Detective

didn’t point it out to the super, nor did I suggest to him that he notify the police that the occupant of the apartment was, to the best of his knowledge, missing. But I would have given long odds right then and there that, whatever information Rosa might have notwithstanding, I wasn’t going to be seeing Guillermo Gutierrez in the near future.

7.
    T HE S ECURITY AT A LBRECT’S U PPER East Side apartment house was a trifle better than it had been at Gutierrez’s Lower East Side one. I’d known I was in trouble the minute I walked into the lobby. A uniformed doorman was stopping all visitors and calling upstairs on a house phone to get the tenant’s permission before letting anyone up. There was actually a line ahead of me. I watched a young man receive approval to visit a Lisa Hartman, and a middle-aged woman be confirmed as a suitable caller for a Mrs. Ruth Goldstein. I jotted the names in my notebook and left.
    I went outside and did some serious thinking. This was not going to be easy. First I had to get past the doorman, then I had to get past the door. My talents did not seem particularly suited to either task. I racked my brain for an answer. I didn’t get an answer, but at least I got an idea.
    I went to a pay phone on the corner and called Leroy Stanhope Williams. For me, this was a radical departure. You see, Leroy was one of Richard’s clients. I had never called any of Richard’s clients before on anything other than Richard’s business and, quite frankly, I was sure I’d never want to. You see, it is an occupational hazard of my profession that one soon becomes contemptuous of the very people one is supposed to be helping. Often, I have to stifle the urge to say, “Madam, you are fat, lazy, stupid, and incompetent. You fell down because you are overweight and clumsy and too dumb to look where you are going. And now you want to sue someone for something that is obviously your own fault.” I never actually say that, but I often have the urge.
    Leroy Stanhope Williams was an exception.
    The first hint I got that Leroy Stanhope Williams was something special, aside from the three names, was that his address in Queens was listed as a private house. Of course, that could have meant nothing. Many clients listed their address as a private house, but when I got there it turned out they had an apartment in the basement they illegally rented from the owner, whom they wanted to sue for not fixing the cellar stars. Or, it turned out they actually did live in a private house, but the front door was a sheet of plywood, if you leaned against the walls the ceiling would come down, and the only reason the place hadn’t been condemned was that no one in his right mind would have wanted the property.
    Leroy’s house was different. It was a three-story frame house, newly painted white with blue trim, on a small but immaculately kept lawn with actual grass and a flower garden. A smooth, clean concrete walk led up to a small front porch, framed by windows with ornate, decorative blue grillwork.
    As I went up the steps to the front porch, the first thing I noticed was that there were three locks on the front door, the regular lock and two deadbolts. Then I noticed that the grillwork on the windows, though ornate, was also functional. It was, in effect, bars, and all the windows had them, even those on the upper floors. Great. Some doddering 80-year-old man, hiding from the world. The door would undoubtedly open two inches on a safety chain, and I’d have to slide my I.D. through before I got in.
    I rang the doorbell. As I did so, I noticed the eye of an infra-red beam set into the doorjamb. That caught me up short. I looked at the windows again, and discovered a thin wire embedded in the glass running around the perimeter of the panes. This was something else. I could understand some paranoid old fart investing in a couple of deadbolts, but an electronic burglar alarm system?
    I was still thinking about that when the front door swung open, not on a safety chain, to reveal a black man on crutches, standing in the shadows of the front hallway.
    I inquired, “Leroy Stanhope Williams?” and he nodded. “Stanley Hastings from the lawyer’s office.” He nodded again and ushered me in with a gesture, momentarily holding that crutch with only his armpit. I walked by him through the dimly-lit foyer and into the living room, where I stood and gawked.
    I must admit, I don’t know anything about art; in fact, I’m