CHAPTER FOUR
Wilsonia Avenue was populated with a hodgepodge of brick and stone-faced buildings four to ten stories tall, scarred, slumping and stained with age. Most had been built between the advent of the electric light and the beginning of World War II and none had aged well. Big Jim felt as if he was looking at the architectural equivalent of an old folk’s home, the inhabitants forgotten, tired, and sagging, but still not yet quite ready to let go of life.
“There it is, on the right,” Big Jim said and Chris pulled the Malibu in behind a dented Civic that seemed as weary as the building in front of which it was parked. At one time the entrance might have had a lock but those days were long gone and the front door opened with only a rattling squeak.
“509,” Big Jim said, checking his notes.
“I remember. We’ll get our exercise today.” Chris headed for the stairs just beyond a vandalized bank of mailboxes. “Before 1952 the building code didn’t require elevators in apartment houses under six stories,” Chris said, half over his shoulder. Big Jim followed behind and secretly prayed that he wouldn’t have to ask Chris to stop halfway up so that he could catch his breath. “That’s why so many of the buildings around here are five stories high.” Big Jim ignored Chris and concentrated on the stairs in front of him. As they passed the third floor Big Jim began to breathe through his mouth.
“How do you suppose they get a refrigerator up to the top floor?” Chris asked, if anything seeming to accelerate his pace. “In Amsterdam, they have piers sticking out from the roofs with a block and tackle on the end so that they can hoist furniture up to the top floor. There’s nothing like that in this building.”
With his heart pounding, Big Jim sucked in a lung-full of air and, head down, half-staggered into the fifth-floor hallway.
“You OK, Jim?” Chris asked. Normally a pale pink, from the neck up the skin on Big Jim’s face now looked like he had spent the last half hour exposed to the desert sun.
“I’m fine,” Big Jim rasped, his voice tired and thin.
Chris started to speak, then stopped himself. One of the things Chris had learned from Big Jim was that what he thought he said and what other people heard him say were often, usually, two different things. Like planning a chess match three moves ahead, Big Jim had taught Chris to think through his comments before speaking.
Do you need to rest? No, that might sound as if Chris thought Big Jim was too frail to do his job. You should exercise more — No, that sounded as if he thought that Big Jim needed his advice about how to live his life. That would be presumptuous and wrong. In fact, it was Chris who, daily, required Big Jim’s advice.
Big Jim took a few more deep breaths, then shrugged and gave Chris a little smile.
“Not used to all those stairs,” Big Jim wheezed then walked past Chris on rubber legs.
Number 509 was halfway down the scuffed hall. The smell of overcooked peppers and garlic and stale cigarettes clung to the walls. Big Jim knocked politely, not the way most cops did, pounding with the meat of their fists and shouting, “Metro Police! Open up!” but more like the pizza guy, almost softly, hoping that the other tenants wouldn’t hear him, peek through their doors and then rob him on his way down the stairs.
The peephole went momentarily dark and Big Jim held up his badge. “Darja’s been in an accident,” Big Jim said. “I need to talk with you for a couple of minutes. Please open the door.”
The silence lasted about three seconds then the peephole brightened and they heard the clatter of the lock being turned. The door opened four inches on a chain and a small, brown face peered through the gap. Big Jim opened the flap on his case and held out his picture ID.
