Chapter Twenty-Two
Woo finally finds the right key on his chain and unlocks the loft. Lenore has a tremendous need to stretch, to push out the muscles of her arms and shoulders, arch her back, roll the whole trunk of her body in a great circle. But she represses the urge and simply huddles inside her coat.
A lot of people have moved into rehabbed sections of all the old Quinsigamond mills in the past decade or so. His apartment is a middle floor, above a tool and die outfit and below a printing firm. Both shops are out of business, and it appears that Woo might be the only person using the building. Lenore thinks this must give the place a mausoleum-type feel. It doesn’t help that the place is so huge. He’s got about eight hundred square feet of living space, all of it wide open, undivided.
“The rent is cheaper than what you might think,” he says to Lenore as he pushes two enormous, reinforced metal doors open. They’re like barn doors for housing mechanical horses of some smoggy future. But once she steps inside, she sees a different story. She’s impressed. The room is void of any of the dimness and griminess that always seem to haunt converted lofts. There are three trackways of recessed lighting hidden high in the steel I-beams of the twelve-foot ceilings.
“Your electric bill must cost a fortune,” Lenore says, staring upward.
“Not so bad,” Woo answers, locking and bolting the doors with levers and chains. “And it’s well worth it. Gives it a much warmer feeling.”
Lenore can’t agree with this, though she nods her head. The place is immaculate and scrupulously stylish. It could be the centerfold of some aggressive new architectural magazine for well-educated musicians. But warm is not a word that comes to mind. The ceilings are so high, the gulf of open space so huge, that there’s a hint of a gymnasium feeling. Despite herself, Lenore smells for sweat and old towels.
“You must have sandblasters come in weekly,” she says, and Woo looks at her, smiling and cocking his head to show he doesn’t quite understand the comment.
“I mean it feels so clean. So fresh,” she explains. “I’ve been in a few of these redone places and there’s always this feeling. Like there’s a century of grit and brick dust hanging in the air that no amount of scrubbing can get rid of.”
Woo nods wildly, seeming thrilled with her comment. His arm sweeps upward and his hand waves toward the ceilings. “I had an air quality control system installed when I bought the place. Essential. I’m very happy with it.”
“You own. So it’s a condo setup.”
“Something like that,” he says, starting to walk toward a long wall unit of high-gloss black cabinetry made of some material Lenore can’t identify. It doesn’t look like either metal or plastic. There’s a double sink set into the middle of a countertop that juts out, slopelike, wavelike, from below the cabinets. Its faucet is black and bizarre, rising maybe a foot and a half into the air before the head curves over and faces downward. It’s like some sleek water-spewing rattlesnake. Rising out of the floor a few feet in front of the sink is a cutting-block island that holds what looks like a customized built-in espresso maker.
“I’ll make some tea,” Woo says, and starts to work.
Lenore follows him to this kitchen area, leans on the island, and studies the rest of the room. Though the walls are all classic red brick, you can’t see much of them. They’re almost all lined, as high as the ceiling supports, with endless sections of bookshelves. It’s all constructed out of the same weird high-tech black material as the kitchen. After every few shelves, up near the top, is an arcing lamp, resembling a streetlight, with its industrial, metallic housing and its War of the Worlds, lined, wide-eyed bulb. Every other lamp is lit and they give off an eerie bluish gleam. Lenore notices one of those old-fashioned wrought-iron rolling ladders found in old libraries. Though she can’t see from this distance, she’s sure it’s workable and she flashes on an image of a naked Woo riding the ladder across his enormous collection of books, arching his body outward away from the walls, letting out a war whoop, possibly drunk, acting like an ass in the privacy of his own factory-home.
She knows she’s probably seen more books gathered together in one place. But never like this. The local library, for example, must have more books. But they’re arranged in short spurts, aisles, around corners, divided up into separate rooms. Here it feels like Woo has actually used books as his primary building matter, that books make up the walls, house him, keep him safe from the elements. No matter what happens here tonight, she’ll find a way to look at a run of spines, commit a bunch of titles to memory.