Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney - The Nest

The face that appeared on the other side of the window was twisted with indignation and sitting above a policeman’s navy uniform shirt. Outside, Jack raised his hands in surrender, took a step back. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry. I’m looking for my brother.” The face disappeared from the window and within seconds the door beneath the front stoop flew open and the furious man was walking toward him, fists clenched. A medium-size dog rushed at Jack, stopping short of his ankles and crouching down with a low, menacing growl.

“Please.” Jack stepped backward and almost tripped over an elevated brick border that enclosed the small front garden of ragged English ivy and a struggling dogwood. “Don’t shoot.” He was simultaneously frightened and furious. He hated having to lift his hands to this beefy, red-faced cop. “It was an honest mistake, Officer. I’d forgotten Stephanie rented the ground floor.”

“I’m not a cop. I’m a security guard and you better have a good reason for looking in my windows and I better hear it fast.”

“I’m looking for Leo Plumb,” Jack said in a rush. “I’m his brother. Leo’s brother! He’s staying upstairs.”

“I know who Leo is.”

“Again,” Jack said, relieved to see that the cop — security guard — whatever, wasn’t wearing a gun. “Please accept my sincere apologies.” Jack looked down at the dog who was coming closer to his ankles and barking.

“Get back here, Sinatra.” The man snapped his fingers at the dog who returned to his owner’s side, whined, settled onto his haunches, and then resumed barking at Jack.

TOMMY O’TOOLE STAREDat Jack for a few minutes. He was definitely related to Leo, the same WASPish features, thin lips, slightly beakish nose beneath dark hair. On Leo it all added up to something a little more impressive. Tommy enjoyed rattling the intruder. His clean-shaven face had gone green and there were beads of sweat on his upper lip and along the top of his generous forehead. His tweed coat looked like something Sherlock Holmes would wear. Jesus. Where did he think he was?

“You look through a window on some of the streets around here and people will shoot first and ask questions later,” Tommy said, knowing Jack wouldn’t recognize the exaggeration.

“You’re absolutely right. I will be more careful.” Jack lowered his hands and took a tentative step out of the garden patch. The dog lunged and Jack scrambled back inside the brick enclosure.

“Sinatra!” Tommy bent down and stroked the dog’s back. “Francis Albert. Be quiet.” The dog licked Tommy’s hand and whimpered a bit. “Sorry,” he said to Jack. “He’s very high-strung. I should have named him Jerry Lewis.”

“That’s very funny,” Jack said, without smiling. He stared at the dog who appeared to be some kind of pug mix with a short brown coat, black pushed-in snout, and slightly bulging blue eyes that were eerily Sinatra-like. Jack stepped out of the ivy one more time and looked down at his suede shoes, which were dampened with what he optimistically hoped was lingering morning dew but assumed was dog urine.

“What did you say your name was?” Tommy said.

“Jack. Plumb.” He extended a hand, and Tommy reluctantly stepped forward to shake it. Tommy didn’t trust this guy; there was something furtive, something not quite open about him. The kind of guy he’d keep his eye on if he were loitering around a lobby or a store.

“We’ve had a Peeping Tom in this neighborhood,” Tommy said. “Some creep who walks up to windows looking for women inside and whips it out in broad daylight. Sick bastard.”

“I assure you”—Jack placed one gloved hand over his heart—“I am not your Peeping Tom.”

“Yeah, I imagine not.”

“Do you know if they’re home?” Jack asked. “Leo or Stephanie? I thought I saw a light go on upstairs a few minutes ago.”

“I guess they’re gone for the day,” Tommy said. He suspected he wasn’t telling the truth. He thought he’d heard Stephanie walking around a few minutes ago.

“Listen,” Jack said, taking his phone from his pocket. “I’d like to call just in case someone is there and can’t hear the bell for whatever reason. Do you have Stephanie’s number? I’ve come all the way from Manhattan.”

“From Manhattan?”

“Yes,” Jack said. “The West Village.”

“That’s quite a trip. I guess you’ve been on the road what? Two, three days?”

Jack forced what he hoped was a self-deprecating laugh. God, he hated everyone. “I just meant I’d hate to get back across the bridge and discover they’d been in the shower or something.”

Tommy eyed Jack. If Stephanie were lying low, she wouldn’t answer the phone either. Also, he should probably offer Sherlock a paper towel or rag; he definitely had dog piss on his shoes.

“I’ll be quick,” Jack said. “I’d be incredibly grateful.”

“I’ve got her number inside.” Tommy gestured to the open door behind him. Jack followed Tommy and the dog into the front foyer, which was dark and nearly empty except for a few woolen jackets hanging on an overloaded hook by the door, a small card table with a landline receiver, and a poster on the wall from a Matisse retrospective at MoMA, which Jack assumed was left over from a previous tenant. The hallway smelled, incongruously, of potpourri. Something cinnamon heavy. Tommy stood in the doorway, watching Jack. The dog, calmer now, sniffed at Jack’s ankles.

“Stay here,” Tommy said. “I’ll get her number. It’s in the back.” He moved down the hallway to the back of the apartment where Jack could see a kitchen. The dog followed him, snorting. Jack looked through the open pocket doors into the living room. The furniture looked like castoffs, what Jack thought of as the divorced-man’s special. Two overstuffed flowery and worn sofas probably bestowed by a concerned female relative or friend. A sagging wicker bookcase, which housed a bunch of true crime paperbacks, out-of-date phone books, and an abandoned glass fish tank one-quarter full of loose change. The coffee table was covered with a pile of New York Post s turned to completed Sudoku puzzles.

A fairly decent pedestal table, something that must have sat in a much nicer room at one time, was covered with an assortment of framed family photos. Jack stepped into the living room to look at the table. Nice but not old. He surveyed the photos, lots of pictures of someone he assumed was the ex-wife and various family tableaux: weddings, babies, kids in Little League uniforms with gap-toothed grins holding bats half their size.

He could see through to the dining room, which was empty except for a plastic collapsible table surrounded by a few folding chairs and, oddly, in a dark corner of the room a sculpture sitting on top of a small wooden dolly on wheels. Jack thought he recognized the familiar shape of Rodin’s The Kiss . Figures, he thought, as tacky as everything else in the place, probably ordered from some late-night shopping network meant to woo the guy’s divorcée dates.

Jack could hear Tommy in the back, opening and shutting drawers, rifling through papers. Jack quietly approached the statue. There was something off about the Rodin reproduction, which was polished to a sheen. As he got closer, he could see it was badly damaged. The original cast had probably been nearly two feet high, but it had lost at least six inches off its base. The right side of the man’s upper body was missing, his disembodied hand still partly visible on the woman’s left thigh. The woman sitting partially on his lap was mostly intact, except for her right leg, which seemed to have melted below the knee. Melted? Jack thought. Was it plastic?

He gave the thing a little shove; the sculpture didn’t move, but the wheels of the dolly did. So that’s why it was on wheels, it was heavy. There were deep gouges in the surface of the metal. Jack realized he was looking at a badly damaged bronze cast of Rodin’s The Kiss . This in itself wasn’t all that rare — there were quite a few on the market, some valuable, some not, depending on where and when they’d been forged. One of Jack’s best customers collected Rodin and Jack had sourced some bronze castings for him over the years. The most valuable were the so-called originals produced by the Barbedienne foundry just outside of Paris. Authenticating them was a nightmare. If there was a foundry mark, he knew where it would be, but there was no way he could turn the thing over himself.