Hell's Kitchen

TWENTY-SIX

They drove in silence for eight blocks.

The limo pulled up in front of a dilapidated old building somewhere in the Forties on the far West Side. The paint was scaling. It looked like dirty, white confetti. The wood trim was rotten and piled up against a side door were a dozen trash bags.

McKe

The bodyguard opened the limo door, took Pellam’s arm firmly, led him toward the side entrance. He shoved open a door and pushed Pellam forward. They waited as McKe

Down long, dark corridor. The developer went first. Pellam followed, trailed by Artie, who carried the camera as if it were a machine gun.

Pellam looked around, squinting, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. He slipped his hand into his sleeve to grip the handle of the letter opener he’d copped from McKe

The corridor was lit by only one low-watt bare bulb. He coughed at the smell of mold and urine. A blur of motion at their feet. McKe

Then, the noise.

Pellam slowed at the sound of the faint high-pitched wail. It seemed to be a woman’s scream. From TV? No. It was a live, human voice. Pellam felt the hairs on his neck stir.

“Keep going,” McKe

The chill keening grew louder and louder.

He shoved the horrible noise out of his thoughts and concentrated on what he was about to do. His legs tensed. This was the moment. His right hand slipped to his left sleeve.

McKe

The wailing rose in volume. Two people, maybe three, were howling in pain. The bodyguard pushed Pellam forward roughly. He set his teeth together and stepped forward, pulling the letter opener from his sleeve.

Artie pushed the door open, stepped inside.

He’d slash first at Artie – aiming for his eyes. Then try for the gun. He’d -

Pellam stopped just over the threshold, frozen, gripping the letter opener.

What is this?

He glanced back at the developer and his thug. McKe

McKe

The man handed Pellam his Betacam.

“Do it,” McKe

Half of the babies were in cardboard boxes and the rest wandered or crawled about, playing with broken toys or blocks. On the floor sat plastic bottles of orange diet soda and Coke, some had tipped over and spilled. Two of the children struggled to open one, like young animals trying to crack open a coconut. Ammonia from dirty diapers wafted through the room.

“Who the fuck are you?” the woman repeated, shouting. “You want me to call the cops?”

Roger McKe

He asked, “Go ahead what?”

“Well, what do you think? Play Charles Kuralt. Start filming!” The developer’s temper was starting to fray.

“Fuck you!” the fat woman shouted. “You get out of here.”

One of the babies crawled rapidly over the filthy floor and began playing with Pellam’s boot. He picked up the infant and dusted off his blackened hands and knees, set him on a blanket. “Why don’t you take better care of these kids?”

“Fuck you too.”

Okay. We’ll do it your way. Pellam lifted the Betacam. Started the deck ru

“I’m calling the cops.” But the woman remained seated, ignoring the intruders, and lost herself in an episode of The Young and the Restless on the small TV.

Pellam pa

Looking through the eyepiece, he asked McKe

“This’s an unlicensed day care center. Most of the people in the Kitchen can’t afford a licensed one so they drop their kids off at pigsties like this. It’s a disgrace but there’s nothing parents can do if they want to work.”

The woman tossed a handful of corn chips at the feet of one baby who had just started sobbing. Pellam shot the scene.

With robust approval McKe

Twenty minutes later they were outside, deeply breathing fresher air. Pellam asked, “So, what the hell’s going on?”

He pointed at the building. “I’m trying to wipe those out of New York, places like that. They’re a disgrace… Excuse me, do I see some cynicism? Wondering why Roger McKe

“Day care?”

“And clean parks and pools. I want parents who can feel safe dropping their kids off and then coming to work in my office buildings. I want teenagers to play basketball on nice courts and swim in clean pools so they don’t mug my tenants at night. Self-interest? Sure. Say what you want, I don’t care. I read Ayn Rand in college and never got over her.”

“Why did you bring me here?”

“Because I checked you out. You’re doing a documentary on the neighborhood. And you were going to trash me like everybody else does.”

“That’s what you think?”

“I’m tabloid-magnet and I’m fucking sick of it. I want to make sure you tell the whole story. Nobody has an inkling what I’m doing for the neighborhood.”

“Which is what?”

“How ’bout the public park I’m renovating at my personal fucking expense on Forty-fifth Street. And the pool repairs for the Department of Parks and Recreation that I guarantee’ll be finished by the time the schools’re out next year. And the new day care center on Thirty-sixth and the-”

“Wait – on Thirty-sixth and Tenth? On the corner?”

Louis Bailey’s building.

The supposed harem for McKe

“Yeah, that’s the place. I’m turning three floors there into the best day care center in the country. The parents show they’re gainfully employed or looking for work and their kids stay for five bucks a day, everything included. Food, games, Montessori tutors, books…”

“And I suppose it was just a coincidence that the building next door burned down? It didn’t have anything to do with the Tower?”

McKe

“What about the tu

McKe

“And I know about your deal with Jimmy Corcoran.”

The developer blinked in surprise. Then said, “Well, you sure as hell don’t know too much about it. The tu