doors opened on our floor, someone ran past very quickly- down the hall and into the stairwell.

“I was more startled than scared when it happened, and I did not know what to think of it. I went to our door and put my key in the lock, but it would not go in all the way, and it would not turn. It was as if something was jammed into the lock.”

Nina shook her head. “You are so fucking dramatic sometimes, I swear. The lock was busted-”

“The locksmith said there was something broken off in it. He said it looked as if someone had tampered with it.”

“Which means shit,” Nina said. “It’s not like that’s the safest neighborhood in the city. It’s not like nobody ever gets robbed there.”

“Has it happened before?” I asked. “To you or to anyone in your building?”

Nina gave me a sour look and sucked in more smoke. Ines answered my question.

“No, detective, it has not happened to anyone in our building, before or since.”

“Did you get a look at the guy?”

“He was just a blur,” Ines said.

“Did you report this to the police?”

Ines shook her head and looked down. Nina snorted. “You and the fucking cops again,” she said.

I sighed. “Why didn’t you tell me about this before?”

“Why the hell should I?” Nina said. “It was nothing then and it’s nothing now- despite your scare tactics, and Nes’s hysteria. It didn’t have anything to do with what I hired you for.”

“I think you may be wrong about that.”

Nina shook her head and drained her wineglass. Ines took a cigarette from Nina’s pack, pinched the filter off, and lit it. Her movements were very slow and her eyes never left the tabletop.

“Has there been anything else?” I asked.

“Not that I have noticed,” Ines said. She looked up at me. “What shall we do now, detective?”

“I know some people who could watch your block for a while, to see if anyone is staking out your place.”

“What are you, nuts?” Nina’s laugh was contemptuous.

Ines’s face was still. “Mierda,” she whispered.

“I told you,” Nina said, “this is about him looking for more workand now he’s bringing his friends into it.”

Ines turned to me. “Is there danger… to Guillermo?”

“I don’t think so. Whoever is doing this is interested in Danes. If they’re watching you, it’s because they think he’ll turn up.”