Fresh Disasters

15

Bob Cantor packed his car and left his Brooklyn apartment.

Stone Barrington, he reflected, was his favorite client, not because he gave him the most work but because the work was always interesting. Cantor had kicked open his share of bedroom doors, but this was a new wrinkle, and he was looking forward to it.

He drove into Manhattan and up the FDR Drive, then got off at Sixty-third Street and drove toward Park Avenue. He parked in a very expensive garage just off Park, took his large equipment case, the one with the wheels, and his tripod from the trunk, then walked down Park until he reached the building in question. It was a steel-and-glass tower of around fifteen stories, very slim and elegant, and he could only guess at what the apartments cost. He stood to one side of the building and looked up.

What he saw was an array of tall buildings, but the one that interested him most was directly across the street, a prewar co-op with a limestone facade and the usual awning. A doorman stood out front, rocking on his heels, waiting to open a taxi door for somebody. Cantor crossed the street and approached the doorman.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Morning, sir,” the doorman, a paunchy man in his fifties, replied. “Can I be of service?”

“Is the super around?”

“No, he’s in the hospital; had his tonsils out. Ain’t that something, a guy his age having his tonsils out?” He laughed in a way that made Cantor think the guy didn’t like his boss much.

“That’s a good one,” Cantor chuckled. “How would you like to make five hundred bucks?”

The doorman stopped rocking on his heels and eyed him warily. “We’re not allowed to murder the building’s occupants.”

“No violence involved. I just want to take some photographs up and down Park Avenue from the top of your building. There’s probably part of the roof devoted to equipment, that’s separate from the penthouse property, isn’t there? You know, air conditioning, satellite dishes, that sort of thing.”

“Yes, there is.”

“Good view of Park from that spot?”

The doorman nodded. “A very good view.” He looked at Cantor for a moment, then took a deep breath.

Cantor cut him off. “Five hundred is the max. I’ll need to be up there until dark, probably, and if I don’t get what I need, I’ll have to come back tomorrow, and in that case, it’s another two hundred.”

“You’re not a cat burglar?”

“I’m a retired cop.” Cantor flashed his badge.

“Name?”

“That’s all you need to know.”

Another doorman appeared from inside. “I’ll take the outside for a while, Tim.”

“Okay,” the doorman replied. “I’ve got to run this guy up to the utility area, anyway.” He took a clump of keys from the doorman’s station in the lobby and motioned with his head for Cantor to follow. They rode up in the elevator to the sixteenth floor in silence, then got off. “I don’t want to know what this is about, do I?”

Cantor shook his head. “Why would you? It doesn’t involve any of the people who live in your building.”

The doorman led him to a door marked “Staff Only,” unlocked it, then led him up a flight of stairs to another door, marked “Utilities.” He unlocked that and held it open for Cantor. “This what you’re looking for?”

Cantor walked through a forest of antennae and steel boxes to the parapet and looked up and down Park Avenue, noting especially his view of the building across the street and the angle to the penthouse terrace. “This will do,” he said.

The doorman made a motion with his fingers, and Cantor took five folded hundred-dollar bills from a pocket and handed them to him.

“The doors will lock themselves when you come downstairs,” the doorman said, “and the elevator won’t stop until it gets to the ground floor. If you need to piss, there’s a drainpipe over there.” He nodded at the corner. “Don’t leave no trash, and if you see any of the building tenants, try not to look like a criminal.”

“Got it,” Cantor said. “And thanks very much.” The two men shook hands, and the doorman left. Cantor walked back to the parapet and surveyed the penthouse apartment across the street and two stories below him. “Fucking perfect,” he said aloud. He set up his tripod and began unpacking equipment.

He affixed a very long lens to the electronic camera and sighted the terrace, then he screwed on a Polaroid filter, in case he wanted to shoot through the sliding glass doors. When he was satisfied that he was ready for anything, he set a portable radio beside him, already tuned to a classical station, then he opened a folding camp stool, sat down and took a sandwich and a Diet Coke from his case. It was a nice day, and an al fresco lunch was just the thing. He stayed there all afternoon, occasionally stretching his legs but always with an eye on the penthouse across the street.

At five-thirty sharp, Bernard Finger left his office in the Seagram Building on Park Avenue at Fifty-second Street and stepped into his waiting limo. The driver closed the door and got in while Finger settled himself in the custom leather backseat. He pressed a button, and the window between himself and the driver lowered a foot. “You know where,” he said, then he raised the window and picked up the telephone beside him, pressing a speed-dial number.

“Hello?” She sounded cheerful.

“Hello, dearest,” Finger said. “How was your day?”

“It was okay; I did a little shopping.”

This was not the time to call her on her shopping addiction. “Dearest, I’m headed to a client meeting out of the office, and then I’m going to have to take him to dinner, so you’ll have to count me out for this evening. I’m sorry.”

There was a long, deadly silence. “Bernie,” she said, finally, “you’re fucking somebody.” It wasn’t a question.

“You’re absolutely right, dearest; I’m fucking the guy who’s suing my client. It’s what I do.”

“You’re out three or four nights a week, Bernie, and I know you too well not to think that you’re following your dick somewhere.”

“I’m just following the money, dearest, which is what keeps you in such style, isn’t it? If I were home for dinner every night, you’d have to close half a dozen charge accounts.” She thought in shopping terms; she’d understand that.

She sighed. “All right, but you remember that we have the theater tomorrow night. It’s a benefit performance for Beatrice’s charity, and there’s dinner to follow. That means black tie and in the car at seven thirty.”

“I’ve already cleared the decks for that, dearest; I won’t disappoint you.” He certainly wouldn’t; that would create a marital nuclear event, whose shock wave would break windows in New Jersey. “I’ll try not to wake you when I come home.”

“You do that.” She hung up without saying good-bye.

He replaced the phone in its cradle, poured himself a short single-malt Scotch and tossed it down. He wanted his blood flowing freely by the time the elevator reached the penthouse and the lovely Marilyn.