Blood Count

CHAPTER 9

Well, I’m off,” said Celestina Hutchison as she emerged from her apartment. She was wrapped in a mink coat. In one gloved hand was a leash, a black Lab at the end of it. “You all been visiting with Miss Marianna?”

We had just left Simonova’s apartment when Mrs. Hutchison appeared, popping out of her apartment like a jack-in-the-box, as if she had heard us. Lily stroked the dog’s nose. Then she introduced me.

“How do you do,” Mrs. Hutchison said. “And this is Ed, Ed for Edward ‘Duke’ Ellington, you know.” She tugged at the Lab on the leash. “Lionel’s idea. Ed’s name. I don’t care for jazz music. I must go now; my sister is expecting me. She always so looks forward to a little visit with Ed.” She said, turning to lock her door. “I always have to lock up when Lionel is home alone.

“Lily, dear, you know how he just wanders about, going out on the terrace or up on that damn roof for a smoke. It’s fine for him, but what about me? What am I to do if he drops dead from smoking? What if he just falls down dead from being out in the cold? Such selfishness.”

Moving toward the elevator, with Lily and me in tow, this tiny woman-she wasn’t five feet tall-was an imperious figure. She pressed the button, holding her dog tight on its leash.

“Are you just visiting?” she said to me.

“Yes.”

“I believe I saw you talking to Lionel earlier, you were on Marianna’s terrace. Isn’t that right? You had something to say to each other?”

“Lily asked me to fix a leak in Mrs. Simonova’s apartment.”

“It takes some gall the way that woman gets other folk to do her chores. I think she believes she’s some kind of aristocrat and we were all put upon this Earth to serve her,” said Mrs. Hutchison. “I guess I should ask how she is feeling, her being so sick, or so she claims,” she added. “Damn elevator appears to be stuck on the third floor. You’d think those people could just walk instead of holding the elevator so long.”

“Why don’t you sit down,” said Lily indicating a chair near the elevator. “I’ll hold Ed while you rest.”

“Thank you, dear girl.” She gave Ed’s leash to Lily, then snapped open her black leather purse and pulled out a little bottle of hand lotion, removed her gloves, and began to rub it into her hands.

“Jergens lotion,” said Mrs. Hutchison. “I have always favored it over the more expensive brands, like all performers back when Walter Winchell’s radio show was sponsored by Jergens, and his sign-off line was ‘With Lotions of Love.’ I enjoyed that: lotions of love, and I always did relish the cherry-almondy scent. Lotions of love,” she said again. “Nothing like it for dry skin, I have even made Lionel use it in the winter. Would you like some, Lily dear?”

The elevator arrived, finally. In it was the doorman I’d seen when I first arrived at the building. He wore a North Face jacket and a fancy peaked cap with gold braid on it. His name tag read Diaz.

“How very nice,” said Mrs. Hutchison. “We have an elevator man at long last.”

Ignoring the sarcasm, Diaz held out a stack of mail to her.

“Oh, dear, Lily, take the mail for me, won’t you please?” Mrs. Hutchison took the dog’s leash and stepped into the elevator.

Before he pressed the button to shut the door, Diaz looked at me and said, “That Caddy, that belong to you, man?”

“Right,” I said.

“You blocking the front drive, man, you wanna move it?”

“Soon as I can.”

“How about now?” said Diaz as the door slid shut.

“Poor Celestina,” Lily said, after the elevator had gone. “All she wants is to sell her ‘damn apartment,’ as she calls it, and go somewhere warm. She’s always in that ratty old mink.”

“Why doesn’t she?”

“Lionel won’t move.” Lily held out the stack of letters she had taken from Diaz. “Artie, I have to go get my purse. Can you put these under the Hutchisons’ door, the one next to Marianna’s?”

“You know everybody around here.”

“They’re old. I listen.”

“Mrs. Hutchison didn’t like Simonova. What was that about?”

“She hated Marianna. She decided Lionel was having an affair with her, if you can imagine.”

“Was he?”

“What do you think?” she said, and I took the mail from Lily, who went into her own apartment and shut the door.

Before I put the mail under the Hutchisons’ door, I glanced through it. Habit.

There were what looked like Christmas cards. A few bills. A letter from a real estate agency in Florida.

The last envelope was addressed to Dr. L. R. N. Hutchison. Idly at first, I looked at the return address. Then I opened it, carefully as I could. Inside was a letter indicating that Hutchison was a founding member of an organization promoting assisted suicide, along with a flyer announcing a new edition of a book called Final Exit.

From somewhere a radiator clanged.

From one of the apartments-I couldn’t tell which-the radio blared out an all-news station.

A toilet flushed.

Somewhere else, Ella Fitzgerald sang “Give It Back to Indians.” The words ran in my head on a loop after that-“Broadway’s turning into Coney / Champagne Charlie’s drinking gin”-and I couldn’t make it stop.

From Lily’s place I could hear the sound of a vacuum cleaner.

Behind the door of apartment 14C, a dead woman, Marianna Simonova, lay on the sofa in a freezing room.

As I got into the elevator, I looked at my watch. It was ten a.m. I’d been in the building, what was it, three hours? Four?

I felt enclosed, almost suffocated: the building, its faded grandeur, the leaking rooms and cracked plaster, the dead Russian, the Hutchisons who would never leave. Who else lived in this fortress on Sugar Hill where gargoyles guarded the door? There were signs somebody was fixing the place up, all the notices on the front door, the paint and ladders. The wallpaper on the fourteenth floor was new. And there was Lily’s behavior, febrile, scared, moody. Her claim she had killed Simonova. Had killed her friend.

There was a small window at the end of the hallway, and when I looked out, I saw the city was socked in now by snow, ice, and fog. Sleet battered the window. People in the street below were like smudges on a Japanese print.

“You thinking of moving that car or something?” said Diaz the doorman, confronting me in the lobby.

“Sure,” I said. I could see the guy was looking to assert his authority, and I wasn’t giving him any. Still, I didn’t show him my badge. I didn’t want him thinking I was here on a case, so I kept my temper. “You want to tell me where’s a good place to park?”

“Yeah, OK, I can show you,” he said. Spotting somebody at the front door, he adjusted his fancy cap and rushed to let the man in.

Black cashmere overcoat, handmade shoes, yellow scarf, the man stopped to talk to Diaz, who practically saluted. I waited.

It was Saturday morning and the Armstrong lobby was busy with people, some collecting packages from a long table near the mailbox, others lugging suitcases out of the elevator as they headed off for the weekend, or tried to. The airports were shutting down fast that day, I figured. Maybe trains, too. The city would be cut off.

A group of elderly people, two in wheelchairs, one leaning on a walker, had gathered near the fireplace; they chatted and laughed. A woman cajoled two little boys, twins, it looked like, burdened by violin cases. Saturday morning. Music lessons. The majority of people I saw that morning, though, were old. The lobby was their village green.

The old tiled floor, inset with strips of marble, was partly covered with worn Persian rugs, blue, red, pink. Dark, heavy oak furniture stood in front of the fireplace, where real logs burned. On the walls were lamps with ruffled glass shades, one of them cracked, one missing a bulb. Near the elevator was a large Obama poster. HOPE, it read.

Heavy blue velvet drapes and silky swags framed the windows, which looked out on a courtyard. Snow fell on a terrified city watching its money go down the drain. Money was New York’s blood and marrow.

I waited in the lobby for Diaz. Louis Armstrong was singing “Winter Wonderland.” The speakers were by the fireplace. The lyrics took hold of my brain. Only Louis could have made it sound OK. In this fucking festive season, the whole city was a mess of noise, too much traffic, too many tourists, and, God help me, the music.

I wanted to get out of here. Diaz was still with the cashmere coat. The man glanced at me, then asked Diaz something and slipped a bill into his hand.

Every building in New York has its own system, but it’s a seasonal thing, the Christmas cash, the yuletide tip. Leaning against the wall, I saw people dropping envelopes on Diaz, pushing money into his hand. Any way you looked at it, this was the annual payoff, this was how you got your packages faster, your cabs sooner, your kids looked after, your late night activities-parties too loud, people too strange-ignored.

New York, unlike any place on Earth, lives in its buildings as if they’re minute city-states. The people who service them have real power; without them, nothing works.

“Carver Lennox,” said the guy who had been talking to Diaz. “You’re Artie Cohen. Lily’s mentioned you,” he added, though I knew it was Diaz who’d given him my name. “Welcome to the building. Anything you need?” He was plenty self-confident. I figured him for his late thirties.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Christmas party tonight,” he said. “Whole building coming over. Sugar Hill Club. You’d be welcome. Lily can give you the address.”

“I know where it is.”

“Good for you.” He nodded slightly and moved on toward the long hall off the lobby.

Diaz finally strolled over in my direction and said, “Right, I’ll show you the parking spot, man.”

“Just tell me.”

“You won’t find it without me.”

“You only have one elevator here?” I put my hand in my pocket. Diaz watched me get out my wallet. His tone changed.

“Three,” he said. “Two for residents, one for service-we call that one the prayer elevator.” He laughed without much humor. “You gotta say a prayer when you get in it. Just like there’s two sets of stairs, main one, and they got another one back by the garbage chute that’s on every floor.” He paused. “Saw you with Mr. Lennox.”

I waited.

“President of the co-op board,” he said.

“Right.” I knew Diaz would retail anything I said. He was the kind of guy who made a living off gossip. “Can we walk? The elevator looks like it’s stuck.” I extracted a twenty and gave it to him.

“Sure,” said Diaz.

“Where you from?” I asked.

“Cuba,” he said.

Diaz pulled open a heavy door that led to a stairwell. I followed him to the basement.

“You work here every day?”

“I live here, man, or I’m supposed to, down in the basement where they got what they call an apartment. It’s a shit hole. Usually I leave one of the other guys in charge, he don’t mind much, ain’t got nowhere else to go.”

“Who’s that?”

“They call him Goofy, the Goof, ’cause he don’t have all his marbles, you know? He help out. Do some maintenance work.” He grinned. “He’s OK unless you let him play around with them fuse boxes.”