What remained of the Borzoi's elegance was mostly in the refined bones of the building, a sharp-elbowed piece of Art Deco that laughed at gravity, and in the long-dark neon portrait of two impossibly slim dogs that raced each other over the spiky chrome doors leading into the lobby. There were six pairs of doors in all, needing nothing more than a little chrome polish and a few hours of work to be restored to glory, but they hadn't been touched in years.
In fact, from where I stood, across the street, I couldn't see that the Borzoi's current owners, the Church of the Eternal Moment, had done much for the neighborhood. The sign that for sixty years had said the borzoi in angular letters had been replaced by a large, clunky hand-painted affair announcing the new landlord's presence, but that was about it. I'd arranged to meet Eleanor at one at the Times, and since that meant going downtown it seemed like an opportunity to take a look at Church headquarters. I don't go downtown much, and every time I go I remember why.
The Borzoi faced west across a sodden square that had probably once been a pleasant little park. Dozens of homeless men and women had moved or been herded into the square, using plastic trashbags and cardboard cartons to shield themselves from the rain. It was about as effective as it sounds. The sanitary facilities were as low-tech as the housing, and the square smelled like an open sewer, which, in effect, it was.
The extent of the Church's charity toward the dispossessed on its doorstep was evident from across the street. Ragged men and women sat, glazed and absent, in the doorways on either side of the Borzoi, and lurched up and down the sidewalk to the right and to the left. But no one huddled for refuge in the Borzoi's doorways, and no one strolled bedazedly in front of it. A waterlogged red carpet ran from the six pairs of chrome doors to the very edge of the curb. The carpet was flanked by thick black dripping wire ropes that traveled down the steps on heavy metal stanchions and terminated exactly eighteen inches from the gutter. There was enough room for someone with minimal motor control to squeeze by on his way to or from the brown-bag store at the corner, but there was obviously no invitation to sit on the Borzoi's steps and rest a spell.
This message was further underlined by the presence of two beefy jokers wearing the nautical outfits I'd seen up in Carmel. They stood just inside the right- and left-hand doors and glared vigilantly out toward the street. They were obviously ready to protect that wet red carpet with their lives, if the need arose. The one on the right had the kind of face that suggested that he hoped the need would arise, and sooner rather than later: fat, downturned lips, a short thick pug nose, and two stupid little eyes lurking close together under a bony brow-ridge that I thought had been eliminated from the gene pool several million years ago. The other one just looked dumb.
As I crossed the street and set foot on the squishy red carpet, I decided on the dumb one. I didn't know whether I'd get a big smile, a salute, or a demand for a password, but whatever it was, I preferred not to get it from someone who was clearly upset that fate hadn't made him a Shi'ite Muslim with a lot of opportunities to die for something he believed in.
What I got from the dumb one was a burp, redolent of burger and onion, and a halfhearted attempt to open the left-hand door for me. I beat him to it without dislocating my shoulder, pushed it open myself, and went inside.
The sad old lobby arched dark and dirty above me. Spots of damp dotted the carpet and tainted the air. A few people came and went, looking businesslike. Above the long reception counter at the far end of the room hung a whopping color photo of Angel and Mary Claire Ellspeth. A pin spot dangling from the ceiling picked it out and made it dazzle. It was the only bright thing in the room.
When in doubt, as my mother always says, look like you know what you're doing. I nodded briskly to the two women at the counter and went to the elevator. The doors squealed open with a shrill plea for oil, and I pushed close door and stood there for a moment, thinking.
There were six floors above me and one below. A sign on the elevator wall obligingly informed me that the second floor was the Listening Centre, quaint British spelling and all, and that the third and fourth were Church Offices. Five and six were labeled Residence Halls.
There was no label for the floor, presumably a basement, below me. There was no way to get there, either. One could go up simply by pushing a button. To go down, one needed a key.
That narrowed my options. They were further narrowed by the fact that I had no plausible business in the Church Offices and no interest in the Residence Halls. I pushed two and made a clanky ascent.
The doors opened on a narrow hallway illuminated by bare bulbs plunked into what once must have been elaborate sconces. A young man seated behind a desk that faced the elevator looked up at me incuriously. The sign in front of him said listening centre. The young man was pudgy and unhealthily white, with a dirty-looking fall of straight brown hair sloping across his forehead in a way that made him look like a latter-day member of the Hitler Youth.
"Room twelve," I said, hoping that there was one and that the number was high enough to place it around the corner and out of sight.
He pushed a register at me, tossed back the little fringe of hair on his forehead with a fat index finger, and held out a pen. "Down and to the left," he said. "Name and time, please."
ALGY SWINBURNE, I Wrote. ELEVEN-FORTY.
He swiveled the register around again and crossed out the time. "Eleven-forty-four," he said with severe satisfaction, writing it above the scratch marks. "Your watch is slow."
"My gosh," I said, setting it ostentatiously, "it certainly is. Is Listener Simpson around?"
"She'd be in the studio now, wouldn't she?" He'd probably been a smartass since he was four.
"The studio?"
"The television studio," he explained with a hint of weariness. "She's working the noon broadcast."
"Of course, she is," I said. "Boy, there are days when I don't know my own name."
He looked down at the register. "How could you forget a name like Algy?"
"I can try," I said. "And thanks."
"For what?" he said, genuinely puzzled.
"Just an expression." I trundled off down the hall.
Most of the room doors were firmly closed. No ghosts of Doheneys or Barrymores, swathed in floor-length ermine trench coats, paced the hallway. For that matter, no one paced the hallway. The Listening Centre was obviously not the place where church members went to pace. I made it all the way to room eight without having to look businesslike.
The door to room eight was open.
I glanced back at the winning youth behind the desk. He had his back to me, probably gazing balefully through his forelock and trying to guess what kind of idiot the elevator would next deliver into his day. I went into room eight.
All remnants of the Borzoi's past glory had been resolutely swept away. The inevitable picture of Angel and Mary Claire hung in glorious color on one wall, but the furniture seemed to have been chosen for its drabness: a folding metal chair in front of a Formica card table, facing another folding metal chair. A sleek contraption that looked vaguely like an aluminum carton of cigarettes sat precisely in the middle of the table. It was bolted down. From the side of it facing the chair near the wall protruded a tangle of wires that terminated in a pair of thick cuffs. The cuffs sported electrodes, round and black, about the size of eye patches. The side of the contraption facing away from the cuffs and the electrodes featured an on-off switch, something that suggested a volume control, and a couple of dials. It could have been one thing and one thing only: a lie detector. Crude, but probably effective.