to pick something up from Luisa Sandoval in 216,â I lied. âIâm from the Independent Journal .â
âThen buzz Luisa Sandoval in 216,â the voice slurred.
âSheâs not there,â I replied. âSheâs on assignment, but she left a file with her story for this weekâs edition outside her apartment. He phoned me and told me to come and get it.â
âCome and get it!â the guy shouted, then laughed. He was definitely drunk, and it was barely mid-afternoon.
âPlease, weâre on deadline.â
âAw, Chriseâ¦â
The door then buzzed and I entered. A few moments later a man lurched out. He was about sixty, grey, unshaven, with a bushy moustache and glasses, and was dressed in sweatpants and a muscle shirt so old he might still have had muscles when he bought.
âHi, thanks for coming out,â I said.
âComing out, bullshit. Iâm straight as a goddamn arrow.â
âWhat I mean is, thanks for letting me in so I can get Louieâs story.â
âWho the hellâs Louie?â
Apparently not everyone called her that. âLuisa Sandoval, in 216.â
âYou said she was gone.â
âShe is, but I need to go up to her apartment so I can get her copy for the story sheâs working on. She told me it was in an envelope labeled Burger Heaven.â
The truth was, of course, I had no idea what kind of file she might have left or in what format.
âI donâ know anything about what she does,â the manager drawled. âBurger Heaven, huh? Owned by the damned church.â
Sure, whatever.
Since I knew Louie had not actually left an envelope outside her apartment, at least Iâd be extremely surprised to find that she had, I had to get inside her place. It was time for phase two of the pretense.
âHey, my cell phoneâs vibrating,â I told the manager.
âLucky you.â
I pretended to take a call: âBeauchampâ¦Louie, hi! Yeah, Iâm at your place. Oh, okay. Yeah, heâs right here. Yeah, sure, Iâll ask him. Great. Okay, thanks.â Turning back to the drunken manager I said, âThat was Louie. She forgot to put the envelope in the hallway, so she asked if you could let me in to her place. Itâs on her dining table.â
He leveled a bleary look at me. âYou really think Iâd open up the apartment of a tenant for some asshole I never met?â
âBut Iâve already introduced myself,â I countered, even though I hadnât, fully. âSo how about it?â
âDepends.â
âOn?â
âOn whether youâre willing to make it worth my while.â
I sighed and reached for my wallet, and found that Andrew Jackson made the case much better than I could have.
Even heâs a better lawyer than you , Mitchum said in my head.
The manager led me to the elevator and once confined inside with the guy the booze fumes were nearly overpowering. By the time we got off on the buildingâs second floor, I was practically gasping for clean air.
Taking me to apartment 216, he managed to open the door with his passkey on the third try. Before pushing the door open, though, he turned to me and attempted to give me the Robert DeNiro âIâm watchinâ youâ gesture, but managed instead to give himself a Three Stooges eye poke with his own fingers. I tried not to laugh.
âIâll only be a second,â I told him, entering the room and turning on the light.
At first I thought that Luisa Sandoval, for all her personal charm, must be an unmitigated slob, because the place was not simply a mess, it was a catastrophe. Then I realized that I wasnât looking at a messy apartment, I was looking at one that had been tossed. Just like my office had been broken into.
Except the person or persons here had clearly been searching for something.
Was it the same person or persons?
âGonna be all day?â the