Smithback checked his watch. Almost one o’clock.
Oh, God. Such a brilliant bit of detective work and all he’d really got was the damn address. Well, it was a matter of an hour or two to simply go check and see if the house was still standing.
Smithback stuffed the papers back into his pocket and strolled to Central Park West. There wasn’t much point in flagging down a cab — they’d refuse to take him that far uptown, and once there he’d never find a cab to take him home again. Even though it was broad daylight, he had no intention of doing any wandering around in that dangerous neighborhood.
The best thing to do might be to rent a car. The Times had a special arrangement with Hertz, and there was a branch not far away on Columbus. Now that he thought about it, if the house did still exist, he’d probably want to check inside, talk to current tenants, find out if anything unusual had come to light during renovations, that sort of thing.
It might be dark before he was through.
That did it: he was renting a car.
Forty-five minutes later, he was heading up Central Park West in a silver Taurus. His spirits had risen once again. This still could be a big story. After he’d checked on the house, he could do a search of the New York Public Library, see if he could turn up any published articles of Leng. Maybe he could even search the police files to see if anything unusual had happened in the vicinity of Leng’s house during the time he was alive.
There were still a lot of strong leads to follow up here. Leng could be as big as Jack the Ripper. The similarities were there. All it took was a journalist to make it come alive.
With enough information, this could be his next book.
He, Smithback, would be a shoo-in for that Pulitzer which always seemed to elude him. And even more important — well, just as important, at least — he’d have a chance to square himself with Nora. This would save her and Pendergast a lot of time wading through city deeds. And it would please Pendergast, who he sensed was a silent ally. Yes: all in all, this was going to work out well.
Reaching the end of the park, he headed west on Cathedral Parkway, then turned north onto Riverside Drive. As he passed 125th Street he slowed, scanning the addresses of the broken buildings. Six Hundred Seventy. Seven Hundred One. Another ten blocks went by. As he continued north, he slowed still further, holding his breath in anticipation.
And then his eye alighted on 891 Riverside Drive.
The house was still standing. He couldn’t believe his luck: Leng’s own house.
He gave it a long, searching look as he passed by, then turned right at the next street, 138th, and circled the block, heart beating fast.
Eight Ninety-one was an old Beaux Arts mansion that took up the entire block, sporting a pillared entryway, festooned with Baroque Revival decorations. There was even a damn coat of arms carved above the door. It was set back from the street by a small service road, forming a triangle-shaped island that adjoined Riverside Drive. There were no rows of buzzers beside the door, and the first-floor windows had been securely boarded up and covered with tin. The place, it seemed, had never been broken into apartments. Like so many old mansions along the Drive, it had simply been abandoned years before — too expensive to maintain, too expensive to tear down, too expensive to revamp. Almost all such buildings had reverted to the city for unpaid taxes. The city simply boarded them up and warehoused them.
He leaned over the passenger seat, squinting for a better look. The upper-story windows were not boarded up, and none of the panes appeared to be broken. It was perfect. It looked just like the house of a mass murderer. Front page photo, here we come. Smithback could just see his story generating a police search of the place, the discovery of more bodies. This was getting better and better.
So how best to proceed? A little peek through a window might be in order — provided he could find a place to park.
Pulling away from the curb, he circled the block again, then drove down Riverside, looking for a parking spot. Considering how poor the neighborhood was, there were a remarkable number of cars: junkers, aging Eldorado pimpmobiles, fancy SUVs with huge speakers tilting up from their rear beds. It was six or seven blocks before he finally found a semilegal parking spot on a side street off Riverside. He should have hired a livery driver, damn it, and had him wait while he inspected the house. Now, he had to walk nine blocks through Harlem. Just what he had tried to avoid.
Nudging the rental car into the space, he glanced carefully around. Then he got out of the car, locked it, and — quickly, but not so quickly as to attract attention — walked back up to 137th Street.
When he reached the corner, he slowed, sauntering down the block until he came to the porte-cochère entrance. Here, he paused to look at the house more carefully, trying to look as casual as possible.
It had once been very grand: a four-story structure of marble and brick, with a slate mansard roof, oval windows, towers, and a widow’s walk. The facade was encrusted with carved limestone details set into brick. The streetfront was surrounded by a tall spiked iron fence, broken and rusty. The yard was filled with weeds and trash, along with a riot of sumac and ailanthus bushes and a pair of dead oaks. Its dark-browed upper-story windows looked out over the Hudson and the North River Water Pollution Control Plant.
Smithback shivered, glanced around one more time, then crossed the service road and started down the carriageway. Gang graffiti was sprayed all over the once elegant marble and brick. Windblown trash had accumulated several feet deep in the recesses. But in the rear of the carriage drive, he could see a stout door made of oak. It, too, had been sprayed with graffiti, but still looked operable. It had neither window nor peephole.
Smithback slipped farther down the carriageway, keeping close to the outside wall. The place stank of urine and feces. Someone had dropped a load of used diapers beside the door, and a pile of garbage bags lay in a corner, torn apart by dogs and rats. As if on cue, an enormously fat rat waddled out of the trash, dragging its belly, looked insolently at him, then disappeared back into the garbage.
He noticed two small, oval windows, set on each side of the door. Both were covered with tin, but there might be a way to pry one loose. Advancing, Smithback carefully pressed his hand against the closest, testing it. It was solid as a rock: no cracks, no way to see in. The other was just as carefully covered. He inspected the seams, looking for holes, but there were none. He laid a hand on the oaken door: again, it felt totally solid. This house was locked up tight, nigh impregnable. Perhaps it had been locked up since the time of Leng’s death. There might well be personal items inside. Once again, Smithback wondered if the remains of victims might also be there.
Once the police got their hands on the place, he’d lose his chance to learn anything more.
It would be very interesting to see inside.
He looked up, his eye following the lines of the house. He’d had some rock climbing experience, gained from a trip to the canyon country of Utah. The trip where he’d met Nora. He stepped away, studying the facade. There were lots of cornices and carvings that would make good handholds. Here, away from the street, he wasn’t as likely to be noticed. With a little luck, he might be able to climb to one of the second-story windows. Just for a look.
He glanced back down the carriageway. The street was deserted, the house deathly silent.
Smithback rubbed his hands together, smoothed his cowlick. And then he set his left wing tip into a gap in the lower course of masonry and began to climb.
TWO
CAPTAIN CUSTER CHECKED the clock on the wall of his office. It was nearly noon. He felt a growl in his capacious stomach and wished, for at least the twentieth time, that noon would hurry up and come so he could head out to Dilly’s Deli, purchase a double corned beef and swiss on rye with extra mayo, and place the monstrous sandwich in his mouth. He always got hungry when he was nervous, and today he was very, very nervous. It had been barely forty-eight hours since he’d been put in charge of the Surgeon case, but already he was getting impatient calls. The mayor had called, the commissioner had called. The three murders had the entire city close to panicking. And yet he had nothing to report. The breathing space he’d bought himself with that article on the old bones was just about used up. The fifty detectives working the case were desperately following up leads, for all the good it did them. But to where? Nowhere. He snorted, shook his head. Incompetent ass-wipes.