War at Home: A Smokey Dalton Novel (32 page)

“Think Daniel’s here?” he asked quietly.

“I do,” I said.

Jimmy stood on his toes beside us, turning slowly, taking it all in.
“Looks like Chicago.”

I didn’t think it did. The cities had different energy, different looks, different layouts.
But the red brick and graffiti were the same, at least in certain sections of both cities, and so were the tall buildings off in the distance.

Only here, a wide body of water didn’t dominate like Lake Michigan did in Chicago.
The rivers and the bridges were a presence, but they were overwhelmed by the city itself.

“It’s nothing like Chicago,” Malcolm said.
“Nothing at all.”

Jimmy looked at him, surprised.
Apparently Jimmy hadn’t noticed how much trouble Malcolm had had on the trip to New Haven.
But Jimmy was noticing now.

I picked up my suitcase and Jimmy’s and headed down the
sidewalk
.

“Do you know where we’re going?” Malcolm asked.

I nodded.
“I lived in Harlem for a while.
It’s a pretty easy place to get around in.”

He didn’t answer me, but he had stopped biting his lip.
He followed, as if he were covering our backs.

The stench of urine was strong, and someone had strewn garbage all over the sidewalk.
This was not at all like Chicago, and I waited for Malcolm to say so.
Instead, he wrinkled his nose and kept walking, following me to the cross street.

Harlem did look different.
It was dingier than I remembered.
A number of the
nearby
buildings had broken or boarded windows, but still showed signs of habitation.

Jimmy moved up beside me, pretending to want his suitcase, when I actually believed he wanted my protection.

“This a bad part of town, Smoke?” he asked quietly.

“It depends,” I said.
“Harlem has neighborhoods just like the South Side. I haven’t been here in nine years, so I’m not sure which neighborhood is good or not anymore. I’m sure we’ll be able to figure it out, though.”

Malcolm didn’t say anything.
He frowned and kept walking, his head up, his eyes scanning for any sign of trouble.
I did the same, seeing loiterers and people going about their business.

Our suitcases branded us as outsiders, and the quicker we got rid of them, the happier I’d be.
At least here, however, we blended in, and
that
made us less likely targets for anyone who was thinking of mugging us.

I softly explained to both boys how to get around in the city, the way that natives spoke
of
cross
streets and main streets, and how New York, outside of certain areas, was pretty logical — the numbered streets running east-west and the avenues, also numbered, going north-south.

We were going to Lenox Avenue, between W
est
120
th
and 121
st
S
treets.
Lenox was the name Sixth Avenue got north of Central Park.
Jimmy thought the information fascinating, especially after
havin
g
learn
ed
Chicago’s convoluted streets.
Malcolm didn’t venture an opinion at all.

The rental agent operated out of his own home, half a block from Mount Morris Park.
The agent’s apartment was in the center of a group of brownstone row
houses that had distinctive mansard roofs.
I’d loved those buildings when I’d first seen them years ago, and I loved them still, despite the
grime
that time and the city had
deposited on them
.

Still, no graffiti decorated the building’s sides, and no garbage cluttered its walks.
Someone spent time keeping this place cleaner than the other blocks we’d walked down.

I took the steps to the main door two at a time.
Malcolm and Jimmy waited on the sidewalk while I pushed the bell.
When I identified myself through the intercom, the door buzzed open.
I held the door
as Jimmy and Malcolm hurried into it.

The air was cool inside, and the hallway was narrow.
A secretary sat in a small room to the side.
She smiled at me, had me leave my “companions” and our suitcases in her room while I met with the agent.

He was a small man with tight curls and a fake smile.
His suit cost more than I’d earned all spring.
He shook my hand like we were old friends and told me that Gwen had contacted him, begging him for a good location, not some place filled with hookers and junkies.

“The problem is,” he said to me, “my weekly apartments aren’t in the best neighborhoods.
To do a favor for my friend Gwen, I need to put you in a boardinghouse or set you up as lodgers.
Maybe even get you a suite at the Olga
Hotel
.
What do you say?”

Boardinghouses wouldn’t work for us. We’d have to stay in separate rooms and eat at a set time with the other boarders.
Lodgers were in even tighter quarters. While we were in the city, I didn’t want that kind of scrutiny.

“I’ll take
the
hotel if that’s all you’ve got,” I said. “But I’d prefer an apartment.
We may be here all summer, maybe even into the fall, but I won’t know that for a few weeks.”

His eyes twinkled for the first time.
I knew I had caught him exactly where he could be caught — in his pocketbook.

“Tell you what,” he said.
“I have one apartment on W
est
114
th
,
between
Seventh
and
Eighth
, not far from the
Twenty-eight
Precinct. I won’t lie to you.
The neighborhood is in transition. But it’s transitioning upward.
It got model cities money five years ago, and six million dollars later, respectable families are taking the place back over.
All the apartments on that block have been fixed up at government expense.
It even has air-conditioning.
And the cops patrol regularly.
It couldn’t be safer.”

The muscles in my back tensed, but I didn’t move.
I didn’t like the idea of cops patrolling, but I also knew that a lack of police protection in this part of the city was just as bad.
Besides, the New York police had no idea that Jimmy and I were on the run.
The APB went out over a year ago, and I was certain that if anyone had looked at it, they had round-filed it long ago.

My silence must have seemed like rejection to him.
He said, “Tell you what. You stay there a couple of weeks and find out you’ll be staying longer and need a real place, you call me and I’ll give you a great apartment in a better section of Harlem for a rent-controlled price.
I’m not supposed to do that — when an old-timer moves out, we’re supposed to let the apartment go to standing rates — but we have ways, you know.
And my good customers, they benefit from it.
I’m one of the few black landlords in this part of the city, and I help our people.”

I wished I could believe him.
He probably did better than the anonymous white landlords
who
owned so much of Harlem, but that wasn’t saying much.

“I’ll tell you what,” I said, mimicking his tone. “We’ll take the apartment
o
n 114
th
sight unseen, and if we don’t like it, I’ll come back here for something better without any penalty.
We can talk about the future later. What do you say?”

The twinkle left his eye, but his smile remained.
“If that’ll make you happy.
I have an agreement right here.”

He walked back to his desk and slipped a paper forward.
On it, he wrote the address at 114
th
Street.
“Name?” he asked.

I felt relieved that Gwen hadn’t told him everything, just that a friend of hers was coming.
“Bill Grimshaw.”

“Permanent address?”

“Here,” I said.
“Let’s make this easy.”

I took out the driver’s license that I’d bought in the name Bill Grimshaw.

When he’d finished filling out the form, he slid it toward me along with a pen.
I read it, saw that the rent could go up each week if he so chose, that we could be evicted without notice, and decided to sign it anyway.

I paid him twenty-five dollars for the week in cash, along with a twenty-dollar security deposit that was supposed to be refundable.
I got my receipt and carefully put it in my wallet.

The agent went to a full board in the back room, and returned with two keys to the 114
th
Street apartment.

“We’re here until five,” he said, “should you have any problems.”

I had problems, but none of them were with the apartment.
I didn’t want to walk the path I’d set for myself, but I would.
And I didn’t want to hurt Grace, but I had a hunch I would do that
,
too.

I clutched the keys and got the boys, taking the first step toward finding Daniel, and his bombs.

THIRTY-TWO

The apartment was a third-floor walk-up in an old brick building that had been recently renovated.
Inside the main door was a small entry with a locked door, security buzzers alongside apartment numbers, and a working intercom.
A young man, his clothes so filthy that they looked like they’d been crusted to him, slept against the wall.

The building manager had been told to expect us.
I pushed the bell to his apartment, and the door buzzed without him even checking to see who was standing outside.
For all he knew, the smelly young man could have been trying to get in.

The hallway was wide and well
lit.
The paint on the wall had a few handprints, and moving scrapes from furniture being carried past, but no graffiti.
The stairs were new and didn’t creak as we went up.
The railing was made of a sturdy metal that wouldn’t buckle under repeated use.

Despite the stink in the entry, the hallway smelled of dryer lint and laundry soap.
A sign pointed down a flight of steps, indicating that the building provided its own laundry facility.

Malcolm glanced over his shoulder, as if he had expected someone to follow us inside.
No one had.
We went up the steps, Jimmy taking them two at a time.
He held one key in his right hand, reciting the apartment number under his breath as he hurried.

“Wait for us,” I called at the main landing.

Jimmy didn’t wait, though.
He skipped ahead, and I heard him as he reached the third floor.

“We’re right near the stairs.”

He made that sound like a good thing.
I supposed it was in case of fire, but for day-to-day living, it would be annoying.
Malcolm and I had reached the landing between the second and third floors when I heard the apartment door open.

“Cool, man,” Jimmy said, his voice fading.
“This is cool.”

Malcolm followed him.
I rested a moment, wiped the sweat off my face, and hoped that the promised air-conditioning was working.
Then I carried my suitcase up the remaining steps.

The hallway was dark.
The light was either burned out or turned off. At the far end, a window opened onto a fire escape.
The other apartment doors were closed, but the one nearest the steps was open.

Jimmy stood in the living room of our apartment, his suitcase on the floor beside him.
The room was long and rectangular with double windows at one end.
The windows had a window
seat built below them, and beneath the seat someone had installed cabinets.

The furniture was cheap and threadbare, but adequate. The couch was pushed against one wall.
Two easy chairs faced the window.
End tables with old lamps stood on either end of the couch.

“I don’t see no TV,” Jimmy said.

“There isn’t one,” I said. “This isn’t a hotel room.
If we want TV, we have to buy one.”

“People rip them off.” Malcolm had set his suitcase down as well.
He walked through the living room to the small kitchen beyond.
The kitchen had a butler’s window that opened into the living room.
To one side, a tiled area marked a square dining room. The table was silver Formica, with arching metal legs, and four matching chairs.