The Inner Circle - Brad Meltzer [271]
She mounted the steps to the front door, steeling herself for the task at hand. She noticed that the apartment names beside the buzzers were written in Chinese. She pressed the buzzer for Apartment 1.
A voice rasped out in Chinese.
“I’m the one interested in renting the basement apartment,” she called out.
The lock snapped free with a buzz, she pushed on the door, and found herself in a hallway lit by fluorescent lights. A narrow staircase ascended to her right. At the end of the hallway she could hear a door being endlessly unbolted. It opened at last and a stooped, depressed-looking man appeared, in shirtsleeves and baggy slacks, peering down the hall at her.
Nora walked up. “Mr. Ling Lee?”
He nodded and held the door open for her. Beyond was a living room with a green sofa, a Formica table, several easy chairs, and an elaborate red- and gold-carved bas-relief on the wall, showing a pagoda and trees. A chandelier, grossly oversized for the space, dominated the room. The wallpaper was lilac, the rug red and black.
“Sit down,” the man said. His voice was faint, tired.
She sat down, sinking alarmingly into the sofa.
“How you hear about this apartment?” Lee asked. Nora could see from his expression he was not pleased to see her.
Nora launched into her story. “A lady who works in the Citibank down the block from here told me about it.”
“What lady?” Lee asked, more sharply. In Chinatown, Pendergast had explained, most landlords preferred to rent to their own.
“I don’t know her name. My uncle told me to talk to her, said that she knew where to find an apartment in this area. She told me to call you.”
“Your uncle?”
“Yes. Uncle Huang. He’s with the DHCR.”
This bit of information was greeted with a dismayed silence. Pendergast figured that having a Chinese relative would make it easier for her to get the apartment. That he worked for the Department of Housing and Community Renewal—the city division that enforced the rent laws—made it all the better.
“Your name?”
“Betsy Winchell.”
Nora noticed a large, dark presence move from the kitchen into the doorway of the living room. It was apparently Lee’s wife, arms folded, three times his size, looking very stern.
“Over the phone, you said the apartment was available. I’m prepared to take it right away. Please show it to me.”
Lee rose from the table and glanced at his wife. Her arms tightened.
“Follow me,” he said.
They went back into the hall, out the front door, and down the steps. Nora glanced around quickly, but O’Shaughnessy was nowhere to be seen. Lee removed a key, opened the basement apartment door, and snapped on the lights. She followed him in. He closed the door and made a show of relocking no fewer than four locks.
It was a dismal apartment, long and dark. The only window was a small, barred square beside the front door. The walls were of painted brick, once white but now gray, and the floor was covered with old brick pavers, cracked and chipped. Nora looked at them with professional interest. They were laid but not cemented. What was beneath? Dirt? Sand? Concrete? The floor looked just uneven and damp enough to have been laid on dirt.
“Kitchen and bedroom in back,” said Lee, not bothering to point.
Nora walked to the rear of the apartment. Here was a cramped kitchen, leading into two dark bedrooms and a bath. There were no closets. A window in the rear wall, below grade, allowed feeble brown light from an air shaft to enter between thick steel bars.
Nora emerged.