Amanda lived in a rent-controlled building on 101st Street.
Francis and Emma climbed the six flights to her apartment. It wasn’t the worst building Francis had ever seen, no graffiti or obvious disrepair, but the halls hadn’t seen a new coat of paint since the Nixon administration. A vague mildew smell in the stairwell.
Francis paused in front of Amanda’s door without knocking, bent to massage his knee.
Emma frowned at him. “You okay?”
“Hurt it earlier. Six flights didn’t help.”
“Man up, Frankie.”
Francis returned her frown. “I generally prefer to go by Francis.”
“Uh-huh. Knock on the door.”
Francis knocked. No answer.
“I told you we should have called first,” Francis said. “So we’d know she’d be here.”
“Yeah, and also she’d know we were coming,” Emma said. “That hasn’t always worked out for me.”
“That’s not a surprise, actually.”
“Just knock again.”
Francis knocked again. This time he thought he heard movement from within the apartment, also a low mutter, a grunt.
He knocked harder. “Amanda?”
The muttering grew louder, then finally, “What?”
“Amanda, it’s me. Francis.”
“I didn’t order any!”
“No, it’s Francis. Enid’s … I know Enid.”
“What?”
“Is something wrong with her?” Emma asked.
Francis shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe we woke her up.” Francis raised his voice. “Amanda, it’s me, Francis. I gave you a suitcase earlier today to hold for me. Sorry to drop by announced, but I need to get it. Sort of important, actually.”
A long pause.
“Francis?”
“Yes!” Relief flooded him. “Yes, Amanda, it’s me. Do you have the suitcase?”
“Come in. It’s unlocked.”
Francis and Emma exchanged glances. Emma shrugged.
Francis turned the knob and slowly pushed the door inward on creaking hinges.
The odor that hit him was a striking mix of VapoRub, cigarettes, scotch, and something deep-fried. The little apartment was crowded with too much furniture, cheap paintings, wallpaper with a tight floral pattern faded nearly to nonexistence. Off to the right, the living room segued into a narrow kitchen with a stove and refrigerator from the 1970s. A dimly lit hall to the left led away presumably to a bedroom and bath.
Amanda lay fully reclined, in an ugly green, threadbare La-Z-Boy. The arms had been duct-taped where the fabric had pulled apart. The stand on the right side of the chair was crowded with an ashtray overflowing with butts, a crumpled pack of Basics next to it, a two-thirds-empty bottle of cheap scotch, and a Fairly OddParents juice glass with two fingers of booze.
No lights had been turned on, the living room lit only by the flickering television screen, a game show on with the sound turned all the way down. The movement of the figures on the TV screen cast weird shadows over Amanda and the rest of the room.
She wore a blue bathrobe and tattered pink slippers. She was a stout woman, and when she shifted in the chair, she seemed like some ancient troll queen on her throne, the La-Z-Boy creaking and groaning like it might come apart any second under her weight. The light from the TV gave her face a haunted look.
Amanda squinted at Emma, her eyes refusing to focus. “Enid, you changed your hair.”
“Amanda, this isn’t—” He broke off. Forget it. Not important, and she wouldn’t remember anyway. As far as Francis could tell, she’d been hitting the scotch hard and was only half-heartedly trying to emerge from her stupor.
“Amanda, I gave you a suitcase at the diner this morning.” Francis spoke calmly and slowly. “You said you’d stash it in the cooler.”
She blinked, thought about it. “Roy wouldn’t let me.”
The breakfast shift manager. Enid had mentioned him often in non-glowing terms.
“I brought it home.” Her eyes shifted back and forth in her head, taking in the apartment around her like she’d never seen it before.
“We need it,” Francis told her. “Can you get it for us? It would be a huge help, and then we’ll get out of your way.”
Amanda put her pale hands on the arms of her chair, made an attempt to push herself up. She slumped back, deciding the effort wasn’t worth it. God help her if there were a fire. She waved a hand back down the hall. “You can get it.”
Emma pushed past him, heading back toward the bedroom. Francis began to follow, hesitated, glanced back at Amanda. The woman was already easing her head back, eyelids drooping shut. In the morning, this would all be some fuzzy dream to her.
Francis hurried after Emma.
Amanda’s bedroom was small, a single unmade bed against the far wall, a vanity that might have been an antique or maybe was just old. A closet. A lamp with a dusty shade. Light oozed a dim yellow through the dirty glass of the room’s only window.
Emma went to the floor, looked under the bed, cursed when she didn’t find the case. She went to the closet, began rummaging, pushing aside shoes and hatboxes. “I don’t see it.”
“This feels weird being in here, going through her stuff,” Francis said. “I hardly know her. I bet I’ve only said a hundred words to her.”
“You think I’m having a good time? Help me look.”
Francis went to the window. Not much of a view, a rusty fire escape and another tenement across the alley. Was this Amanda’s life every night, coming home to an empty, dank apartment? Maybe I’d numb myself with the occasional bottle of scotch too.
He turned back to Emma when he heard the racket from the closet. She was pulling everything out, throwing clothes on hangers over her shoulder.
“Stop that,” Francis said. “You’re messing up the place.”
“It’s not here!”
“That’s no reason to wreck her closet. She was doing me a favor.”
“Where the fuck is it?”
“Jesus.” Francis shook his head, held his hands up in an I’m done gesture. “Okay. I’m going. We tried. But I’m not sticking around to—”
“We’re not going anywhere,” she said heatedly. “Not until we find—”
Before the argument could really get started, it was preempted by a knock at the front door. It was loud enough to be heard down the hall with the bedroom door closed.
Emma and Francis froze. Waited and listened.
A louder knock. Amanda woke this time, her muffled voice saying something to the person on the other side of the door. A muted voice spoke back to her. Francis thought it sounded like a man’s voice, but he couldn’t make out anything being said.
Emma looked a question at him. Who is it?
Francis shrugged. How the hell would I know?
Amanda said something else, and so did the person on the other side of the door. It was probably a version of the same conversation Francis had had earlier. A second later, he heard the front door creak open.
Shit.
The conversation between Amanda and the newcomer was slightly clearer now. Francis still couldn’t hear the exact words, but the tone and sound of the voice was very familiar.
Emma’s eyes widened with alarm. She’d recognized the voice too.
Cavanaugh.
Shit shit shit.
Francis spun to the window, tried to open it. It was stuck fast.
Emma waved her hands frantically. Hurry up.
Francis gestured at the window. It’s fucking stuck, okay?
They could still hear Cavanaugh and Amanda talking in the living room.
Francis drew his arm back to bang the window with the heel of his hand and then stopped himself. It would make too much noise.
He grabbed the frame, pushed up with everything he had. It wouldn’t budge. He kept pushing, face going red, gritting his teeth so hard, he thought they’d break. He leaned in, tried to get under it for the best angle. He pushed hard, arms starting to tremble. He could hear his heartbeat in his ears.
Come on … come on … come on …
A loud crack and the window slid upward. Francis’s joy at the window’s opening was blunted by the worry that the loud noise would draw attention.
“Come on,” he whispered.
He swung one leg over the windowsill, ducked his head, and wriggled through the small opening. The rusty fire escape outside groaned with his weight, but he ignored it. He stuck his head back in, looked for Emma.
“Where are you?” he whispered.
Emma stuck her head out of the closet, whispered back, “I still don’t have the suitcase.”
Are you fucking kidding me? Fury rose up in him. “Fuck the damn suitcase. That guy is going to come fucking murder us in five fucking seconds! Now get your fucking ass out here.”
She looked at him, surprised.
Yeah. He’d surprised himself a little.
“Please,” he added.
Then Francis looked down and saw it.
The narrow space between the vanity and the wall near the window was almost exactly the same size and shape as the alligator-skinned suitcase. Francis had been standing over it the whole time. He reached in and grabbed it by the handle, lifted it up to show Emma.
Her mouth fell open. Surprise, relief, gratitude in her eyes.
Francis pulled the suitcase through the window, motioned for Emma to follow. Get your ass out here!
Emma took half a step toward him.
The doorknob rattled, slowly began to turn. Her eyes shifted to the knob and went wide. She stepped back, pressing herself flat against the wall in the space behind the door. Slowly the bedroom door swung open.
Francis whipped back out of sight, back against the bricks to the side of the window. He held the suitcase with a white-knuckled grip, held his breath and listened. He glanced over the side of the fire escape. It was rusty and rickety, and he didn’t trust the railings. It would be a long fall.
A vague sense of movement from within the bedroom, shoes shuffling on carpet. Francis imagined Emma standing stock-still behind the door, holding her breath just like Francis was. He waited, expecting any second to hear Emma scream, to hear a gunshot.
The sounds faded. Silence. Francis counted to sixty. Slowly.
Cautiously, he edged back toward the window, turn his head to peek inside—
A flash of movement, and Francis’s heart lurched, a scream of terror stuck in his throat. Wings flapping. The pigeon cooed as it flew away, landing on the roof of the building across the alley.
A pigeon. Jesus. Francis blew out a relieved burst of breath, turning back to the window—
Two arms shot through the open window and latched on to the suitcase.
“Gimme that fucking thing!” Cavanaugh yelled.
A surge of adrenaline shot through Francis. He put a foot against the windowsill, yanked back with everything he had, but Cavanaugh had a death grip on the suitcase.
“Let go, kid,” Cavanaugh said. “Just leave it and beat it out of here. You don’t want any part of this.”
He was right. That was the thing, Francis realized. This wasn’t his suitcase. None of this was his problem. All he had to do was let go.
He pulled harder.
Through the window’s dirty glass, he saw a figure loom up behind Cavanaugh.
Emma reached past Cavanaugh, grabbed the window, and slammed it down on his forearms. Hard.
Cavanaugh threw his head back, howled like an enraged animal. He let go of the suitcase. He struggled to open the window, but it was stuck again, and he was bent awkwardly, struggled to pull himself free.
Francis tucked the suitcase under one arm and didn’t look back. The fire escape swayed and rattled and creaked alarmingly as he flew down the narrow, rusty stairs. The fire escape ended ten feet short of the ground. Francis jumped. In midair, he remembered his injured knee and twisted to take the brunt of the landing with the other leg. He hit and rolled into a stack of trash bags. Some of the trash bags dislodged and fell on top of him, one leaking something foul smelling down the back of his shirt.
He pushed the bags off him, staggered to his feet, and scanned the trash pile for the suitcase. He had to dig through the garbage, but he found it, snatched it by the handle, and picked a direction to run.
Francis rounded the corner of the building, slammed on the brakes, and backpedaled. He took a deep breath, steadied himself, and then looked back around the corner cautiously.
They must have ditched the car they’d smashed up against the Dumpster and gotten a new one, another black sedan newer and bigger. Francis recognized the bald one behind the wheel.
Cavanaugh and the other one with the mustache emerged from Amanda’s building, Emma walking between them and looking a hell of a lot calmer than Francis would have. Cavanaugh’s right hand was in his jacket pocket, and Francis knew he was grasping that little silver automatic. The one with the mustache had dark circles under his eyes and a piece of metal fastened across his nose with white surgical tape.
They ushered Emma into the back seat of the sedan, and two seconds later, the car eased into the flow of traffic, heading uptown.
That’s it, then, said a little voice inside Francis’s head. Time to go to the police, give them the suitcase, tell them everything.
But another surprise voice piped up and said, Do something, chickenshit.