Brimstone

He glanced back into the lobby, caught the eye of the snooty doorman who'd made him walk around back earlier, and made a point of lingering a little longer on the steps. The man was at his kiosk, hanging up the house phone and looking back at him, a pinched expression on his mummified face. Damn, sometimes it seemed that being a fossilized old turd was the main job qualification of a Manhattan doorman.

Now, as he sauntered down the steps and turned left on Central Park South, his thoughts returned to Pendergast. Why the hell did he need a house uptown? From what he'd heard, Pendergast's apartment in the Dakota was bigger than most houses, anyway. He pulled the card from his pocket: 891 Riverside Drive. What cross street was that? Probably one of those elegant old buildings along Riverside Park up around 96th. He'd been out of New York too long. In years past, he could take any avenue address and calculate the cross street in his head.

Mullin's Pub was still where he remembered it, little more than a dim storefront with a long bar and old wooden tables along the opposite wall. D'Agosta entered, his heart warmed by the thought of a real New York cheeseburger, cooked rare, not one of those fussy avocado-arugula-Camembert-and-pancetta things they sold in Southampton for fifteen dollars.

An hour later, well fed, D'Agosta emerged, then headed north to the subway station at 66th. Even at 7:30, there were a million cars rushing, vying, and honking, a fuming chaos of steel and chrome, including one shitbox eighties-era gold Impala with smoked windows that nearly clipped off his toes. Laying a suitable string of curses in the car's wake, D'Agosta ducked down into the subway. He fumbled with the magnetic card, swiped it through the machine, then headed down the stairs for the platform of the uptown IRT local. Even having killed an hour, he was going to be early. Maybe he should have stayed in Mullin's for another brew.

In less than a minute a growing roar, along with a balloon of stale air that forced its way out of the dark tu

He crossed Broadway and walked west down 94th Street, past West End Avenue to Riverside Drive. On the far side of the leafy drive, past the thin green sliver of Riverside Park, he could make out the West Side Highway and the river beyond. It was a pleasant enough evening, but the sky was darkening and there was a smell of moisture in the air. The sluggish waters of the Hudson roiled along like black ink, and the lights of New Jersey speckled the far shore. There was a faint flicker of lightning.

He turned and sca

Two fourteen? D'Agosta swore. He really had lost it in those few years in Canada. Eight ninety-one was a lot farther uptown than he realized, maybe close to Harlem. What the hell was Pendergast doing living up there?

He could go back to the subway, but that meant a long uphill walk back to Broadway, and perhaps a long wait in the station, then the local crawl farther uptown. He could grab a cab, but that still meant walking back to Broadway, and uptown cabs were almost impossible to find at that time of night.

Or he could hoof it.

D'Agosta turned north and began walking up the drive. It was probably only ten or fifteen short blocks. He slapped his gut. It would do him good, work off some of that greasy burger. Besides, he still had more than an hour to kill.

He set a brisk pace for himself, his cuffs and keys jangling. The wind was sighing through the trees along the edge of Riverside Park, and the facades of the elegant apartment buildings that faced the river were brightly lit, most sporting doormen or security guards. Even though it was almost eight, a lot of people were still coming home from work: men and women in suits, a musician carrying a cello, a couple of college professor types in tweedy jackets arguing loudly about somebody named Hegel. Once in a while someone glanced at him, smiled, nodded, glad that he was there. September 11 had changed a lot of things in New York City, and one of them was the way people looked at cops. Another reason to get himself rehired at the first opportunity.

D'Agosta hummed as he walked along, filling his lungs with the heady fragrance, that West Side perfume of salt air, car fumes, garbage, and asphalt. He caught a brief whiff of roasting coffee from some all-night delicatessen. New York City. Once it got into your blood, you could never get it out again. When the economy turned around and the city began hiring again, D'Agosta would be first in line. Christ, he'd start off as a tire-kicker in Far Rockaway if it meant working again for the NYPD.

He crossed 110th Street. The numbers were still only in the 400s, rising but not fast enough. What the hell was the cross-street rule for Riverside? Something divided by something minus 59 .     He couldn't even guess anymore-all he knew was it was going to be farther uptown than he thought.

At least he had plenty of time. Maybe Pendergast lived in one of those professorial brownstones up by Columbia. That must be it: Pendergast, slumming with the academics. He quickened his pace. Now the buildings were less elegant, plainer, but still neat and trim. He was getting into the Columbia University neighborhood, with its students and their baggy clothes, a kid shouting down from a window to some other kid on the sidewalk, tossing down a book. D'Agosta wondered what his life would have been like if he'd come from a family that had sent him to college. He might be a big-time writer by now. Maybe the critics would have liked his books more. You made a lot of contacts in the right college, and a hell of a lot of those New York Times critics seemed to come from Columbia. And they all reviewed each other's books. The downtimes Book Review was like a private club.

He shook his head. As his old Italian grandfather used to say, it wasacqua passata.

He paused at 122nd Street to catch his breath. He had reached the northern fringe of Columbia. Ahead was International House, standing like the last outpost on the edge of the frontier. Beyond was no-man's-land.

And the numbers were only up to 550.

Shit.  He checked his watch. Ten past eight. He'd hiked a mile. He'd done his duty for the day. He still had plenty of time, but he was no longer enjoying himself. And this far uptown, there was zero chance of getting a cab. There were still one or two students in view, but there were also crowds of kids loitering on stoops, watching him pass, sometimes giving a little hiss or muttering something. He now realized that 891 Riverside would be somewhere around 135th Street, if not a little farther. He could make it in another ten minutes-and he would still be early-but it meant walking into the heart of Harlem.

Once again he pulled the card from his pocket. There was the address, in Pendergast's elegant script. It seemed impossible. But there could be no mistake.

He left the bright oasis of International House behind, neither hurrying nor loitering. There was no reason for him to be nervous: not in uniform and packing his Glock 9mm.

As he walked on, the neighborhood changed abruptly. Gone now were the students, the bustle of activity. The streetlights were broken, the apartment facades dim. It became quiet, almost deserted. At 130th Street, D'Agosta passed an empty mansion, one of the really old ones: the tin ripped off the empty window frames, the very frame of the building exhaling a smell of mold and urine into the street. A junkie palace. The next block contained a single-room-occupancy "hotel," the inhabitants sitting on the stoop and drinking beer. They fell silent and watched him go by with bleary eyes. A dog barked incessantly.