Read Online JM02 - Death's Little Helpers aka No Way Home by Peter Spiegelman - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Peter Spiegelman
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video. It specialized in works by women and by Latin American artists, and it maintained three exhibition spaces: in SoHo, in Brooklyn, and upstate on the Hudson River in Kinderhook. I looked at the gallery’s Brooklyn address. It was the same as Nina Sachs’s. I looked at the picture of the gallery’s owner. It was Ines Icasa.
4
Gregory Danes’s brick and dressed-stone apartment building squatted prosperously on 79th Street, between Lexington and Third avenues. I stood with Christopher beneath its green awning, out of the rain. Christopher was my height— just over six feet— and skinny, and he looked twenty-something going on sixty. His narrow face was pale and pocked with acne scars, and his bony fingers were cigarette-stained. His gray doorman’s uniform hung off him like skin sloughing from a snake, and his thick hair struggled beneath his uniform cap.
Christopher was happy to take my money and happy to talk to me in return, but he was nervous just then. His small eyes flitted around and he looked through the glass doors behind me, into the building’s lobby. He stiffened, locked a polite smile onto his face, and barely moved his jaw when he spoke.
“Here’s that motherfucking super; that fucking guy hates my guts. Does nothing but give me the evil eye all day. Do me a favor, man, take a walk around the block. Give it ten and come back. He’ll be gone then and we can talk.” I looked past him and nodded and headed west on 79th Street. The rain made a gentle patting sound on my umbrella.
I walked up Lex and looked into the small handsome shops that lined the street. They were full of delicate wicked-looking shoes, and stationery made from butterfly wings, and French baby clothes that were hand-stitched by blue-eyed virgins. The window displays were intricately wrought and exhibited the merchandise with fetishistic devotion, and they all made me think of Joseph Cornell. I crossed Lex at 83rd Street and went west toward Park Avenue. I meandered slowly down Park, past big old buildings of the sort Danes’s building aspired to be, and went east again on 75th. And then I headed back.
Christopher gave me a relaxed nod as he pulled open the heavy door. The lobby was wide and deep, with a vaulted ceiling and Persian rugs on the polished stone floors, and it was empty but for us. We stood in a vestibule near the entrance and Christopher’s eyes scanned the sidewalk out front. I slipped him a twenty and he made it vanish.
“That prick should be out for twenty minutes at least,” he said. “What do you want to know?”
“You work here long?” I asked.
“About a year, part-time. I fill in for the regulars when they’re on vacation or out sick. I end up pulling eight, maybe ten, shifts a month.”
“All daytime shifts?”
Christopher snorted. “I wish. Usually they shuffle the duty so I work the overnights— midnight to six.” I nodded.
“How’d you get lucky with daylight hours today?”
Christopher gave a wry smile. “Super-Prick is short-staffed the next few weeks; he had no choice.”
“You know the tenants at all?”
He shook his head. “Not really. Working the late shift I don’t see much of them, plus a lot of them are real assholes— wouldn’t piss on ’em if they were on fire.” A bronze elevator door slid open at the back of the lobby. A fiftyish woman in a Burberry trench coat got out, trailed by a dachshund in matching outerwear. She glanced at the empty concierge station and sniffed. She eyed Christopher and sniffed more loudly. She looked at me. My hair was shorter, my clothes fit better, and I had no acne scars, but she was unimpressed. Christopher said hello and held the door and she sniffed once more as she went through.
“See what I mean?” he said. I nodded sympathetically and pulled out a photo of Danes.
“You know him?”
Christopher looked at the picture and looked at me. His small eyes got smaller. “Danes, right?”
I nodded. “Seen him around?”
He
4
Gregory Danes’s brick and dressed-stone apartment building squatted prosperously on 79th Street, between Lexington and Third avenues. I stood with Christopher beneath its green awning, out of the rain. Christopher was my height— just over six feet— and skinny, and he looked twenty-something going on sixty. His narrow face was pale and pocked with acne scars, and his bony fingers were cigarette-stained. His gray doorman’s uniform hung off him like skin sloughing from a snake, and his thick hair struggled beneath his uniform cap.
Christopher was happy to take my money and happy to talk to me in return, but he was nervous just then. His small eyes flitted around and he looked through the glass doors behind me, into the building’s lobby. He stiffened, locked a polite smile onto his face, and barely moved his jaw when he spoke.
“Here’s that motherfucking super; that fucking guy hates my guts. Does nothing but give me the evil eye all day. Do me a favor, man, take a walk around the block. Give it ten and come back. He’ll be gone then and we can talk.” I looked past him and nodded and headed west on 79th Street. The rain made a gentle patting sound on my umbrella.
I walked up Lex and looked into the small handsome shops that lined the street. They were full of delicate wicked-looking shoes, and stationery made from butterfly wings, and French baby clothes that were hand-stitched by blue-eyed virgins. The window displays were intricately wrought and exhibited the merchandise with fetishistic devotion, and they all made me think of Joseph Cornell. I crossed Lex at 83rd Street and went west toward Park Avenue. I meandered slowly down Park, past big old buildings of the sort Danes’s building aspired to be, and went east again on 75th. And then I headed back.
Christopher gave me a relaxed nod as he pulled open the heavy door. The lobby was wide and deep, with a vaulted ceiling and Persian rugs on the polished stone floors, and it was empty but for us. We stood in a vestibule near the entrance and Christopher’s eyes scanned the sidewalk out front. I slipped him a twenty and he made it vanish.
“That prick should be out for twenty minutes at least,” he said. “What do you want to know?”
“You work here long?” I asked.
“About a year, part-time. I fill in for the regulars when they’re on vacation or out sick. I end up pulling eight, maybe ten, shifts a month.”
“All daytime shifts?”
Christopher snorted. “I wish. Usually they shuffle the duty so I work the overnights— midnight to six.” I nodded.
“How’d you get lucky with daylight hours today?”
Christopher gave a wry smile. “Super-Prick is short-staffed the next few weeks; he had no choice.”
“You know the tenants at all?”
He shook his head. “Not really. Working the late shift I don’t see much of them, plus a lot of them are real assholes— wouldn’t piss on ’em if they were on fire.” A bronze elevator door slid open at the back of the lobby. A fiftyish woman in a Burberry trench coat got out, trailed by a dachshund in matching outerwear. She glanced at the empty concierge station and sniffed. She eyed Christopher and sniffed more loudly. She looked at me. My hair was shorter, my clothes fit better, and I had no acne scars, but she was unimpressed. Christopher said hello and held the door and she sniffed once more as she went through.
“See what I mean?” he said. I nodded sympathetically and pulled out a photo of Danes.
“You know him?”
Christopher looked at the picture and looked at me. His small eyes got smaller. “Danes, right?”
I nodded. “Seen him around?”
He
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