60.

CANAL STREET, WHICH really had been a canal and a promenade in the early eighteen hundreds, was now a merchandise mart where peddlers hawked everything from batteries and socks to fish and vegetables. It also served as the portal to another world— Chinatown, a maze of dark, winding, densely populated streets in Lower Manhattan, a perfect place to hide, particularly if you were Asian.

Bound on the north by Canal Street, by Lafayette on the west and the Bowery on the east, it teemed with immigrants, legal and illegal. Vicious street gangs sold protection to small businesses, which were mainly restaurants in storefronts one after the other on Mott, Pell, Bayard, Baxter, Division, and Chatham Square. Even more restaurants cluttered second floors and cellars. Barbecued ducks dangled glistening in the storefront windows alongside other assorted fare. Disregarding the heat, shoppers—mostly Asian—were haggling loudly with vendors, watching, veil-eyed, the two white women in business clothing.

No way, Wetzon thought, could she and Smith not be conspicuous, particularly Smith, whose height was exaggerated by her high heels. They turned right off the Bowery onto Pell Street, the raw underbelly of Chinatown, edging around people clustered on the narrow sidewalks. Everyone seemed to be shouting. Where Pell ran into Mott, they stopped. They had not spoken since getting out of the cab.

Lined on both sides with run-down tenements that appeared to lean toward each other, these cramped streets, not made for auto traffic, were snarled with trucks and cars. Exotic odors mixed with garbage rot; a bakery in yet another storefront sold rice cakes and almond cookies, and the dead air floated sugary.

“2904B Mott Street,” Wetzon murmured. “Here we are.”

Smith’s eyes searched. “Of course, they’re never around when you need them.”

“Who?” Wetzon was jostled by two elderly Chinese men, who made no apology as they kept up their dialogue as if the women were not there.

“The cops.” Smith considered the tenement with narrowed eyes. “No. We’re not going in there by ourselves.”

The storefront of the building housed yet another restaurant—the Blue Flamingo Tea House. Peering through the steamy windows, they saw a luncheonette counter with a few people sitting, smoking, bowls in front of them. On the side were Formica-topped tables where an old Chinese man sat reading a newspaper.

To the right of the restaurant and up a step, grooved out by generations of footsteps, was a door with a big grimy window. Wetzon held the door open for the reluctant Smith. They entered a dank, dirty vestibule; the mud-brown linoleumed floor was cracked and threadbare. The stench of urine and mildew pervaded. Six mailboxes with names missing or crossed out and written over were in a horizontal row on the right wall. Each was marked with a letter.

“I’m going up.” Wetzon’s voice sounded hollow.

“Listen to me,” Smith spoke in a throaty whisper. “I’m not going up there and neither are you. We could be kidnapped by white slavers and never seen again.”

Wetzon guffawed. “You have to be kidding.”

The door to the stairwell hung crookedly ajar from a broken upper hinge, which squeaked in protest when Wetzon pulled it open and peered in. A bare ceiling bulb dangled from a dirt-encrusted wire, its wattage so low, its exterior so caked with dirt and grease, that it gave off little light.

Smith leaned over Wetzon’s shoulder, taking in the dim stairwell and the dirt, and shivered in spite of the smothering heat. “It’s disgusting up there. You can’t—” She pushed Wetzon aside and blocked the doorway.

“I’m not asking you to come with me. In fact, it’s better that you don’t. And I’m not going to stand here and argue. I’ll be right back. Move.”

Smith shrugged and stepped aside, careful not to brush against the filthy wall. “I’m not waiting here. It stinks to high heaven.”

“Then wait outside.” Wetzon smirked, thinking of tall, willowy Smith, in go-to-business clothes, hanging out on the street in front of the Blue Flamingo Tea House, like a hooker.

The steep, narrow steps were covered by a ragged rubber runner, and the whole cramped building seemed to tilt to the right. Voices and the muffled sound of china and pots clattering filtered through the cracked and chipped walls.

At the top of the stairs she found a short hall, two doors, and another set of stairs going up. Somewhere above her, a child began to cry, bunched and bleating. Footsteps shook the building and the child’s crying stopped.

Wetzon listened at the first door, trying not to touch anything. Chicken soup permeated the landing, mingling with roasting meat, cabbage, all smells accumulated from those who had lived, died, or moved on from here. She knocked on the door. There was no response. Sweat dripped from her forehead, her upper lip. She licked her lips and tasted salt. God, she thought, and knocked on the second door.

“Hurry it up, will you.” Smith called up from the floor below, skittery.

Wetzon raised her hand to knock again, but the door opened slightly, just enough for her to see David Kim looking just as shocked to see her as she was to see him. His face, even in the bleak yellowish light from the hall, looked white, skin drawn taut over his cheekbones; his dark eyes were sunken. A death’s-head.

“My God, David.”

He backed into the room, and she pushed the door open the rest of the way, following him into a warren of small, boxy rooms. A railroad flat. A sofa and a leather easy chair. A cream-and-blue nappy carpet. Track lighting. And a very complex stereo system hooked up to a television and a VCR. A fan whirled, but it was stiflingly hot. An odd humming sound seemed to come from the sofa.

“David—thank God you’re all right.” Why wasn’t she afraid? In her heart of hearts, she knew he was innocent.

He sank into the chair and leaned his head back, closing his eyes. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in days, weeks.

“David,” she said again. “What’s happened to you? What is this about?”

He opened his eyes and she saw agony. He said, “I didn’t do it. They set me up.”

“I knew it,” she cried triumphantly. She sat down on the edge of the sofa and leaned toward him. “Who did it?” When he didn’t answer her, she said, “David, come in with me and tell them you didn’t.”

He shook his head bleakly. “I can’t. They’ll never believe me. I have no money. You have to be rich to defend yourself.”

“David, do you know who killed Ellie?”

“I’m scared.” His hands trembled. Wetzon took them in hers; they were dry and cool.

“I’ll go with you. It’ll be all right. Come on.” She stood and moved to help him up, and from that position, she saw the new Vuitton suitcase parked behind the still open door. Turning back to David, she said, “You were running away.”

He nodded, mute.

An old, black AT&T telephone lay doggo under a newspaper, off the hook, humming. She knelt, threw off the paper, replaced the receiver, and punched out Silvestri’s number at Midtown North.

“O’Connor.”

“Lieutenant Silvestri, please.”

“Not here.”

“Is anyone else there?”

“Yeah, I’m here. Waddaya want, lady?”

“This is Leslie Wetzon. Tell Silvestri I’m at 2904B Mott Street with David Kim. He’s going to—” A mighty sledgehammer hit her, glancing off her head, slamming into her shoulder, and she felt herself go down, sprawling across the telephone.

The suitcase, she thought. He’d bashed her with the suitcase. She lay gasping, trying to catch her breath, heard O’Connor from a distance, crackling from the receiver, heard David’s thudding footsteps down the stairs. Wetzon, you fool, she thought, scrambling to her feet. She got to the door and collected enough breath to scream,”Smith!”

Then she came clattering down the stairs, heard brakes squeal, a terrifying shriek, as she threw open first one door then the other onto the street. Paper was flying from everywhere, scraps. Smith was rubbing her ankle, looking pleased with herself. A yellow cab. A crowd was dancing, jabbering in Chinese, in English, grabbing at the floating paper. It was money ... bills. The cab driver, a small Pakistani with a pencil-thin mustache, was standing beside the cab, wringing his hands, crying, “He ran in front of me ... did you see? ... You saw, he ran in front of me....”

“I tripped him.” Smith grabbed her in a smothering hug. “Thank God, you’re all right. I tripped him and he went flying into the street.”

Where was David? Wetzon broke away from Smith. “David!” A siren wailed in the distance. A fifty-dollar bill floated past her nose and Smith clutched at it.

Wetzon pushed her way through the crowd. David lay on the street on his back, twisted among the orange rinds, bits of torn newspaper, and chicken bones, as people snatched at the explosion of bills, fifties and hundreds, that spilled from the split-open suitcase on the hood of the cab.

“David.” His eyes were open. His mouth moved. Wetzon knelt on the filthy street. She touched his face, felt his wrist. There was a pulse, faint but steady. “Oh, David,” she said. “Why? You had it made. Ellie loved you.”

He moaned. “She was going to spoil it. She would have told.”

“Dear God, was it worth it, David? The money”—She waved her hand around—”look, it’s all gone.”

His eyes were wet black marbles. He said, “I can’t feel my legs.”

Wetzon stroked his hand.

He looked at her and said, “I’m sorry, Father.”

The sirens filled the vacuum.