What remained of Vialoux’s office was on Sixth Avenue over in Park Slope, the ground floor of a three-story redbrick building, near the corner with Fifth Street. Marshall got there a little before nine thirty on Saturday morning. To the left were brownstone town houses, and to the right, on the corner, was a store advertising jewelry and watch repairs: Lowenstein’s.
Vialoux’s frontage was boarded up with plywood, and some enlightened soul had already thought to illustrate it with genital-themed graffiti. As if the arson just wasn’t quite enough as an indignity.
Marshall backed up to the curb and surveyed the upper windows. No one visible. According to the gold lettering on the glass, the middle floor was an architect’s office, and the top was an accountant’s. He saw a light on in the jewelry place next door, but no one answered his knock.
There was a laundromat on the corner diagonally opposite. He crossed the intersection and went inside. Two women were at a work bench beyond the counter, folding clothes and chatting merrily in Spanish over the bored drone of tumble dryers. One of the women saw him and came over with a smile and a sing-song good morning.
‘Laundry, or questions?’
He smiled, caught a scent of bleach that prickled through his whole airway. ‘Sorry?’
‘You look like police.’ She nodded at Vialoux’s office, visible through the window behind him. ‘I saw you just now, looking at the damage.’
‘Did you see what happened?’
She shook her head. ‘It was during the night. We close at nine thirty. Wednesday, we open late, someone’s here till eleven. Other than that, nine thirty.’
Marshall said, ‘Do you remember people coming or going? Last couple of weeks in particular?’
She shrugged. One earlobe had been stretched and hollowed out by way of a plastic hoop, perhaps an inch in diameter. Marshall wasn’t sure why people undertook such projects, but it was an impressive achievement given the small size of the opposite lobe. She said, ‘Only since the fire there’s been anyone over there, really. Police, I guess. Fire Department people.’
‘Have the police talked to you?’
She looked him up and down. ‘Thought I was talking to one now.’
Marshall shook his head. ‘I’m a friend of the owner.’
She said, ‘There were a couple came in yesterday, asked if we’d noticed anything. But …’ She trailed off, shrugged. ‘It’s a street, isn’t it? Ninety-nine percent of stuff, you don’t even see it.’
‘Did they take anything from his office?’
Shrug. ‘People were in and out most of yesterday. So yeah, maybe.’
The woman at the bench said, ‘I saw them take a file cabinet. All black from the fire but it must’ve been full of something. They had like three guys trying to move it.’
‘Cops took it?’
‘Yeah. Cops took it.’
Marshall said, ‘You ever see the owner? Ray Vialoux?’
The woman at the bench said, ‘I seen him now and then.’ She looked up, amused. ‘I don’t understand, we’re right across the street, we do dry cleaning. Why does he have to wear a crinkled suit all the time? Next time you see him, you ask him.’
‘When did you last see him?’
The woman at the bench said, ‘That was the one thing I knew, when they asked. I saw him Tuesday night.’
No hesitation.
She said, ‘That’s my closing night. I was locking up, heading out, I saw him going in his door. Only reason I saw, it was nighttime, he was right there under his security light. He had kind of a package with him.’
‘What kind of package?’
‘I don’t know. It was dark. Like one of those … maybe like a FedEx envelope?’
She mimed the dimensions.
Marshall said, ‘So ten-inch-by-ten, something like that?’
‘Yeah, well. Whatever this big is. It was an envelope.’
‘All right. Thanks.’
‘And now we get to ask you a question.’
‘All right.’
‘What’s he doing in there that police asked more questions about who’s coming and going than if we saw people with gas and matches?’
Marshall shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’
All three of them turned and looked out the window, like the boarded shop front could illuminate the topic.
Marshall said, ‘You ever seen a little guy, dark hair combed straight back, smiles a lot?’
He got two shrugs in response. The woman at the bench resumed her work. As far as Marshall could tell, pants were folded manually, but T-shirts were handled by way of a plastic board, comprising a number of hinged panels. You laid the shirt on the board, and then operated the panels in logical succession, and the resulting folded garment was a thing of dimensional perfection.
Marshall said, ‘Where can I get one of those?’
They sold them for thirteen-ninety, plus tax. He paid, and they bagged it for him, and he headed off along Sixth, looking for coffee. He found a place a few blocks away. They did cappuccinos, but like the coffee shop over in Sunset Park, they hadn’t heard about flat whites yet. He stood in line and couldn’t help feeling he was the odd one out. Everyone was young, very good looking, and dressed in Lululemon. Most people had an Apple product of some description. He took his coffee to-go, and walked back toward Vialoux’s office, thinking he’d try a second time to talk to the jewelry people. When he got back to the corner with Fifth Street, he found Jordan Mora standing on the sidewalk, looking at the plywood.
She said, ‘Spray paint’s a nice touch, isn’t it?’