Detective

talking about? Where the bank wouldn’t be?”
    “It wouldn’t be in Manhattan. It wouldn’t be in New York City. It probably wouldn’t be in New York State, and when I say New York State I mean Eastern New Jersey and Southern Connecticut too.”
    “Who doesn’t,” I said.
    “You wanna buy something?”
    “Whaddya sell?”
    “Keys and locks.”
    “The only lock I’m interested in is the one that key fits.”
    “That I haven’t got.”
    “You know where it isn’t from. Any way to find out where it is from?”
    “Could be.”
    “Depending on what?”
    “What it’s worth.”
    “It’s worth ten bucks.”
    He picked up the phone, dialed a number. “Jerry, Sam. I got a blank here for a safe deposit box, key 35732, can you tell me who makes ’em. . . . Uh huh. . . yeah. Thanks.”
    He hung up the phone, looked at me, said nothing. I interpreted his silence correctly and laid a ten-dollar bill on the counter.
    “Bailsey Manufacturing,” he said.
    “Great,” I told him. “Now can I get ’em to tell me who they made those blanks for?”
    “I doubt it.”
    “Well, can I go there and ask?”
    “You can if you want,” he said. “The company’s in Florida.”
    I came out of the 42nd Street locksmith shop into the blazing heat of Times Square. The freaks were out in force. I slipped the key in my pocket, transferred my wallet, and caught the subway uptown to get my car.
    The key was undoubtedly the most interesting thing in Albrect’s address book, though there were a couple of close seconds. One was a rather cryptic notation on an otherwise blank page: “7th and Burke N.W. 4:00.” The other was an address in Manhattan. The book held many Manhattan addresses—some belonged to women, some to businesses, some to friends—but only one was in the East Village, and only one carried a name that was unmistakably ethnic.
    Now, I must admit I’m not great at identifying people’s backgrounds from their names. I know other people are. They’ll hear a name and go, “Oh, black” or “Oh, Jewish,” or whatever. As I said, I’m not good at that, but, nonetheless, if Guillermo Gutierrez wasn’t Hispanic, I’d eat my hat.
    I drove to the address on East 7th Street between Avenues B and C. It was a five-story walk-up building in a row of similar structures, all in what could generously be described as poor repair. My building was brown, with cracked concrete steps leading up to a wood and glass door. Half the panes of glass were missing and the other half were cracked. Security didn’t seem to be a major concern here, since both this door and the inner door were propped open.
    Though there were tenants hanging out on the front steps of many of the other buildings on the block, no one was in evidence here. I went inside and up the stairs.
    Guillermo Gutierrez lived in 5B, which proved, as I had feared, to be the top floor. There was no cross-ventilation in the building, and I was dripping sweat by the time I reached the fifth floor. I knocked on 5B and got no answer, again no surprise. I tried the door. It was locked. In the movies, detectives have a set of skeleton keys or know how to pick a lock. Failing that, they kick the door down. I have none of those talents. If a door is locked, I can’t get in.
    I went back downstairs. The door in the back of the hall on the first floor was open, and I figured that to be the super’s apartment. I thought about knocking on his door and asking him about Gutierrez, but decided against it. You start asking questions and people get suspicious and clam up on you.
    I went out to my car, opened the trunk, and took out my briefcase, the pure black imitation leather one that was supposed to help give the impression that I was a lawyer. I opened it up, and took out my Canon Snappy 50, the camera I use to take pictures of broken legs and cracks in the sidewalk.
    I closed the briefcase, locked the trunk, and reset the code alarm on my car, the computerized $250 warning system and ignition cutoff switch without which my ‘84 Toyota would not have lasted a day in the neighborhoods I visit.
    I went back inside, pulled out the switch for the flash attachment, and was relieved to see that, although the batteries were weak and it took a while to warm up, the light indicating the flash was ready finally went on. I began taking flash pictures of the staircase, just as I would if I were doing accident photos for a personal injury case.
    In some of the cases I handle,