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By Root 2867 0

all the tenants shared ownership. After his grandmother’s sudden death, Mr. Moore’d given some thought to moving into one of the fashionable apartment houses uptown, the Dakota or such, but in the end I don’t think he could face moving so far away from the neighborhoods of his youth. Having lost the second of the only two members of his family he’d ever been close to (the other, his brother, had fallen off a boat after jabbing himself full of morphine and drinking himself senseless many years earlier), Mr. Moore had tried hard to keep ownership of his grandmother’s house on Washington Square, but her will had stated that the place had to be sold and the proceeds divided up among her squabbling blue-blood heirs. Being suddenly and completely on his own in such a deep way was confusing enough for Mr. Moore without venturing into unknown neighborhoods: in the end, he came back to Gramercy Park, to the area where he’d grown up and where he’d learned his first lessons about the seamier side of life while slumming as a teenager over in the Gashouse District to the east.

As we started up the steps to the brown marble columns that surrounded the stained glass of the building’s entrance, I kept a sharp eye on the shadowy stretch of trees, hedges, and pathways—two blocks wide, one block long—that was Gramercy Park behind us. Oh, it was surrounded by wealthy houses and private clubs like the Players, sure enough, and was enclosed by a wrought-iron fence some six or seven feet high, to boot; but any Gashouse tough worth his salt could’ve made short work of that fence and used the park as a hiding place from which to jump unsuspecting passers-by. It wasn’t until I saw a cop walking his beat that I felt all right about turning away from that dark mass and joining Cyrus and Miss Howard at the door.

It was locked up tight at that hour, but there was a small electrical button set in the frame. Miss Howard put a finger to it, and then we heard a bell ring somewhere inside. Soon I could make out a small form moving slowly our way behind the stained glass, and in another few seconds we were faced by an old gent in a striped vest and black pants who looked like somebody should’ve buried him about ten years back. His wrinkled face turned sour at the sight of us.

“Really, Miss Howard, this is most irregular,” he grumbled in a hoarse, wheezing voice. “Most irregular. If Mr. Moore does not answer his bell, then I’m certain—”

“It’s all right, Stevenson,” Miss Howard answered, cool as ice. “I’ve reached Mr. Moore by telephone, and he’s told my friends and me to come up. Apparently there’s some problem with the bell. He’s told me where he’s hidden his spare key, in the event it happens again.”

The old corpse took a long, snooty look at Cyrus and me. “Has he, indeed?” he mumbled. “Well, I’m sure I won’t be held responsible if there’s anything untoward about this. Most irregular, but …”He turned toward the elevator door behind him. “You’d better come on, then.”

We followed the man as he pulled open first the outer wooden door and then the inner metal grate of the plush elevator. Taking a seat on the little cubicle’s velvet-pillowed bench just to tick the old doorman off (successfully), I studied the polished mahogany and brass around me, wondering what poor soul had to spend half his life keeping it in that shape. If it was the old man in front of us, I allowed as he had good reason for his cantankerousness. Closing the grate and then the door again, the man put on a pair of worn, stained leather gloves and then gave a hard tug on the elevator’s greased cable—which came up through the floor and ran on through the ceiling in one corner—to set the thing into motion. We began a gentle glide up to the fifth floor, where Mr. Moore occupied the apartments that faced the park on the building’s north side.

When the grate and door clattered open again, Cyrus and I followed Miss Howard down a beige-painted hall that was interrupted at various points by still more polished wood doors. Arriving at Mr. Moore’s, Miss Howard knocked and then made like she was