The Wicked City Read online

  “Hello?” she called. “Anyone there?”

  No reply. Ella became conscious of all the windows stacked up around her, the curious New York eyes behind them. On the other side of the street, a pair of men walked briskly, heads bent under the drizzle. Probably glancing her way and thinking she was some kind of crazy, some kind of loony, out this late in her bathrobe and slippers, maybe locked herself out, maybe tossed out by her jealous boyfriend. A taxi turned the corner of Bedford and crawled down the street, between the rows of parked cars.

  She tried again, a little more loudly. “Does someone need help? Can I call the police?”

  Ella knew she was dancing along a fine, narrow line. Seven or eight million people crammed into one city with any number of wackos and crack-heads, you had to look out for each other. On the other hand, you also had to know when to mind your own business and walk on, walk on. Let people take care of their own. Let the secrets stay secret, the hidden stay hidden. Lest you find your own business ripped open and exposed to the world.

  The taxi’s headlights flashed by. The street lay quiet around her. She turned away from the railing and went back up the steps, and that was when she realized that the two strangers were right about one thing.

  She’d run straight out of the building without her key.

  “CAN I MAKE YOU A cup of coffee or something?” Hector asked as they climbed the stairs.

  Ella opened her mouth to decline. “Sure,” she heard herself say. “I mean, no. It’s so late.”

  “No worries.”

  “I’m sorry if I woke you up, buzzing you like that.”

  “Like I said, no worries. I wasn’t asleep.”

  “It was such a stupid thing to do.”

  Hector stopped, forcing her to turn around on the narrow stairs and look at him. “Ella, has anyone ever told you that you apologize too much? It’s no big deal. Everyone gets locked out sometime. You buzz your neighbor. Your neighbor lets you in. It’s the code. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Now,” he said, prodding her in the small of her back, “you get on up there. I’m going to make coffee. You can join me or not.”

  She resumed climbing. “Okay.”

  “Okay, you’ll join me?”

  “No point wasting good coffee.”

  “I also have a bottle of good Kentucky bourbon, if that works better for you.”

  “Do I look like I could use a shot of bourbon?”

  He chuckled behind her. “Ella, you don’t take a shot of bourbon. You drink it from a glass, nice and slow. With or without ice. You take your time and savor it.”

  “Oh. Sure.”

  “And yes, by the way. You do look like you could use a glass of bourbon. Didn’t I warn you about going down to that laundry room at night?”

  “Yes.”

  “And did you listen?”

  “Obviously not.”

  They’d reached the last landing, on the fifth floor. Ella hadn’t been up this far; she’d glanced, over her shoulder, just before she fit the key in her lock. Just out of curiosity, of course, and not because she was hoping for a glimpse of Hector leaving his apartment, Hector entering his apartment, beautiful Hector taking a pizza delivery in his boxer shorts. But she’d never climbed that last flight of stairs. Nothing up there but Hector’s pad. He didn’t even have a letter after his apartment number; it was just apt 5 on the list of buttons in the vestibule.

  His door lay at the end of a short hall, where the stairwell met the wall. He slipped past her and reached inside his pocket. A furious scratching started up on the other side of the door, like something was trying to dig a hole.

  “Do you have a dog?” Ella asked.

  “That would be Nellie. Vicious attack animal. Watch out.”

  Hector opened the door, and a brown-and-white blur shot through the crack and hurled itself into his legs, licking and whimpering, making small, delighted yaps like the bark of a seal. “Nellie! Nellie, babe. There you are. Who’s a good girl? Whoa, take it easy, babe, only been away five minutes, you big numbskull. Down, Nellie. Mind your manners. Look, we got a guest.”

  The dog turned—a King Charles spaniel, Ella saw—and unleashed another fusillade on Ella’s knees.

  “Get down, Nellie. Jeez. I’m sorry, it’s like she loves everybody. Hope you’re a dog person.”

  Ella bent down and stroked Nellie’s long ears, like a pair of brown corn-silk tassels. Angled her face so that the desperate kisses landed just to the left of her mouth, instead of square on the lips. “I totally am a dog person,” she said. “Nellie as in Nell Gwyn?”

  “Very good, Sherlock. You’re the only one who’s picked that up.”

  “I love history. Kind of funny, actually. My full name’s Eleanor, too. How old is she?”

  “Four.” He crouched down next to Ella and put his hand on the spaniel’s wriggling back. “She was my mom’s dog. We got her a puppy to cheer her up, before her final round of chemo.”

  “So you’re a very special dog, aren’t you, Nellie?” Ella watched her twist about and return to Hector, calmer now, snuggling her nose into the corner of his elbow.

  “Very special.” He straightened and pushed the door fully open. “After you. Yeah, you, too, Nellie. Come on. Don’t give me the puppy eyes, babe. We both know you already had your walk. Shoo. In you go. Show Ella inside. Atta girl.”

  The first thing Ella noticed inside Hector’s apartment was the piano, a full-size grand Steinway that stood before the row of three windows overlooking the street. The lid was closed, and a thick plaid blanket covered the entirety of the case. A brass instrument lay on the lid’s edge. Ella stepped closer and saw it was a trumpet.

  “Wow,” she said. “You’re a musician.”

  “Guilty. Hope it doesn’t bother you. I try to keep it muted late at night, but luckily the other residents actually like hearing my stuff, for some strange reason.”

  Ella turned. Hector was already in the kitchen area, opening a cabinet door while Nellie circled his feet. He was wearing a short-sleeved gray T-shirt and sweatpants, his dark hair strewn carelessly back from his face, looking like a canine early in the era of domestication. “Wait. Is that you? Playing at night?”

  “Damn. Is it bothering you?”

  “No, not at all. You’re amazing. I thought it was—well, coming from downstairs.”

  Hector set down a bottle, half-full of amber liquid, and a bag of coffee. “What’ll it be, Ella? Uppers or downers?”

  She crossed her arms. “So I have to confess something. I’ve never drunk bourbon before.”

  “No kidding?”

  “No kidding.”

  “Then I kind of think you should give it a try. Not that I’m pushing you in any one direction. You probably have to go to work in a few hours, right?”

  “True. But I’m really, really not looking forward to it. So …?”

  “So … bourbon?”

  “What the hell.”

  “Atta girl.” He unscrewed the lid and walked toward her. “First, you have to smell it.”

  “Like wine?”

  “Naw. Nothing so snobby as that.” He stopped before her and tilted the neck of the bottle in her direction. The room was lit by a pair of antique wall sconces—probably original, to the building if not to the room itself—and the glow turned his olive skin an even deeper shade of gold. The two lights appeared as small white dots in his pupils. “Just breathe it in. For your own enjoyment. Preview of coming attractions.”

  She leaned forward and sniffed delicately at the opening. “Holy cow. How strong is that?”

  “Eighty proof, I guess. But it’s the flavor you’re going for. Bourbon has this distinctive smell. Made mostly from corn mash, instead of rye or barley, like your typical Scotch malt.”

  “It’s kind of spicy? Warm?”

  Hector tilted the bottle back toward his own nose, right where hers had been, and breathed deep. “Ahh. Almost as good as drinking it. Ice or no ice?”

 
“Which do you recommend?”

  “I like it without. Room temperature. You really get the flavor that way. But if you like your drinks cold …” He walked back to the corner of the room that formed the kitchen and pulled two lowball glasses from an open shelf. It was a funny kind of kitchen, neither modern nor traditional. Simple wooden surfaces and shelves, unadorned cabinets. Almost homemade looking, except everything fit together in perfect lines. A single pendant lamp hung from the ceiling, which must have been at least nine or ten feet high.

  “No,” Ella said slowly. “I think I’ll try it warm.”

  “Awesome. Hang tight.” He crouched a few inches as he poured, staring carefully at the bourbon as it streamed into each glass. The pendant cast a pair of sharp, thick shadows under his cheekbones, which were maybe a little too high and wide, now that she thought about it, throwing his face out of the fine proportion required for textbook beauty. But Ella admired them anyway. In a completely nonsexual way, of course. Hector straightened, set down the bottle, and lifted a glass in each hand. “Ready?”

  Ella moved closer to the counter and reached over to take her glass from Hector’s fingers. “Ready as I’ll ever be. Cheers.”

  “Cheers. Now, hold on, there, Silver. Sip slow. Just a taste to start. You won’t like it at first. You have to give it time. Kind of like getting acquainted with someone complicated.”

  Ella set her lips on the edge of the glass and brought the bourbon forward, until it touched the tip of her tongue.

  “That’s right,” Hector said, watching her closely. “What do you think?”

  “It’s—it’s great.”

  “Liar.”

  She laughed and tried again. “Okay. It’s like being hit by a club.”

  “That’s more like it.” Hector took a drink and turned around to lean back against the counter, palming the glass and swishing the liquid gently along the sides.

  “Nice kitchen, by the way.”

  “You like it? I actually put it in myself.”

  “No. Way.”

  “Way.”

  “You’re a carpenter?”

  “I’m a musician, Ella. Actually a composer, which is even worse. So I had to find another trade to keep me solvent, right? Didn’t want to sponge off my parents all my life.”

  “You know what? I don’t think I’ve ever met a carpenter in New York. Not one who lives in Manhattan, anyway.”

  “I made a deal with the landlord when I took the place. I do all the carpentry-type fix-it stuff around here, and I get a deal on the rent. So what do you think? Feeling better now?”

  “Much.”

  “You were pretty freaked out, there, for a minute.”

  “Yes, Hector. I was pretty freaked out by the screaming woman in the basement next door.”

  “Fair enough. But it’s all good now, right? We went back down, didn’t hear anything. If someone was really in trouble, you’d be hearing something, trust me. Plus, Nellie would go nuts, right? Dogs are sensitive to all that stuff. Smarter than we are.”

  “I guess so.”

  “That’s why the other tenants don’t mind me playing at night,” he said. “Drowns out anything from downstairs.”

  “Like screaming?”

  He shrugged. “Some weird shit goes down sometimes.”

  “I don’t understand. Why don’t the police get involved?”

  “Who knows? Maybe the owner has an arrangement. Look, it’s New York, right? We cater to every taste in this town. As long as it’s consensual, you can have your letch as long as I have mine.”

  “I don’t know. That screaming didn’t sound consensual to me.”

  Hector shrugged. “Look, my bedroom window overlooks the back. If I see anyone bleeding or hiding a body, I’ll call the police. Is it getting any better? The bourbon?”

  Ella looked down at her glass, which was less full than she thought it would be. “Actually, it kind of is. Like drinking fire, but in a good way.” She pushed off from the counter and wandered back to the piano. Nellie, who had settled into an alert, silken pile at Hector’s feet, leapt up to follow. Her claws scrabbled like jacks on the wooden floor.

  “You like music, then?” Hector called after her.

  “Love music. My grandmother’s a cellist. She taught me how to play the piano first, then she let me play her instrument.”

  “No kidding? You can play the cello?”

  “Played it all the way through college. But I was never going to be as good as her. I mean, I loved it. I was a passionate player, you know? I just couldn’t get my fingers to move like hers.”

  “You want to jam a little?”

  “Jam? Right now?”

  “Sure.” Hector moved past her and set his glass on the piano lid. “No cello, but I’ve got a string bass you can try.”

  “You mean, like, jazz?”

  “If you like. Jazz, whatever. I can do pretty much anything.” He flipped open the keyboard cover and stood there, washed by the yellow street lamp outside, bare arms lean and poised, head turned a little to one side. His fingers started to run along the keys, awakening a ripple of delicate sound that went straight to Ella’s belly. He nodded to the corner. “Bass is over there.”

  Ella took a deep breath and swallowed down the rest of the bourbon. Her throat burned, her brain gasped for air.

  “How about some Beethoven?” she said.

  AN HOUR AND ANOTHER COUPLE of glasses of bourbon later, they were sitting side by side on the piano bench, thigh by thigh, playing Gershwin. Laughing. Ella had discarded her bathrobe, and her bare arm moved next to his bare arm. Muscles plucking in rhythm. Nellie lay curled under the bench, snoring softly in the rests between measures.

  “See, the thing about Gershwin, which I love,” Hector said, “is that he isn’t one or the other. He’s deep, so deep. I mean, the notes are, like, revolutionary. But he’s talking about you and me. He isn’t afraid to connect at an emotional level.”

  “He’s not trying to show off to the academy,” Ella agreed. “He writes for his audience. He wants to move you.”

  “He gets you right here.” Hector makes a quick fist and presses it to his chest, almost without missing a note. “Lyrical. But complicated and unexpected, right? And it’s so effortless, you don’t realize how genius it is until you take it apart.”

  Ella made a last arpeggio and lifted her hands away. “I once acted in a school production of Porgy and Bess, believe it or not.”

  “No kidding. Who did you play?”

  “Bess. We only had one African-American girl in my class, and she hated singing. It was kind of weird, but it worked.”

  “Awesome.” He closed his eyes and flowed into “Summertime.” “You must have lived in some serious white-bread suburb.”

  “Yeah. Grew up in Arlington. My dad’s a lawyer.”

  “And your mom?”

  “Law professor. And she models, believe it or not. Just for fun, and I guess to keep her ego stroked. Not that it needs stroking. She’s like this glamorous fiftysomething who looks good in everything.”

  “Ha. I love your mom. My girlfriend’s a model.”

  Ella, in the act of swallowing the very last drop of bourbon, started to cough. “Wow. Nice.”

  Hector laughed. “It’s not like that. What do I look like, some kind of smarmy modelizer? Hanging out in clubs?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Naw, I don’t have the bank for it. They’re expensive, those girls. Also kind of young. No, she’s a hand model, actually.”

  “A hand model.”

  “You know, like Nivea advertisements. Gloves and jewelry. Especially jewelry. She’s in that Tiffany engagement ring ad on the subway right now.”

  “Wait, I’ve seen those. The big solitaire? She’s pulling a ribbon?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Seriously? Those are her hands?”

  “Wild, huh? She had, like, a six a.m. call for that one. So she doesn’t stay over often. I wouldn’t
get any work done.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “I mean, Ella, if you would get your mind out of the gutter”—he bumped his gray jersey shoulder against hers—“that she has to be in bed at ten o’clock with her oven mitts on. And that’s exactly when my brain starts making music.”

  “Oh. That’s a pain.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think we thought that one through very well. What about you? What’s your story?” He shifted abruptly into something else, kind of jaunty. Ella didn’t recognize the tune. “What twist of fate brought you here to Eleven Christopher?”

  “Oh, you know.” Ella stared at her bare, ringless fingers. “Just needed a new place to live, that’s all. Look, I should really get going. I do need to be at work tomorrow morning.”

  “Oh, yeah? Doing what?”

  “I’m an accountant,” she said, and this time remembered to add quickly, “a forensic accountant.”

  “Forensics, huh? You get to find out where all the dead bodies are buried?”

  “Pretty much. And where they hid the money first.”

  “Well, that is some seriously cool shit. You’re like Sherlock Holmes.”

  “I keep a pipe and a deerstalker in my desk drawer.”

  “Don’t forget the opium.”

  “Cheaper than therapy, I always say.”

  He chuckled and moved into another tune, gentle and tickling, which Ella didn’t recognize. “So do you like what you do?”

  “Most of the time.” She paused. “Actually, it kind of sucks right now. I just got assigned to the same company as my ex. So I kept expecting to see him in the lobby or the elevator.”

  “Man. Stressful. Big company?”

  “Pretty big. Luckily, it’s not his department or anything. I’ll just deal.”

  “Be strong, like you are.”

  The words took a strange shape inside her ears. Ella had never thought of herself as particularly strong. Her mother was strong. Her sister was strong. Her father had a quiet, unshakable strength that awed her. But Ella? She only felt strong from the inside of a piece of music. Or a spreadsheet.