avoid the crowd out front, I used the rear exit.
Night had just fallen, and I strolled through it for a block before flagging a cab.
The address I gave the driver belonged to a pale-orange brick apartment building in the West Fifties. The green awning was faded and, judging by the debris gathered in the stairwell to the basement entrance, the smudges on the glass front door left by a hundred fingers, the junk mail and freebie tabloids cluttering the tiny vestibule, and the burnt-out bulbs in its cheap chandelier, the superintendent of the Corey Apartments wasn't very house-proud.
That made me wonder if instead of pressing a lot of buzzers and getting residents all stirred up I shouldn't just check to see if the door separating the apartments from the vestibule might be unlocked.
It was.
I decided to avoid the tiny and undoubtedly dangerous elevator. Instead, I climbed up three flights of carpeted stairwell. I arrived gasping from the exercise and the dust. I swore that as soon as this was over, I'd start working out. No joke.
According to her employment form, Melody Moon lived in apartment 319. The improbably named Ms. Moon was the beautiful blackteenage chef wannabe who'd caught the eye of Rudy Gallagher at our ill-fated
Food School
pilot shoot.
There was a cartoon daisy painted at eye level on the dark wooden door to 319. I pressed the buzzer and almost immediately heard the slap of approaching feet.
"Who's there?" a feminine voice inquired.
"Billy Blessing."
There was a metallic click, and the bright-yellow center of the cartoon daisy was replaced by an eyeball.
"Wow," the voice said. "It
is
you."
Chains rattled. Locks unclicked. Eventually the door opened on an undernourished, milk-pale young woman in her twenties with spiked, dark-blue hair and a tattoo of the Batman logo on her arm. She was wearing a tattered tee featuring the cat and dog from the
Get Fuzzy
comic strip, pink cargo shorts, and matching flip-flops.
Definitely not Melody Moon.
"Wow," she said again. "Chef Billy Blessing. Come on in."
I entered a bright room with royal-blue walls trimmed in butter yellow. Rainbow-hued shag carpets were scattered on a light hardwood floor. Twin pink stuffed chairs flanked a large flat-screen TV/DVD player combo that had been trimmed in press-on zebra-striped paper. On the walls were anime cells and original comic art in frames that picked up the TV's zebra-stripe motif.
It was like walking onto a set at Cartoon Network.
"I guess you're looking for Melody," the young woman told me. "That's so sweet of you. She's out on a grocery run, but she'll be back soon. I'm her roommate, Rita Margolis."
She extended an ink-and-paint-stained hand with nails bitten to the quick. Her grip was firm and no-nonsense.
"Sit down," she suggested, indicating a maroon couch that seemed to have been made from densely packed sheets of cardboard. It was more comfortable than it looked, but then, it would have had to be.
"We don't really need the groceries," Rita said. "I just thought it was a good idea to keep Melody occupied. She's taking her fiance's death really hard."
I let the fiance comment go unquestioned. Instead I asked, "When did she find out?"
"It popped on the news a couple of hours ago. Melody freaked, but in a scary way. No tears. Just sort of froze, staring at the TV, evenafter I turned it off. Then she started talking, only, like, to herself, not to me."
"What was she saying?"
'This isn't happening. Rudy and I are in love.' Stuff like that. I feel so bad for her."
"Sounds like she might be in shock," I said.
"No. I know shock. I studied nursing, back before I began my creative phase. Melody's tough. I think she's just working it out.
"Like something to drink, chef? A cosmo? A negroni? Test me. I used to tend bar at Ganglion."
I'd never heard of Ganglion, which I suspected was a good thing. "I'm fine," I said.
In front of me was an antique footlocker standing in for a coffee table. Painted powder blue.
Night had just fallen, and I strolled through it for a block before flagging a cab.
The address I gave the driver belonged to a pale-orange brick apartment building in the West Fifties. The green awning was faded and, judging by the debris gathered in the stairwell to the basement entrance, the smudges on the glass front door left by a hundred fingers, the junk mail and freebie tabloids cluttering the tiny vestibule, and the burnt-out bulbs in its cheap chandelier, the superintendent of the Corey Apartments wasn't very house-proud.
That made me wonder if instead of pressing a lot of buzzers and getting residents all stirred up I shouldn't just check to see if the door separating the apartments from the vestibule might be unlocked.
It was.
I decided to avoid the tiny and undoubtedly dangerous elevator. Instead, I climbed up three flights of carpeted stairwell. I arrived gasping from the exercise and the dust. I swore that as soon as this was over, I'd start working out. No joke.
According to her employment form, Melody Moon lived in apartment 319. The improbably named Ms. Moon was the beautiful blackteenage chef wannabe who'd caught the eye of Rudy Gallagher at our ill-fated
Food School
pilot shoot.
There was a cartoon daisy painted at eye level on the dark wooden door to 319. I pressed the buzzer and almost immediately heard the slap of approaching feet.
"Who's there?" a feminine voice inquired.
"Billy Blessing."
There was a metallic click, and the bright-yellow center of the cartoon daisy was replaced by an eyeball.
"Wow," the voice said. "It
is
you."
Chains rattled. Locks unclicked. Eventually the door opened on an undernourished, milk-pale young woman in her twenties with spiked, dark-blue hair and a tattoo of the Batman logo on her arm. She was wearing a tattered tee featuring the cat and dog from the
Get Fuzzy
comic strip, pink cargo shorts, and matching flip-flops.
Definitely not Melody Moon.
"Wow," she said again. "Chef Billy Blessing. Come on in."
I entered a bright room with royal-blue walls trimmed in butter yellow. Rainbow-hued shag carpets were scattered on a light hardwood floor. Twin pink stuffed chairs flanked a large flat-screen TV/DVD player combo that had been trimmed in press-on zebra-striped paper. On the walls were anime cells and original comic art in frames that picked up the TV's zebra-stripe motif.
It was like walking onto a set at Cartoon Network.
"I guess you're looking for Melody," the young woman told me. "That's so sweet of you. She's out on a grocery run, but she'll be back soon. I'm her roommate, Rita Margolis."
She extended an ink-and-paint-stained hand with nails bitten to the quick. Her grip was firm and no-nonsense.
"Sit down," she suggested, indicating a maroon couch that seemed to have been made from densely packed sheets of cardboard. It was more comfortable than it looked, but then, it would have had to be.
"We don't really need the groceries," Rita said. "I just thought it was a good idea to keep Melody occupied. She's taking her fiance's death really hard."
I let the fiance comment go unquestioned. Instead I asked, "When did she find out?"
"It popped on the news a couple of hours ago. Melody freaked, but in a scary way. No tears. Just sort of froze, staring at the TV, evenafter I turned it off. Then she started talking, only, like, to herself, not to me."
"What was she saying?"
'This isn't happening. Rudy and I are in love.' Stuff like that. I feel so bad for her."
"Sounds like she might be in shock," I said.
"No. I know shock. I studied nursing, back before I began my creative phase. Melody's tough. I think she's just working it out.
"Like something to drink, chef? A cosmo? A negroni? Test me. I used to tend bar at Ganglion."
I'd never heard of Ganglion, which I suspected was a good thing. "I'm fine," I said.
In front of me was an antique footlocker standing in for a coffee table. Painted powder blue.
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