The bounty hunter’s body had been found in apartment 302. Rakkim took the stairs two at a time, keeping to the sides to minimize noise. He climbed to the fourth floor, walked the corridor to the opposite stairwell, listening. Television sounds from the apartments, commercials and laugh tracks and news bulletins. Always a breaking news bulletin.
Cooking smells in the hallway, a heady mix of onions and mint tea. Someone was roasting a chicken in 409, a child singing off-key-Rakkim imagined a man coming home from work soon, climbing the steps, clothes sticking to him, wondering if they were ever going to be able to afford a home of their own. He imagined the man walking down this very hall, the smell of dinner getting stronger, stopping outside the door to listen to the child singing. The man would straighten himself, smooth his clothes before he opened the door, the child launching himself or herself into his arms. His wife would ask how his day was, and the man would lie, say it was fine, just fine. He would kiss her, smell her sweat and the hint of perfume behind her ear, the small bottle he had bought for her birthday. Last night’s perfume still lingering. Rakkim stood outside the door, listening to the child sing, and the song was different now, and he had no idea how long he had been standing there. He took the steps to the third floor slowly, checking up and down the stairwell, shaken by his lapse, his momentary inattentiveness.
Different smells on the third floor. Someone was cooking cabbage, and it covered anything tasty that anyone else was making. Apartment 302 was down almost at the end of the hall, just past a boarded-up broom closet. As he passed 300, he heard a creaking behind the door. Rakkim stopped. He stayed where he was, watching the peephole, and saw the shadow under the door shift as someone moved back into the room. Rakkim moved on to 302, and there was another smell now. Worse than cabbage. The door was locked, but one of the hinges had been twisted, and Rakkim did what the last visitor had done. He gave it a push, and the bolt, which barely made contact with the frame, gave way. He stepped into the room. The windows were wide-open. It helped, but not much.
Sarah had been here. Her clothes were strewn around the floor, a sunflower-yellow dress she had worn to one of their assignations. A spring dress, though spring was over a month away. A sign of her confidence then. He took pleasure in the destruction in the room, furniture overturned, cabinets kicked in, the refrigerator pushed over. Good to see the wreckage, the rage of the search-it meant that they hadn’t found her. A search of the room would give him nothing, but he searched it anyway. She had left nothing of value behind, nothing that would point to where she had gone. More of Redbeard’s lessons.
Back in the hall, he closed the front door and started for the stairs. Another creak from 300. He knocked. No answer. Knocked again. “Open up or I’ll knock the door down.”
A muffled voice. “Who are you, the big bad wolf?”
Rakkim laughed. “Just open the door.”
The door opened slightly. An old man in a striped bathrobe peered through the gap between the door and the jamb allowed by the security chain. He had three days’ growth of gray stubble.
“The woman who lived next door was a friend of mine.”
“Lucky you.”
“She had to walk past your door to reach the stairs. I think you saw her every time she left. Every time she came back too. I don’t think you miss much.”
“I don’t want trouble, mister.”
“My name is Rakkim.”
“Hennesy.”
“Could you let me in, Mr. Hennesy? I don’t mean you any harm.”
“I heard that before.” Hennesy wiped his nose with the sleeve of his striped bathrobe. “Might as well come in, you’re going to do what you want to anyway.” He opened the door, the security chain falling onto the floor. “The other bastards didn’t bother introducing themselves, so I guess that makes you the polite one.”
Rakkim closed the door behind him. The carpet was worn in front of the door where the old man had been keeping his vigil on the hallway for a couple hundred years. The wall screen in front of the sofa had been torn down, the screen shattered.
Hennesy walked to a small table next to the window and sat. He folded his hands, waited until Rakkim had seated himself across from him. A cup of cold coffee on the table, cream curdled. A plate with toast remnants next to an open jar of boysenberry jam. “I told you I don’t know anything.”
Rakkim saw the shell of Hennesy’s right ear was evenly notched all around. The edges raw. Crusted over. Whoever had done it had stopped halfway around the left one. Grown bored, probably. “You should put some antibiotic ointment on that.”
Hennesy gingerly touched his ear. “My own fault for keeping a pair of pinking shears lying around. They were my wife’s…”
“They would have found something else to use. Something worse. People like that…they always reach for the first thing at hand.”
Hennesy screwed the lid on the jam, brushed crumbs onto the floor. “They said she was a wanted criminal. A runaway who killed a man trying to bring her home. I didn’t have anything to tell them. Don’t have anything to tell you either.”
“I don’t believe you, Mr. Hennesy.”
Hennesy sipped at the cold coffee. “I squint my eyes…I squint and I see death all around you, mister. Are you here to kill me? I’d just like to know.”
“I love her, Mr. Hennesy. The men who took pinking shears to you…what do you think they’ll do to Sarah if they find her?”
“That ain’t none of my business.”
Rakkim shook his head. “It may not be your business, but you took it on. That’s the kind of man you are. You’re not the only one who can see things about people.”
Hennesy toyed with an unopened bag of pistachio nuts on the table. “She gave me these. Told me her name was Rachel, but I knew better. She was a runaway. She just had that look. Fierce. My granddaughter left her husband a few years ago. Took her two kids and ran.” He sipped the coffee. “I can’t eat nuts…they play holy hell with my digestion, but I appreciated her kindness.”
Rakkim let him talk.
“I played dumb with the other ones. Told them my hearing was shot, but I got good ears.” Hennesy touched the ragged cartilage again. “I know the footsteps of everybody in this building. I can close my eyes and tell if they belong here. Sometimes I wish I didn’t hear so good.” His voice cracked. “I heard them come up the stairs a couple of nights ago…three of them. Two of them left a while later, but one stayed, hiding out in the hall. After that…” He shook his head. “After that, I heard things I’d like to forget.” He glared at Rakkim. “She killed that man, that bounty hunter, but he deserved it. I had my ear pressed against the wall and I heard every word.” His eyes shimmered. “That could have been my granddaughter, and I just stood there listening.”
“Was she hurt?”
“I heard her fighting back. I heard her, and I didn’t do a thing.”
“Was she injured, Mr. Hennesy?”
“I didn’t see any blood on her.” Hennesy looked at his hands. “I didn’t used to be such a coward. I was wounded at the Battle of Chicago. Supposed to be the turning point of the war, but don’t ask me. All I know is I played dead for two days on Illinois Avenue with a bullet in my guts. Peckerwoods walking all over, shooting the wounded. I was young then, it was easy to be brave. Now, I ain’t worth shit.”