Crook Manifesto (Ray Carney, #2)(71)
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The city was being tested. It was always being tested and emerging on the other side in a newer, stronger version for having been laid low, but everyone forgot this from time to time and so they were quite distressed by the latest manifestation. Distressed by the crime wave, which was very alarming, and the empty city coffers, which caused such misery, and the general state of wrongness, which left few unscathed and most navigating personal labyrinths of despair. They had been prepared for the latest calamity by rehearsal disasters big and small, but it was hard to remember that in all the hustle and breathless rushing here and there.
Carney for his part was attuned to an improvement in consumer sentiment. Your basic glimmer. Furniture sales—sectionals in particular—were up over the same time last year, the showroom not so gloomy in the afternoons. There had been solid growth in scores and rip-offs over the last three quarters, with a lot of activity in the rare-gem sector, a leading indicator of market optimism. Take Andy Engine. He hadn’t hit up Carney in two years and then strutted in yesterday with a sample case full of Afghan lapis that lay on the black velvet bed like holes punched through to a perfect blue universe. “Fell into my lap.” Martin Green took them off Carney’s hands and once Carney paid off the thief, there was time to grab a sub and be home to catch Rhoda.
On his way to meet Andy Engine, Carney returned to the site of the tragedy. He’d made a detour to see the building before the fundraiser. It tugged at him still, and he had time.
The city continued to burn, night after night. Not Fifth Avenue, but Harlem, Brooklyn, the South Bronx. 371 West 118th Street had been a four-story tenement presiding over the northeast corner of Morningside Ave. Behind its blackened exterior, fire had eaten its guts. At half past nine last Thursday night, a clock timer activated an incendiary device. The firebomb had been set in the rear apartment on the top floor to allow the fire to spread before it could be detected from the street, near an air shaft so that it was well fed. The room had been doused with gasoline. No one lived in 371. The landlord, Excelsior Metro Properties, cut the heat and power last winter to chase away the holdouts, then stripped the plumbing and electrics, anything salable.
At the time of the fire, the building was empty except for eleven-year-old Albert Ruiz, who was asleep in 2A. He and his friends had claimed the apartment as their “clubhouse.” Like on The Little Rascals, but infested with roaches. The boys had been convening there since the weather warmed up. The junkies hadn’t gotten a foothold, or the bums—there was no shortage of abandoned buildings, and the park across the street was inviting, judging from the sheds and lean-tos. Albert and his pals dragged in battered folding chairs, set up a milk crate for a card table. One boy raided his brother’s Penthouse stash and started a lending library. On Thursday, Albert had arranged to meet his friend Pete at the clubhouse before they went to the movies: Midway. Pete got tied up playing duck and weave with his father, who’d been laid off two days before and had found his scapegoat. Albert fell asleep on the beanbag chair while waiting.
The firefighters said it looked as if he’d been trying to open the apartment door. It was stuck fast. Smoke got him. Five days later, he was out of the coma, attached to a machine that inflated his scored lungs. His mother, Mrs. Ruiz, stared at the ground when she told Carney what had happened.
Mrs. Ruiz and her three children—Albert had two younger sisters—had moved into the third floor above his store two years ago. She was short and thickset, harried but determined, her body tipped forward as if battling headwinds. Carney gave her the once-over when she first came to see the place but they had rarely interacted since; Marie handled that side of things now. Marie had informed Carney one day that she was “bored” and “unfulfilled” with her current store duties, which was convenient because managing the two buildings left him bored and unfulfilled. He started paying her to run the properties. You got a headache, you buy aspirin, and tenants were the mother of headaches.
On the first of the month Mrs. Ruiz crossed the showroom to drop her rent check on Marie’s desk. Sometimes she paused before a DeMarco lounger or Egon credenza, a dreamy look overtaking her face as she arranged the piece in her living room upstairs.
The day after the fire, Carney was heading to Freedom National to make a deposit when he came upon Mrs. Ruiz struggling to open the residential door. He said, “Must be sticky.” She gave him her key. It opened easily. He offered to help with the groceries even though she was the type to say no. She surprised him and when they arrived at her landing she said, “I told him I was making spaghetti and meatballs tonight but if he wanted some he had to wake up.”
Carney tracked down the story in the Post that evening. The building had recently changed hands. The new owner, Excelsior, owned regiments of property uptown and in the South Bronx, and an alarming number of their buildings had been the victim of suspicious fires. The management company could not be reached for comment. The newspaper item concluded with “Last year there were a record 12,000 structural fires in the Bronx. One fire department official estimated that a third of them were set deliberately.”
Carney told Marie the next day to keep tabs on Mrs. Ruiz and her son. “The store would like to help if it’s possible.” His idea of Albert was unformed; it was entirely possible the bowl haircut and chubby cheeks were produced by Carney’s imagination to fill in the hospital scene.