There was the inevitable dark side, of course, and ample evidence of decay. As he neared the Lower East Side-a slum virtually from its inception-where Mary had last lived, this transition grew exponentially, until at last all that was left, up and down her actual street, was a grimy, silent, commerce-free backwater of urban depression: a home for rats, cockroaches, and humanity's rejects.
Willy stood across from his late ex-wife's address and thought back to how often he'd gone to buildings similar to this, both here and in Vermont's grittiest corners, knowing that all he would find would be hopelessness personified.
For a man who pretended he'd lost the habit, this was way too much thinking. Willy took a deep breath and crossed the street.
Chapter 3
The security in Mary's building was poor, no great surprise. Willy punched ten of the call buttons above the row of dented, graffiti-decorated mailboxes, got an atonal chorus of mixed replies over the loudspeakers, and at least one person who merely hit the buzzer opening the front door lock.
He decided to reconnoiter first, climbing to the third floor to find the apartment number he'd seen in the lobby under Mary's name, reacquainting himself with the familiar smell of poverty that clung to the walls like fresh paint. One flight up, however, he was stopped by an elderly woman who stepped out from behind her door.
"You ring downstairs?" she asked, her voice sharp and her jaundiced eyes narrowed. "Somebody rang."
He put on a surprised expression. "Me? No. Why?"
She ignored the question. "I don't know you."
He reached into his back pocket with feigned boredom and flashed his Vermont badge too fast for her to read it. It didn't actually look much like a New York detective's gold shield, but it was the right color, and he had the right attitude.