Andrew Vachss - Only Child

Max made a “let’s go” gesture and opened the doors, pushing the grate aside with one hand. To the right was a long plank with a hinged center section. Behind it stood a wall of pigeonholes. Large number-tagged keys poked out of a few of the slots. A long-handled bolt cutter stood against the wall.

Behind the plank, there was a fat man in a wheelchair, wearing a green eyeshade out of a Fifties movie, only twisted around, hip-hop style. His eyes were the color of old dimes. Between rapid blinks, they scanned, recorded...and erased the tape.

I followed Max up an uncarpeted flight of stairs that was a little cleaner than the alley. On the next landing, a single low-watt bulb protruding from the wall revealed only the vague shapes of doors, all closed.

Max went up another flight, checked the area briefly, then kept climbing. I recognized the top floor by its skylight. Signs were splattered randomly over the walls—EPA, Health Department, Office of Building Management—warning of everything from exposed wiring to lead paint to asbestos contamination. NO ADMITTANCE! DANGER!

In case anyone still felt brave, there was a triptych of rat posters, the kind the Transit Authority slaps up in your better subway stations. Drawings of malevolent rodents, with a POISON!! notice above. Nice places, subway tunnels. If the vermin didn’t get you, what the City tried to kill them with would.

I warily eyed the cables dangling from the ceiling as we walked to the end of the hall. We came to a decrepit-looking wooden door, sagging on its hinges. Max pushed it open, stepped aside to usher me in, a faint smile on his usually flat face.

The Prof and Clarence were seated at what had once been a professional poker table—a green felt octagon, with round slots for ashtrays and drinking glasses at each station. They gave me an indifferent glance, as if I were a stranger who had just walked into a bar.

Max tugged at my sleeve and pointed for me to look around. Instead of the coffin-sized rooms you’d expect in a flophouse, the place was spacious enough to hold a corporate meeting—someone had taken a sledgehammer to the connecting walls. The windows were small and grimy, but an overhead skylight bathed the whole space in soft light.

Max gave me the tour. There was no kitchen, but someone had put in a little blue microwave, a chrome toaster, and a white enamel hotplate with two burners. Three stubby brown mini-fridges were stacked one on top of another.

At the very end of the corridor was what had once been the shared bathroom for the whole floor. Its walls had been punched out to incorporate the room next to it, and it now featured a coiled aluminum line that added a shower option to the good-sized white fiberglass tub. There was a skylight above that room, too.

Retracing our steps, Max pointed out the new layer of rubber flooring, a tasteful shade of black. Fresh drywall had been used to form a sleeping room, furnished with an army cot, a wooden chest of drawers, and four stand-up steel lockers.

“What you think, Schoolboy?” the Prof asked, coming up behind where I was standing.

“It’s beautiful,” I told him, meaning it.

“Yeah, bro. The Mole tricked it out slick.”

“The Mole ?”

“See,” the little man chuckled to Clarence, “I told you Burke wouldn’t bust it.” He turned to me. “Don’t look like the Mole’s tracks, right?”

“Well...”

“That’s the point of the joint, son. Downstairs, it’s still an SRO. One step up from a chickenwire flophouse. A pound a night, cash in hand. Every night, or they padlock your room. The building’s marked—they’re gonna make fucking condos out of it or something. You know the way the City is now, bro. Ain’t no place motherfuckers won’t live, because there ain’t no room for all of them that wants to, right?”

“Even after the World Trade Center?”

“This is The Apple, son,” the Prof said, with the bitter pride only people born and raised here ever really get right—or understand. “They’d have to do a lot more than knock down some buildings and kill a bunch of folk.”

He held out his hand, palm up. I slapped it soft, no argument.

“So, anyway,” the little man went on, “they don’t tumble buildings no more, they rehab them. This here one, that’s what it’s waiting on. ’Course, with all the palms that got to be greased, it’ll be years before it ever actually happens.”

“And in the meantime...”

“Yeah. You lay in the cut. Right up here on the top floor. Off the books, complete. Far as the City know, this floor’s unfit for human occupancy. Nobody goes past the third.”

“The guy at the desk...?”

“You don’t need to worry about him, bro. The only thing Gateman’s got an eye out for is his PO.”

“What’d he go for?”

“He’s a shooter.”

“You mean, he was, right?”

“No, son. Gateman always worked right from that chair. Last time down, the jury hung on homicide. Gateman claimed the other guy was making his move. Self-defense. The other guy was strapped, but he never cleared leather. Gateman’s a cutie. Told the DA he had to sit anyway, might as well sit on The Rock until they tried him again. They have a staredown, and the DA blinked. Kept dropping the offer. When it got down to Man Two, Gateman took the lucky seven, did his half-plus.”

“He doesn’t work now?”

“Just behind that desk, son. But I pity the sucker who tries to stick up the place.”

If this was any city but New York, I might have raised an eyebrow at anyone holding up a flophouse. Here, I just nodded.

“Gateman, he’s on the hustle,” the Prof said. “He gets a free room and a little cash for managing the place. Picks up some extra fronting meets—there’s a big room behind that desk. Trading post; you see where I’m going.”

“He trade anything else?”

“Gateman’s good people,” the Prof assured me. “Time-tested. Two rides; never lied to glide. I did a stretch with him, back in the day. He gets a G a month from us. That’s his lifeline; he can count on it. And, anyway, you ain’t no fugitive now. No price on your head. What’s he going to get from diming you?”

“Does he know who I am?”

“Maybe.” The Prof shrugged. “Gateman’s not the kind to show what he know. But he for damn sure knows who Max is, understand? Besides, he don’t even have to see you come and go, you don’t want him to, honeyboy. I told you the Mole was on the job. Want to see?”

“Sure.”

The Prof walked over to what looked like a floor-to-ceiling closet built out into the room, walled on three sides. When he opened it, I saw a flat platform and a pair of thick cables.

“Used to be one of those dumbwaiters,” the Prof said proudly. “My man Mole gets his hands on it—you know what you got now? A private elevator, bro! You got to crouch a little, but it works like a charm.”

“Where does it go?” I asked, taking a closer look.

“Basement. Nothing down there but the furnace and the boiler. Door opens in, not out, okay? When you open it, looks like you’re facing a blank wall, but it’s really the back of a big Dumpster. Lever to your right. You pull it down, it unlocks the wheels. You just shove it away, step out, push it back, and you’re in the alley. A phantom. Even if someone sees you, they don’t believe it.”

“What if there’s someone waiting in the—?”

“Got you backed, Jack. The Mole hooked up one of those submarine things. You know what I’m talking about, right? You look in it, you see what’s happening outside. Works at night, too. Everything looks kind of greenish, but you can still see boss, hoss.”

“I stay up here three nights once, while we are getting it ready, mahn,” Clarence said. “Quiet as a graveyard.”