John Katzenbach - The Analyst

He did not allow himself to dwell even for a second on the true nature of revenge, because this was not something he was in the slightest familiar with. Nor did he focus on the threat to one of his relatives that still lurked in the background.

Filled instead with if not precisely positive thoughts, at least some semblance of normalcy, and the belief that he might just have a chance to play the game successfully, Ricky turned the corner to his block, only to stop abruptly in his tracks.

In front of his brownstone, there were three police cars, lights flashing, one large red city fire truck and two yellow public works vehicles. The spinning emergency lights blended with the dimming evening atmosphere.

Ricky stumbled backward, like a drunken man, or a man rebounding from a punch to the face. He could see several policemen standing about by his front steps, jawing with workers wearing hard hats and sweat-stained coveralls. A fireman or two were on the fringe of the conversation, but then, as he stepped ahead, peeled away from the group milling about, and swung themselves up into the fire truck. With a deep engine roar mingled with a siren’s harsh blare, the fire truck headed off down the street.

Ricky hurried forward, only subliminally aware that the men in front of him were lacking urgency. When he arrived in front of his home, he was almost out of breath. One of the policemen turned and faced him.

“Hey, slow down, fella,” the officer said.

“This is my home,” Ricky replied anxiously. “What happened?”

“You live here?” the cop asked, although he’d already been given the answer to this question.

“Yes,” Ricky repeated. “What’s going on?”

The cop didn’t reply directly. “Oh, man. You better go talk to the suit over there,” he said.

Ricky looked toward another group of men. He saw one of his neighbors, a man from two stories above him, a stockbroker who headed the building’s loosely confederated association, arguing and gesturing with a city Department of Public Works man, wearing a yellow hard hat. Two other men stood nearby. Ricky recognized one of them as the building supervisor, and another as the man in charge of building maintenance.

The DPW man was speaking loudly and as Ricky approached the group he overheard the man say, “I don’t give a shit what you say about inconveniencing people. I’m the guy who decides occupancy and I’m saying no fucking way!”

The stockbroker turned away in frustration, pivoting in Ricky’s direction. He gave a small wave and stepped toward Ricky, leaving the other men arguing.

“Doctor Starks,” he said, holding out his hand to shake. “I had hoped that you’d already left on vacation.”

“What is going on?” Ricky asked quickly.

“It’s a mess,” the broker continued. “One huge mess.”

“What is?”

“Didn’t the policemen tell you?”

“No. What’s going on?”

The broker sighed and shrugged his shoulders. “Well, apparently there was some sort of massive plumbing failure on the third floor. Several pipes seemed to have burst wide open simultaneously because of some kind of pressure buildup. Went off like bombs. Gallons and gallons of water have flooded the first two floors and the people on the third and fourth have no utilities at all. Electric, gas, water, telephone-the works. All out.”

The broker must have seen the look of astonishment on Ricky’s face, because he continued in a solicitous manner. “I’m sorry. I know your place was one of the hardest hit. I haven’t seen it, but…”

“My apartment…”

“Yes. And now this idiot from DPW wants the entire building cleared until structural engineers and contractors can get in and check out the whole place…”

“But, my things…”

“One of the DPW guys will escort you in to get what you need. They’re saying the whole place is dangerously compromised. Have you got someone you can call? A place to stay? I was under the impression that you generally took August up on the Cape. I thought you’d be there…”

“But how?”

“They don’t know. Apparently the apartment where all the trouble started was right above yours. And the Wolfsons are up in the Adirondacks for the summer. Damn, I’ve got to call them. I hope they’ve got a listed phone number up there. Do you know a good general contractor? Someone who can handle ceilings, floors, and everything in between. And you’d better call your insurance agent, but I’m not guessing he’s going to be pleased to hear about this. You’ll need to get him over here right away in order to clear a settlement, but there’s already a couple of guys inside taking photos.”

“I still don’t understand…”

“The guy said, it was like the plumbing simply exploded. A blockage maybe. It will be weeks before we know. Might have been some kind of a gas buildup. Whatever, it was enough to create an explosion. Like a bomb went off.”

Ricky stepped back, staring up at his home of a quarter century. It was a little like being told of a death of someone old and familiar, important and close. He had the sensation that he needed to see firsthand, to examine, to touch in order to believe. Like once when he’d stroked the cheek of his wife and felt a porcelain cold on her skin and understood fully in that moment what had finally happened. He gestured at the building maintenance man. “Take me in,” he demanded. “Show me.”

The man nodded unhappily. “You ain’t gonna like it,” he said. “No sir. And those shoes gonna get ruined, I think.” The man reluctantly handed him a silver hard hat. The hat was marred with scrapes and scars.

There was still water dripping through the ceiling and leaking down the walls of the lobby as Ricky entered the building, making the paint boil up and flake off. The dampness was palpable, the atmosphere inside suddenly moist, humid, and musty, like some jungle. There was a faint odor of human waste in the air, and puddles had formed on the marble floor, making the entranceway slippery, a little like stepping out onto a frozen pond surface in the winter. The maintenance man was walking a few feet ahead of Ricky, watching carefully where he put his feet. “You catch that smell? You don’t want to pick up some kinda infection,” the man said, back over his shoulder.

They took the stairs up slowly, avoiding the standing water as best as possible, although Ricky’s shoes had already begun to make squishing sounds with each step, and he could feel wetness seeping through the leather. On the second floor, two young men, wearing coveralls, rubber boots, surgical gloves, and masks, were wielding large mops, trying to get started on the bigger collections of wastewater. The mops made a slapping sound as they were dragged through the mess. The men were working slowly and deliberately. A third man, also with rubber boots and a mask, but wearing a cheap brown suit, tie loosened around his neck, was standing to the side. He had a Polaroid camera in his hands and was taking shot after shot of the destruction. The light bar flashed, making a small explosion, and Ricky saw a large bulge in one of the ceilings, like a gigantic boil about to burst, where water had collected and threatened to inundate the man taking the photographs.

The door to Ricky’s apartment was open wide. The building maintenance man said, “Sorry, we had to open it up. We were trying to find the source of the main problem…” He stopped then, as if no further explanation were necessary, but added a single word, “… Shit…” which also didn’t need expansion.

Ricky took a single step into his apartment and stopped in his tracks.

It was as if some kind of hurricane had swept through his home. Water was pooled up an inch deep. Electrical lights had shorted out, and there was a distinct odor of material that had been burned then extinguished in the air. All the furniture and carpeting were soaked, much of it clearly ruined. Huge portions of the ceiling were bowed and buckled, others had burst open, spreading white snowlike plaster dust around. Strips of Sheetrock had come loose and fallen into piles resembling papier-mâché lumps. Too many places for him to count still dripped dark, brown-tinged noxious water. As he stepped farther into the apartment, the smell of waste that had insinuated itself into the lobby increased insistently, almost overwhelming him.