The Submission - Amy Waldman [47]
Thomas Kroll lived in a dowager of a building, stately at birth, shabby with age, on Eastern Parkway. The lobby was dim; the doorman, Indian or something, was resolute: “No, no, madam, you cannot go up without announcement.”
“He’s expecting me,” she said, then, “It’s a surprise.” She considered slipping him a twenty but worried it could backfire. As he picked up the phone to call Kroll, she read the doorman’s ledger upside down and saw the apartment, 8D. She headed for the elevator at a fast walk; as she had hoped, he put the phone down to follow her. “Madam, excuse me, you cannot just go, madam, ex—” The elevator doors clipped his words.
By the time she reached the apartment, a woman—the wife, she guessed—was waiting in the doorway, arms folded.
“Who are you?” The voice was angry, the look distraught. No, disputatious. Her hair teetered in a lopsided bun, and her right hand gripped a red toy car like a weapon.
“Alyssa Spier, New York Post.” Uttered with the authority of the Internal Revenue Service, as if they had no right to refuse her.
“Great, Thomas, it’s already started,” the woman called back into the apartment. “The tabloids are here. At our house.” She turned back to Alyssa with a venomous stare.
A man with brown hair flopping in defeated eyes came to the door. “You’d better go,” he said. “We’ve got no part in this.”
“I found a business listing with your name on it, and Mohammad Khan’s,” she said, flipping through her notepad: “K/K Architects.”
His milky skin paled further. “You’re not going to print that, are you?”
“Why?” she asked, innocently. “Boss doesn’t know?”
“Shit,” Thomas said to his wife, and they made way for her.
The living room, down a long, claustrophobic hall, was strewn with toys: trains, blocks, Legos. Children, three of them, seemed to be break dancing off the crayoned walls. Alyssa had assumed that architects, being professionals like doctors and lawyers, made a lot of money; the cramped, careworn feel of the place surprised her. Did Khan live like this, too? Probably not, since, her research showed, he was unmarried, as was she. But with his style, he probably didn’t live like her, either.
The little girl grinned at her, revealing a row of missing front teeth. Alyssa fake-smiled while looking for a clear space to sit.
“Alice,” Thomas said, “maybe you could take the children in the back?”
A baleful look, then the posse was rounded up.
“She’s upset,” Thomas said quietly, and unnecessarily, once they were gone. “Worried it could put the kids in danger.”
Alyssa fumbled for soothing words. She wasn’t going to help matters by putting him in the paper, which reminded her that she needed a photographer. After sending a quick text, she accepted the water he offered in a smudged glass.
“About the business registration,” Thomas began. “I’d rather you not mention it.”
“No need,” she said, noting his immediate gratitude, “if I have better stuff for my story.”
He nodded. But when she tried to ask about Khan’s decision to enter, or whether Thomas had helped with the design, words abandoned him. He just kept looking at her, his eyes like blue snaps. And suddenly she knew. “He didn’t tell you anything, did he?” she said. “He didn’t warn you this was coming.”
Bull’s-eye. Kroll looked down. The bald spot lurking within the full hair reminded her of the blank spot in Manhattan, its aerial view, and a fleeting urge to reach out and touch his head came over her.
“This must be difficult,” she said, with a compassion that surprised her.
“He’s my friend,” he said finally, his voice hoarse. “Not just my partner. My best friend.”
Alyssa couldn’t tell whether he said this to emphasize the depth of the betrayal or to warn her that he would remain loyal despite it. She did a mental dog paddle, trying to think how to proceed. It wouldn’t count as news to her editor that Khan had screwed his partner, but