“Got rid of Jeff?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Good. He’s not a bad guy, but he really doesn’t seem to get it.”
I thought that statement also accurately summed up Jeff as a boyfriend, but I said nothing.
We weren’t very far from the spot where Biko and I had met, so we started our investigation there. Biko showed us the half-eaten pigeon carcasses he had found last night. We also studied the claw marks that were nearby.
“It was the baka,” I said with certainty when I saw the thick scratch marks on the cement wall that Biko pointed out. I felt a chill run through me, despite the evening’s muggy heat. The hand that made these marks would have been nearly as big as mine, and the claws could easily eviscerate a dog Gilligan’s size. “These marks weren’t made by a person or a pet.”
“No, indeed,” said Max, examining them intently.
We went next to the area where I had seen the zombie and the growling gargoyles, and where Lopez and I had later found the severed hand being eaten by carrion feeders. There was no evidence here of anything that had happened last night. I was just about to say so when someone coming out of one of the row houses shouted loudly.
“You!”
We all looked up.
A white man in his fifties, balding and wearing wire-rimmed glasses, shook his fist at me. “The cops were here all morning and half the day because of you! What did you
do?
”
“Friend of yours?” Biko said to me.
I recognized the voice. “That’s the man who wouldn’t call for help for Darius!”
“Get
out
of here!” The man ran over to the garbage cans on the sidewalk, picked up a lid, and brandished it at me. “We don’t want your kind around here!”
“Oh, dear,” said Max.
“Yo, mister,” Biko said sternly to the man. “You talk that way to my sister again, and you’ll answer to
me
. Do I make myself clear?”
“Your
sister?
” the man blurted.
“
Yeah
, my sister,” Biko said. “She was mugged here last night. Are you the jerk who just shouted at her when she was calling out for help?”
“She wasn’t . . . She . . .”
Biko started walking forward. “Are
you
the guy who let
my
sister get mugged right outside your own house and wouldn’t help her?
Are you that guy?
”
“Uh . . .” The man wisely chose to go inside, where he locked his door—and probably shoved a piece of heavy furniture in front of it, too.
“Hmph.” Biko glared at the closed door. “Maybe the next time a woman in the street is asking for help, that loser will do more than shout at her and slam his window shut.”
We searched the area, but the cops had cleaned up all signs of what had happened there. So we accompanied Biko to the north end of Mount Morris Park where, very near the Livingston Foundation, he showed us where he had found the baka attacking Frank Johnson. Though the fading summer light was very dim by now, we were able to find some scratch marks on the pavement, similar to the ones we had seen a little while ago. We walked through the darkening park to the south end, and Biko showed us where he and Puma had found Gilligan’s body. Only a large dark brown spot on the cement revealed evidence of what had occurred there.
“His blood,” Biko said quietly.
“My dear fellow.” Max patted his shoulder.
Ahead of us was a large expanse of grass, then a steep, rocky hill that was thick with shrubs and trees. The hill was high, ascending well above the roofs of the town-houses that surrounded the park. An old stone staircase led up the steep slope, curving to its shape, sweeping gracefully and disappearing up into the night-shrouded foliage that crowded around it. Wondering where those steps went, I looked farther up. Above the dark outline of the trees against the twilight sky, I saw the top of what looked like some sort of fantastic treehouse. Max and I had noticed it much earlier today, from a distance, soaring just above the treetops.
“What is that?” I asked Biko, craning my neck and pointing up to it.
“The old watchtower,” he said. “The last one left in New York. It’s so old, it’s been obsolete for more than a century.”
“Watchtower for
what?
” I asked.
“Fire,” said Biko. “In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Harlem was mostly farm country—can you picture
that?
In those days, they had tall watchtowers around New York, like this one. Someone would be posted at the top of the tower to keep an eye out for a fire starting. When he saw one, he’d alert people by ringing the big bell that hung below him in the tower. After the switchover to fire alarm boxes, the towers went out of use and mostly got torn down. This is the only one still standing.” After a moment, he added, “Mr. Livingston told me that. He was talking about restoring it one day, but the foundation always had so many other projects it wanted to do first.”
“Out of use for more than a century,” I mused. “It must be falling apart by now.”
“Yeah, I think it’s in pretty bad condition.” Biko chuckled and added, “If you go up there in the daytime, you’ll see that it looks like the world’s best jungle gym. When I was little, I always wanted to climb on it. But my mom told me she’d skin me alive if I ever went anywhere near it. Too dangerous. And by the time I was old enough to come to the park without Mom or Puma, I guess I just wasn’t stupid enough to try it. It always looked to me like the spiral staircase would collapse, or the iron bars would fall off, or that big bell would tumble down on my head.”
“Hmm.” Max nodded.
After a moment, we all turned by silent consent and walked out of the park, disappointed not to have learned anything new from this outing. My feet were killing me, and I was so tired that I didn’t think I could make it all the way to the subway. Max must have noticed my drooping shoulders and weary pace.
“I must take Esther home,” he said to Biko. “I should have done so well before now.”
I was about to protest that Max didn’t need to escort me, but then I remembered that I didn’t have my subway card, money for a cab, or the keys to my door.
“But I think, Biko,” Max continued, “that you, Nelli, and I should rendezvous later and go hunting by night for baka and zombies.”
A man and woman who’d been in the process of passing us on the sidewalk paused and gave us a hard stare. Whether it was because of what Max had just said, or because of my outfit . . . Well, I supposed that either reason would have been sufficient for their sudden decision to cross the street and continue their walk well away from us.
“Who’s Nelli? Oh! Your dog, right?” Biko shook his head. “Dr. Zadok, after what those baka did to
my
dog—”
“Nelli is very large, and combating creatures such as the baka is her life’s work,” Max said. “Although I am reluctant to put her in harm’s way, knowing now how ruthless the baka can be when facing a canine opponent, I feel that it would frustrate her—even insult her—to omit Nelli from our expedition. It would also be wise of us to recruit her to this endeavor, since she is well-equipped for detecting mystical adversaries.”
There was a brief pause while Biko translated this in his head, and then he agreed with Max’s proposal. Since the baka had so far been encountered in the vicinity of the park, the two men agreed to meet at the foundation later to commence their hunt. After we all exchanged phone numbers, Biko went home, and Max escorted me to Malcolm X Boulevard, where we caught a cab.
Fortunately, he was so absorbed in thinking about the mysterious problem at hand, he forgot to be frightened in the taxi until we ran a red light while crossing a major thoroughfare. And only a few minutes after that, we were descending from the cab outside my apartment in the West Thirties, near Tenth Avenue.
I got one of the neighbors to buzz me into the building, then Max followed me up to the second floor, to my front door. Using his mystical abilities, he placed his hand on the doorknob, took a slow breath, uttered a few words in another language, and turned the knob.
“There you are, my dear!” He opened the door and gestured for me to go inside.
“Max, I just realized,” I said, “You’ve never been here before.”
“Indeed, I have not.”
“Come on, I’ll give you the grand tour.”
He protested briefly, considering how exhausted I was. But I spent so much time in his home, I wanted him to at least know what the inside of my home looked like. So I insisted he come inside for a few minutes.
“Ah, very nice!” Max said when I turned on the light.
Actually, it was an old apartment in poor repair, mostly furnished with charity-shop furniture and hand-me-downs. But it was home. “Thank you.”
Max looked around while I poured him a glass of cold water. The kitchen flowed into the living room, the two rooms being partially separated by a counter. A small table for four people was perched halfway between the two spaces, neither of which was large enough to hold the whole thing comfortably. The bathroom door was on one side of the living room. There was another door near it that led onto a very small balcony; it overlooked a claustrophobic space between four close together buildings and offered no privacy, but it was nonetheless a balcony.
I had two bedrooms—a fact that had made Lopez almost green with envy on his first visit here. But the second bedroom would scarcely have passed as a walk-in closet in most other cities. In fact, now that I no longer had roommates, that was precisely what I used it for. I kept a large supply of rehearsal props and costumes in that room, as well as the overflow of my own clothes that didn’t fit in the small closet in my bedroom.
Max beamed at me and said courteously, “I like your home, Esther. It’s very welcoming.”
“It’s rent-controlled,” I said. “Otherwise, I’d probably be living in a phone booth an hour outside of the city.”
Seeing Jeff today reminded me of how things had been back when I was dating him. ”I moved in here with two other girls from Northwestern University after I first came to New York. One girl slept in the back bedroom—which is only big enough to fit a twin bed, nothing else. So she had to keep her clothes in the bigger bedroom, which the other girl and I shared.”
”Where are your former roommates now?” Max asked, taking a seat in the overstuffed chair that we three girls had purchased together at a Goodwill shop five years ago.
I sat on the couch. “One quit acting and applied to law school after we’d been here about a year. The other one left about eighteen months after that. She got married to a doctor and moved to the suburbs. She’s never officially quit the business, but she’s got a baby, she’s teaching part-time, and she hasn’t gone for an audition since before she got engaged.” I shrugged. “I don’t think she’ll want to come back to this life later on.”
“Two out of three? A high attrition rate.”
“Not really. That’s what this life is like. A lot of people who start out acting wind up doing something else. One out of three of us sticking with it is probably a high percentage compared to the field overall.”
“Ah, but you are gifted,” he said. “As well as committed and driven. And these are qualities that cannot be measured by percentages.”
I smiled, liking his description of me.
Max set down his glass and rose to his feet. “You need your rest, my dear. And I must go collect Nelli and prepare for our nocturnal expedition.”
I rose and followed him to the door. “Be careful, Max. There’s danger on the streets at night even apart from baka and zombies.”
“I will be accompanied by a skilled swordsman,” he reminded me.
“Ah, yes. There is that. Good night, Max. I’ll see you tomorrow, I suppose?”
He nodded, wished me good night, and left.
I locked the door and latched the chain. Then, remembering that the keys to my home were in the clutches of the baka, I pushed a heavy chair in front of the door.
I stripped off my clothes and dropped them on the floor. I knew I should make a list of all the things I needed to do in the morning before returning to the Livingston Foundation (such as call a locksmith and cancel my credit cards), but I was just too exhausted to think about it right now.
I headed for the shower, and I stood under the running water, soaping, scrubbing, and shampooing until I finally felt clean. By then, I was starting to run out of warm water. I emerged from the shower, wrapped my hair in a towel, dried myself, and put on my bathrobe.
I was plodding toward the bedroom, planning to go straight to sleep, when I noticed the flashing light on my answering machine.
“Oh, right.” I hadn’t answered calls on my cell phone since it was stolen last night, so anyone trying to reach me would probably wind up calling here and leaving me a message. I pressed the playback button and listened to my calls.
There was one from my mother. This was inevitable. She always managed to call when I was having a rotten day. It was some sort of psychic gift. There was little chance, realistically, that she would
fail
to call on a day when I’d been arrested for prostitution, mugged by gargoyles, and spooked by a big snake. And since my mother wasn’t precisely a person who focused on the sunny side of things, I was glad I had missed her call.