The Alienist - Caleb Carr [62]
Calming a bit, but beginning to wonder about the wisdom of my initiative, I found the third door on the left: a thin, simple wooden job, just like all the others in the hallway. I grabbed the knob, but then thought to knock. I was surprised when a boy’s voice said:
“Who is it?”
I opened the door slowly. There was nothing in the room but an old bed and a night table next to it. The paint on the walls was a red that had turned brown, and it was peeling in the corners. There was a small window that looked out on the blank brick wall of the building next door, across about ten feet of alley space.
On the bed sat a flaxen-haired kid, maybe fifteen, his face painted much as Giorgio Santorelli’s had been. He wore a sheer linen shirt with lace cuffs and collar, and some theatrical tights. The makeup around his eyes was smudged—he’d been crying.
“I’m not working right now,” he said, straining to reach a falsetto pitch. “Maybe you could come back in an hour or so.”
“That’s all right,” I said, “I’m not—”
“I said I’m not working!” the young man shouted, losing the falsetto altogether. “Oh, God, get out, can’t you see I’m upset?”
He broke down in tears, clutching at his face, and I stood by the door, suddenly noticing that it felt very warm in the room. I watched the boy for a few minutes, and then something occurred to me:
“You knew Gloria,” I said.
The boy sniffed and wiped carefully at his eyes. “Yes. I knew her. Oh, my face—please go away.”
“No, you don’t understand. I’m trying to find out who killed him—her.”
The boy looked up at me plaintively. “Are you a cop?”
“No, a reporter.”
“A reporter?” He looked back at the floor, wiped his eyes again, and chuckled humorlessly. “Well, I’ve got a hell of a story for you.” He stared out of the window forlornly. “Whoever it was that they found down on that bridge—it couldn’t have been Gloria.”
“Wasn’t Gloria?” The rising temperature in the room was making me thirsty, and I took another big swig of beer. “What makes you think so?”
“Because Gloria never left this room.”
“Never—” It occurred to me that I’d been up too long and had too much to drink: I was having trouble following the kid. “What do you mean?”
“I’ll tell you what I mean. That night, I was in the hallway, outside my room, with a customer. I saw Gloria come in here, alone. I was out there for a good hour, and her door never opened. I figured she was asleep. My customer left after buying me a couple of drinks—the guy didn’t want to pay the price for Sally. That’s me. Sally’s expensive, and he didn’t have what it takes. So I stood there another half an hour, waiting for somebody else to wander up. I didn’t feel like working the floor. And then one of the girls comes screaming in, saying that a cop just told her they found Gloria dead downtown. I ran right in here, and sure enough, she was gone. But she never left.”
“Well…” I tried hard to figure it. “The window, then.” As I crossed to it, I stumbled a bit; I really did need some sleep. The window groaned as I opened it, and when I put my head out, the air wasn’t as cold as it should have been.
“The window?” I heard Sally say. “How? Did she fly? It’s a straight drop down, and Gloria didn’t have a ladder, or rope, or anything. Besides, I asked one of the girls working the front of the alley if she saw Gloria come out that way. She said no.”
The drop from the window to the alley was indeed a precipitous one; it seemed an unlikely escape route. As for the roof, it was another two stories up, along a brick wall that offered no apparent purchases, and was without a fire escape of any kind. I came back inside and closed the window. “Then—” I said. “Then…”
Suddenly I collapsed onto the bed. Sally let out one little shriek at that, and then another when she looked toward the door. Following her glance with difficulty, I saw Ellison, Razor Riley, and a couple of their favorites