Bad Love

He cursed and slapped the desk. "They're a bureaucracy just like everything else in this city. They went from point A to point B, found C and said, good night, time to punch the clock and go home. So we hired a private investigator- someone the firm had used- and all he did was go over the same territory the police had covered, say the same damn thing. So I guess I should be happy you're here, telling me we weren't nuts."

"How did they say it happened?" I said. "A car crash or some kind of fall?"

He pulled his head back as if avoiding a punch. Glared at me. Began loosening his tie, then thought better of it and tugged it up against his throat, even tighter. Picking up his jacket, he flipped it over his shoulder.

"Let's get the hell out of here."

• • •

"You in shape?" he said, looking me up and down.

"Decent."

"Twenty blocks do you in?"

I shook my head.

He pressed forward into the throng, heading uptown. I jogged to catch up, watching him manipulate the sidewalk like an Indy driver, swaying into openings, stepping off the curb when that was the fastest way to go. Swinging his arms and looking straight ahead, sharp-eyed, watchful, self-defensive. I started to notice lots of other people with that same look. Thousands of people ru

I expected him to stop at Sixty-fifth Street, but he kept going to Sixty-seventh. Turning east, he led me up two blocks and stopped in front of a red-brick building, eight floors high, plain and flat, set between two ornate graystones. On the ground floor were medical offices. The town house on the right housed a French restaurant with a long black awning lettered in gold at street level. A couple of limousines were parked at the curb.

He pointed upward. "That's where it happened. An apartment on the top floor, and yeah, they said he jumped."

"Whose apartment was it?"

He kept staring up. Then down at the pavement. Directly in front of us, a dermatologist's window was fronted by a boxful of geraniums. Josh seemed to study the flowers. When he faced me, pain had immobilized his face.

"It's my mother's story," he said.

• • •

Shirley and Harvey Rosenblatt had worked where they lived, in a narrow brownstone with a gated entry. Three stories, more geraniums, a maple with an iron trunk guard surviving at the curb.

Josh produced a ring of keys and used one key to open the gate. The lobby ceiling was coffered walnut, the floor was covered in tiny black-and-white hexagonal tiles backed by etched glass double doors and a brass elevator. The walls were freshly painted beige. A potted palm stood in one corner. Another was occupied by a Louis XIV chair.

Three brass mailboxes were bolted to the north wall. Number 1 said, ROSENBLATT. Josh unlocked it and drew out a stack of envelopes before unlatching the glass doors. Behind it was a smaller vestibule, dark paneled and gloomy. Soup and powdered-cleanser smells. Two more walnut doors, one unmarked, with a mezuzah nailed to the post, the other bearing a brass plaque that said SHIRLEY M. ROSENBLATT, PH.D., P.C. The faint outline of where another sign had been glued was visible just above.

Josh unlocked the plain one and held it open for me. I stepped into a narrow entry hall lined with framed Daumier prints. To my left was a bentwood hall tree from which hung a single raincoat.

A gray tabby cat came from nowhere and padded toward us on the parquet floor.

Josh stepped in front of me and said, "Hey, Leo."

The cat stopped, arched its tail, relaxed it, and walked up to him. He dropped his hand. The cat's tongue darted. When it saw me, its yellow eyes slitted.

Josh said, "It's okay, Leo. I guess." He scooped up the cat, held it to his chest, and told me, "This way."

The hall emptied into a small sitting room. To the right was a dining room furnished with mock Chippendale, to the left a tiny kitchen, white and spotless. Though the shades were up on every window, the view was a brownstone six feet away, leaving the entire apartment dark and denlike. Simple furniture, not much of it. Some paintings, nothing flashy or expensive. Everything perfectly in place. I knew one way Josh had rebelled.

Beyond the sitting room was another living area, slightly larger, more casual. TV, easy chairs, a spinet piano, three walls of bookshelves filled with hardbacks and family photos. The fourth was bisected by an arched door that Josh opened.

"Hello?" Josh said, sticking his head through. The cat fussed and he let it down. It studied me, finally disappeared behind a sofa.

The sound of another door opening. Josh stepped back as a black woman in a white nurse's uniform came out. In her forties, she had a round face, a stocky but shapely figure, and bright eyes.

"Hello, Mr. Rosenblatt." West Indian accent.

"Selena," he said, taking her hand. "How is she?"

"Everything is perfect. She had a generous breakfast and a nice long nap. Robbie was here at ten, and they did almost the full hour of exercise."

"Good. Is she up now?"

"Yes." The nurse's eyes shifted to me. "She's been waiting for you."

"This is Dr. Delaware."

"Hello, doctor. Selena Limberton."

"Hello." We shook hands. Josh said, "Have you had your lunch break yet?"

"No," said the nurse.

"Now would be a good time."

They talked a bit more, about medicines and exercises, and I studied the family portraits, settling on one that showed Harvey Rosenblatt in a dark three-piece suit, beaming in the midst of his brood. Josh around eighteen, with long, unruly hair, a fuzzy mustache, and black-rimmed eyeglasses. Next to him, a beautiful girl with a long, graceful face and sculpted cheekbones, maybe two or three years older. The same dark eyes as her brother. The oldest child was a young man in his midtwenties who resembled Josh, but thick necked and heavier, with cruder features, curly hair, and a full, dark beard that mimicked his father's.

Shirley Rosenblatt was tiny, fair, and blue-eyed, her blond hair cut very short, her smile full but frail even in health. Her shoulders weren't much wider than those of a child. It was hard to imagine her birthing the robust trio.

Mrs. Limberton said, "All righty, then, I'll be back in an hour- where's Leo?"

Josh looked around.

I said, "I think he's hiding behind the couch."

The nurse went over, bent, and lifted the cat. His body was limp. Nuzzling him, she said, "I'll bring you back some chicken if you behave." The cat blinked. She set him down on the couch and he curled up, eyes open and watchful.

Josh said, "Did you feed the fish?"

She smiled. "Yes. Everything's taken care of. Now you don't worry yourself about any more details, she's going to be fine. Nice meeting you, doctor. Bye-bye."

The door closed. Josh frowned.

"Don't worry?" he said. "I went to school to learn how to worry."