I started the L &L Pontiac. Let Danny sleep, let Gilbert wait in his cell, let Tony be missing. I’d go to the Zendo. Let it be too early for the monks or mobsters hidden there-I’d have the advantage of surprise.
By the time I’d parked and made my way to the Zendo, the Upper East Side was warming into life, shopkeepers rolling fruit stands out of their shops, sidewalk vendors of stripped paperbacks unloding their boxes, women already dressed for business glancing at their watches as they hustled their dogs’ waste into Baggies. The doorman at the entranceway next door was someone new, a kid with a mustache and uniform, not my harasser from yesterday. He was probably green, without tenure, stuck working the end of the overnight shift. I figured it was worth a shot anyway. I crooked a finger at him through the glass and he came out into the cold. “What’s your name?” I said.
“Walter, sir.”
“Walter sir-what?” I broadcast a cop-or-employer vibe.
“Walter is, uh, my last name. Can I help you with something?” He looked concerned, for himself and his building.
“Helpmewalter-I need the name of the doorman working last night, about six-thirty, seven. Older gentleman than yourself, maybe thirty-five, with an accent.”
“Dirk?”
“Maybe. You tell me.”
“Dirk’s the regular man.” He wasn’t sure he should be telling me this.
I averted my gaze from the his shoulder. “Good. Now tell me what you know about the Yorkville Zendo.” I indicated the bronze plaque next door with a jerk of my thumb. “Dirkweed! Dirkman!”
“What?” He goggled his eyes at me.
“You see them come and go?”
“I guess.”
“Walter Guessworth!” I cleared my throat deliberately. “Work with me here, Walter. You must see stuff. I want your impressions.”
I could see him sorting through layers of exhaustion, boredom, and stupidity. “Are you a cop?”
“Why’d you think that?”
“You, uh, talk funny.”
“I’m a guy who needs to know things, Walter, and I’m in a hurry. Anyone come and go from the Zendo lately? Anything catch your eye?”
He scanned the street to see if anyone saw us talking. I took the opportunity to cover my mouth with my hand and make a brief panting sound, like an excited dog.
“Uh, not much happens late at night,” said Walter. “It’s pretty quiet around here.”
“A place like the Zendo must attract some weird traffic.”
“You keep saying Zendo,” he said.
“It’s right there, etched in brass.” Itched in Ass.
He stepped toward the street, craned his neck, and read the plaque. “Hmmm. It’sour ee a religious school, right?”
“Right. You ever see anyone suspicious hanging around? Big Polish guy in particular?”
“How would I know he was Polish?”
“Just think about big. We’re talking really, really big.”
He shrugged again. “I don’t think so.” His numb gaze wouldn’t have taken in a crane and wrecking ball going through next door, let alone an outsize human figure.
“Listen, would you keep an eye out? I’ll give you a number to call.” I had a stash of L &L cards in my wallet, and I fished one out for him.
“Thanks,” he said absently, glancing at the card. He wasn’t afraid of me anymore. But he didn’t know what to think of me if I wasn’t a threat. I was interesting, but he didn’t know how to be interested.
“I’d appreciate hearing from you-Doorjerk! Doorjam! Jerkdom!-if you see anything odd.”
“You’re pretty odd,” he said seriously.
“Something besides me.”
“Okay, but I get off in half an hour.”
“Well, just keep it in mind.” I was running out of patience with Walter. I freed myself to tap his shoulder farewell. The dull young man looked down at my hand, then went back inside.
I paced the block to the corner and back, flirting with the Zendo, seeking my nerve. The site aroused reverence and a kind of magical fear in me already, as though I were approaching a shrine-the martyrdom of Saint Minna. I wanted to rewrite their plaque to tell the story. Instead I rang the doorbell once. No answer. Then four more times, for a total of five, and I stopped, startled by a sense of completeness.
I’d shrugged off my tired old friend six.
I wondered if it was in some way commemorative-my counting tic moving down a list, subtracting a digit for Frank.
Somebody is hunting Minna Men, I thought again. But I couldn’t be afraid. I wasn’t game but hunter this morning. Anyway, the count was off-four Minna Men plus Frank made five. So if I was counting heads, I should be at four. I had an extra aboard, but who? Maybe it was Bailey. Or Irving.
A long minute passed before the girl with the short black hair and glasses opened the door and squinted at me against the morning sun. She wore a T-shirt, jeans, had bare feet, and held a broom. Her smile was slight, involuntary, and crooked. And sweet.
“Yes?”
“Could I ask you a few questions?”
“Questions? &m”›
“If it’s not too early,” I said gently.
“No, no. I’ve been up. I’ve been sweeping.” She showed me the broom.
“They make you clean?”
“It’s a privilege. Cleaning is treasured in Zen practice. It’s like the highest possible act. Usually Roshi wants to do the sweeping himself.”
“No vacuum cleaner?” I said.
“Too noisy,” she said, and frowned as if it should be obvious. A city bus roared past in the distance, damaging her point. I let it go.
Her eyes adjusted to the brightness, and she looked past me, to the street, examining it as though astonished to discover that the door opened onto a cityscape. I wondered if she’d been out of the building since I saw her enter the evening before. I wondered if she ate and slept there, whether she was the only one who did or whether there were dozens, foot soldiers of Zen.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “What were you saying?”
“Questions.”
“Oh, yes.”
“About the Zendo, what you do here.”
She looked me over now. “Do you want to come inside? It’s cold.”
“I’d like that very much.”
It was the truth. I didn’t feel unsafe following her into the dark temple, the Deathstar. I would gather information from within the Trojan Horse of her Zen grace. And I was conscious of my ticlessness, didn’t want to break the rhythm of the conversation.
The foyer and stairwell were plain, with unadorned white walls and a wooden banister, looking as if it had been clean before she began sweeping, clean forever. We bypassed a door on the ground floor and went up the stairs, she carrying the broom ahead of her, turning her back to me trustingly. Her walk had a gentle jerkiness to it, a quickness like her replies.
“Here,” she said, pointing to a rack with rows of shoes on it.
“I’m fine,” I said, thinking I was supposed to select from among the motley footgear.
“No, take yours off,” she whispered.
I did as she told me, removed my shoes and pushed them into an orderly place at the end of one of the racks. A chill went through me when I recalled that Minna had removed his shoes the evening before, presumably at this same landing.
Now in my socks, I followed her as the banister wrapped around through a corridor, past two sealed doors and one that opened onto a bare, dark room with rows of short cloth mats laid out across a parquet floor and a smell ocandles or incense, not a morning smell at all. I wanted to peer inside but she hurried us along, up another flight.