The Sandler Inquiry Part 60

The block of Thirtieth Street on which she lived met Thomas's expectations and surpa.s.sed them. It was a dark, heavily littered street which even during a bright afternoon would be worth a detour.

There was an all-day garage which had closed at six, two vacant vandalized store fronts which had been Spanish grocery shops, and in a row toward Eleventh Avenue were three decaying warehouses. Across the fronts of these iron grates and metal grills had been pulled, protecting the interiors from becoming nocturnal discount centers for shoppers armed with crowbars.

Nestled among these establishments were several old brick tenements, walk-up buildings in various stages of repair and disrepair.

In better days the block had been a Lithuanian enclave. Now the newer immigrants from the West Indies and Central America populated the streets. The newer immigrants plus Leslie McAdam.

The only sign of life on the street was a tawdry bar close to the corner, outside of which several flashy models of Detroit workmanship were double-parked. A Rheingold sign flashed in the bar's window.

They walked by it quickly, just long enough to see two large black men fondling an equally large black woman at a window cash register. There was boisterous activity at a bar farther into the noisy dimness.

Leslie explained that she lived one flight above it, and that she was in the habit of moving quickly past the bar and into her doorway, key in hand, of course.

"One night I was followed in" she said.

"They thought any white girl on the block had to be selling herself Thomas closed the front door behind him. The alcove and hallway reeked embarra.s.singly. They climbed the dimly lit staircase, the noise from the bar thundering on the other side of the wall.

"Aren't you scared?" he was going to ask, but didn't, because obviously she wasn't. Not in relation to the more direct threats on her life, those she'd lived with for so long.

Then he was struck from nowhere by a more invidious thought.

Was this all part of a trap? Why was he defenseless being lured to a roach farm in the west thirties. He didn't know why he thought of it.

After all, he trusted her didn't he but there was something macabre, out of place, about this setting. Suppose he was being taken here for his throat to be perforated? More than one person had insisted that she was a fraud. This was exactly the type of building in which a body would be found two weeks after the fact and the murderer would never be apprehended.

He was on his guard as she unlocked her apartment door, stepped through it, and allowed him to follow.

Then the thought of a physical threat to him eased away as he observed her surroundings.

"What's the old axiom?" she asked.

"Be it ever so humble . . .

The chairs were overstuffed and threadbare, the floorboards worn and creaky when walked upon. The walls were of a gray plaster which might have been a pale green in better days but which had pa.s.sed many years since last being on familiar terms with a paintbrush.

The kitchen was narrow and cramped. It featured a single fluorescent light overhead. The stove was old-fashioned, the sink basin curiously stained with green, and the linoleum worn almost to the underlying woodwork.

Thomas took it all in as he sat gingerly upon the set tee half waiting for a spare spring beneath him to barge upward.

"It's not Versailles, is it?" she said with an apologetic smile.

"I suppose it's comfortable," he said.

"If you have to make do" There was noise from the sidewalk below where two sodden revelers were engaged in a heated and profane discussion with the fat woman from the cash register. Leslie went to one of two windows and pulled the shade down. Thomas glanced to the next room, a bedroom which was even more spa.r.s.e than the living room. A simple wooden dresser. A narrow single bed which had a dingy brown cover over its concave middle.

Thomas watched Leslie return from the window and sit down beside a dim thirty-year-old lamp beside the sofa. Here was a woman of grace, charm, and youth in a setting of gloom and despair. Here, within gray walls that were despairing, amid furniture which could better serve as firewood, and above a watering hole where man's primordial instincts took their last stand, the putative last of the Sandlers lived in exile. In a world removed from the faded elegance of the mansion on Eighty-ninth Street, she sought and awaited what she claimed would be her rightful restoration.

Her hands were in her lap. She was clearly embarra.s.sed to be seen in such surroundings.

"No one will ever accuse me of squandering my inheritance in advance she said, forcing a slight smile.

"How did you find this"- he searched for the word' place

"I needed something fast" she said.

"This is what I could afford The noise from the bar increased with profane shouts. There was the sound of a television and jukebox below.

Thomas could hear footsteps on the floor above him.

"How safe is it?" he asked.

"How safe is anything?" she said.

"This is safer than most. Four escape routes. Kitchen window, bathroom window, front door, back fire escape to the neighboring rooftops, six different escape routes from there" "You've got the angles figured well he said, admiring her inventiveness as a latter-day Houdini.

"There's no particular brilliance involved. just self-preservation She glanced around the drab room, focusing on the empty, dirty walls. She slipped out of her shoes and undid the top b.u.t.ton of her blouse, aspiring toward whatever small comfort she could find.

"I suppose what bothers me most," she said with a half sigh and as if in response to a question, 'is the unimaginative squalor of it all "Sorry?" he asked.

She turned to him, her arms folded as if stepping back from an easel to study it.

"The apartment," she said.

"Maybe I should invest in a few cans of wall paint."

"Another color might help," he offered in agreement.

"You miss the point," she said.

"Not one other color. "Several I could do a mural " She glanced at the bare walls, as if conceptualizing her project.

"Wouldn't that please the landlord?"

"Maybe it would," he said, 'if your work became valuable someday."

"Of course," she mused, imitating a carnival barker.

"Come see the mural of the modern-day Anastasia, the claimant to the Sandler chemical fortune '" She uttered a low bitter laugh and continued.

' "Spent years trying to collect what was rightfully hers. Never collected a penny! Died young and broke! But out of this life of torment came art. art! If you don't mind walking up one flight on Thirtieth Street' She glanced at him, then quickly turned away. A cynical smile was melting. It took him several seconds before he knew she was hiding tears.

"Leslie," he said, rising and going to her.

He took her in his arms, her back to him. Her hand was at her face. y I haven't cried in years" she said.

"I doni, want you to see me. It's weakness, I know."

"I won't look" he said with sincerity.

A moment or two pa.s.sed. She turned to him, face to face, her eyes slightly red but dry already.

"I'm sorry," she said.