The flophouses were a warren of cubicles, each just large enough to accommodate a cot. They were separated from one another by partitions, their lower halves wallboard, topped with chicken wire reaching to the ceiling. The cacophony and the odor and the lack of privacy were enough to make real sleep impossible, even for men unaccustomed to quiet or fresh air or a private life. You had to be drunk enough to pass out, and when they woke you for early morning checkout, it didn’t break your heart to get out of there.
I never got down that far, and my personal history is such that I doubt it would ever have happened; I’d have been safely dead of an alcohol-induced seizure before I got all that close to the Bowery. But in various storefronts and church basements I’d heard the stories of men who’d put in their time in those bars and flophouses, or lit fires in trash cans for warmth and warmed themselves more with Night Train or Thunderbird. Some of them got sober and some of them stayed sober, and one who’d reached the early stages of Korsakoff’s syndrome, with swiss-cheese holes in his brain, had somehow wound up managing a 54-bed rehab facility in New Jersey, just outside of Trenton.
The job had taken me in and out of flophouses. That was back in my uniformed days, and I went there with a partner when a desk clerk called the precinct house to report a death. Sometimes the clerk didn’t find the body right away, or delayed making the call, and on such occasions the smell was even worse than the usual flophouse stench. But it was always awful.
I’d been in a bucket of blood a handful of times, on occasions when they lived up to their name. An argument got out of hand, and one man hit another with a bottle or stabbed him with a knife. When you had to deal with something like that you needed a drink, but I never needed one badly enough to have it on the premises.
Of course a lot of Bowery habitués stayed out of the flophouses and passed out on the sidewalk, and that was a better idea in the warmer months. During the winter, a van made the rounds first thing in the morning, and anybody who still had a pulse would be hauled off to the drunk tank, because there was no such thing as detox then, not unless you were somebody rich drying out in Connecticut.
Then a second van would pick up the dead ones, and their next stop was Potter’s Field.
That was then. Now the Bowery is a prestige address, with artists’ lofts that artists can no longer afford, and condominiums built for absentee Russian oligarchs. I walked past designer boutiques and other hallmarks of over-the-top gentrification, but what the Bowery had the most of was establishments dealing in kitchen supplies, wholesalers who did a retail business as well.
I tossed a mental coin, walked into a shop named Edvard Magnusson, who must have been the firm’s founder or proprietor. I browsed, and a helpful clerk turned up to show me variations on a theme. I made my selection and paid for it in cash.
I’d been keeping an eye open for a sporting goods store, but if I passed one I never spotted it. I remembered that there was a big one on my way, but I couldn’t recollect the name and wasn’t sure about the address.
I hauled out my phone and let Yelp tell me I was thinking of Paragon, at 18th and Broadway.
It was a long walk, but a nice day for it. Paragon was right where my phone had told me it would be, and I didn’t need a clerk’s help to find what I was looking for. I was waiting to pay for it when I noticed a kid with a backpack, and I gave up my place in the checkout line and found one for myself — small, navy blue, inexpensive and anonymous.
I got back in line, paid cash, and walked out with a Paragon shopping bag to go with the one from Edvard Magnusson.
Nobody at either place of business asked me to prove I was a cop. They just rang up the sales and let it go at that.
I walked on, heading uptown. Along the way I realized I was hungry, and got a strong sudden urge for a tuna melt. I knew right where to get one, with a side of well-done fries, but decided that would be stupid. I didn’t need to renew my acquaintance with that counterman, the one who never forgot a face or a food order.
New York diners, with breakfast served all day long and menus the size of phone books, had become an endangered species. Most had been done in by rent increases, like so many of the shops that made the city a joy to explore; some had gone out of business when the sons or grandsons of the Greek immigrants who’d started them decided there had to be an easier way to make a better living. I walked clear over to Second Avenue without finding one, and by then the curious yen for a tuna melt had dissipated. I ducked into a Thai restaurant and would have asked the waitress to confirm that the Drunken Noodles didn’t contain any alcohol, then realized I wouldn’t take her word for it anyway and said I’d have a plate of Pad Thai.
After I’d ordered, I took my shopping bags to the bathroom, where I locked myself in and did some consolidation, tucking two of my purchases into the third. I shouldered the backpack, got rid of the shopping bags, and wasted a few moments hand-shredding the receipts and flushing them down the commode.
Silly, I thought. Passing up the tuna melt from Mr. Memory was at least marginally sensible, but this was not.
And it was not as though I’d need the receipts for tax purposes. The JanSport backpack was under $25, and it was the most expensive item of the lot.
I put the backpack on the floor next to me while I ate my Pad Thai and drank a Thai coffee, which was essentially a milkshake with caffeine. I paid cash for my meal — it was good I’d hit an ATM early on, as I was paying cash for everything — and donned the backpack. I started out with it centered on my back with an arm through each of the straps, and then I shifted it to my right shoulder, and then to my left shoulder.
I felt about the way I’d feel if I bought a baseball cap and wore it backwards. Just as well I didn’t have that far to go.
I found a place to stand across the street from Ellen’s building. I stayed put for a full ten minutes, during which time nobody came in or out, and no lights went on in what might have been her apartment. I hadn’t thought to ask Henry about the floor plan, and didn’t suppose it mattered, but it was another thing I hadn’t thought to do, and thus another unwelcome sign that I’d lost a step.
I was really too old for this shit.
I brushed the thought aside. I hadn’t seen anybody enter or leave the building, and as far as I could tell I was the only lurker on the block. I went across the street and buzzed the super.
When he answered, I gave my name. He said he’d be right up.
“No, just buzz me in,” I said. “I’ll come down to your place.”
At least I remembered the route. I found the back staircase, walked down to the basement. Henry Loudon met me at the foot of the stairs and led me back to his apartment. He’d just made coffee, he told me, and would I like a cup?
I let him pour me a cup, and when I complimented him on his coffee he launched into a riff about how he was fussy about coffee, and where he bought the beans, and the brewing method he’d settled on. Then he stopped abruptly and apologized for going on and on.
“You want to know about Miss Lipscomb,” he said. “I don’t think she’s been back. Though she could get in and out and I wouldn’t necessarily know about it.”
Actually, I said, I was more interested in the man.
“The one who’s not her brother. Haven’t seen anything of him, either. I’d have told you if I did.”
“And no phone calls?”
He shook his head.
“That’s just as well,” I said. “He won’t be expecting a call from you.”