The Heckler

THE BUILDING ONFranklin Street was an elegant dwelling which, some twenty years ago, had been among the most aristocratic of apartment houses. Time and the vagaries of the taste makers, a fickleness which shifted the desirability of neighborhoods from the south side to the north side with the swiftness of summer lightning, had combined to render Franklin Street no longer as desirable as the buildings to the south. The local joke now was that no one went to the north side unless it was to take a steamer to Europe, and the bromide was not very far from the truth. But the buildings on Franklin Street had not succumbed to the shoddy encroachments of the slums as had some of the buildings within the territory of the 87th Precinct, buildings which had once been princely and which had slowly been strangled by the octopus of poverty. The buildings on Franklin Street still had doormen and elevator operators. There were no profanities scrawled on the walls of the entrance foyers. The rents in these now-unfashionable buildings were still very fashionably high.

Which led Carella to wonder how a man like John Smith, who had been existing on his social security checks, could afford to live in a joint like 457 Franklin Street. Carella stood on the sidewalk underneath the green canopy and looked into the entrance foyer. A doorman standing just inside the glass entrance doors stared out at him, opened one of the doors in anticipation, and came out onto the sidewalk.

“Help you, sir?” he asked.

“Yes. I’m trying to locate one of your tennants, a man named John Smith.”

“Yes, sir, he’s one of our tenants,” the doorman said. “But he ain’t around right now. In fact, I ain’t seen him for quite some time.”

“For how long?”

“Oh, since last month some time.”

“Mmm. How long has he been living here, would you know?”

“Just a few months, sir.”

“When did he move in, would you say?”

The doorman studied Carella narrowly. “Are you a friend of his?” he asked.

“No, I’m a cop.” He flashed the buzzer.

“Oh.”

“Yes. When did he move in, can you tell me that?”

“The end of February, I think it was.”

“And the last time you saw him was in March, that right?”

“That’s right.”

“Was he living alone?”

“I don’t know. He was here quite a lot.”

“But alone?”

“What?”

“Alone? Was he here alone?”

“Well, I just told you—”

“There were visitors?”

“Yes.”

“Living with Smith?”

“Maybe. It don’t matter to the building, you know. Long as a tenant don’t disturb other tenants, it’s his apartment, after all. So long as he don’t play the radio late or make noise or do anything against—” The doorman’s eyebrows went up quizzically. “Thelaw ?” he asked. “Is Mr. Smith in some kind of trouble?”

“Well, I wouldn’t worry about it, if I were you. I’d like to take a look at the apartment. Think you can let me in?”

“I’d have to check that with the building manager. And he won’t be here until later this afternoon.”

“Call him,” Carella said.

“Well, I—”

“It’s very important,” Carella said. He smiled. “Call him, won’t you?”

The doorman seemed dubious for a moment. Then he smiled back at Carella and said, “Sure, I’ll call him.”

Carella followed him into the building. The lobby had been redecorated recently, the furniture looking shining and new and unused. The doorman went into a small office, made his call and returned to Carella, still smiling. “Miracles will never cease,” he said. “The old bastard said okay. Only thing is we ain’t got a pass key or anything. I mean, he said if you can get in, okay, he don’t want any trouble with the police. But everybody buys their own locks, and we don’t have keys to none of the apartments.”

“Well, just take me up, and I’ll try some of my keys, okay?” Carella said.

“You carry skeleton keys, huh?” the doorman said, grinning knowingly.

Carella winked slyly. Together they took the elevator up to the sixth floor, and then walked down the corridor to apartment 6C.

“There it is,” the doorman said. “Nice apartment. Seven rooms. Very nice. It has this sunken living room.”

Carella reached into his pocket and took out a ring of keys.

“Skeleton keys, how about that!” the doorman said, still grinning. The doorman watched him as he began trying the keys in the lock. There were, in addition to his own house keys, perhaps half a dozen skeleton keys hanging from the ring. He tried them all. Not one of them turned the lock.

“No good?” the doorman asked.

“Not very,” Carella said, shaking his head. “How many floors to this building?”

“Nine.”

“Fire escapes?”

“Sure.”

“Think you can take me up to the roof?”

“You going to come down the fire escape?” the doorman asked.

“I’m going to try,” Carella said. “Maybe Smith left his window open.”

“Man, you guys sure work for your money, don’t you?” the doorman said admiringly.