Grief Street

chair and pushed herself up. She noticed she was doing this more and more lately, rising out of a chair like a big porker of a pregnant lady; like poor Agnes Gooch in Auntie Mame, the movie. Ruby followed the tall woman with the Gauguin blouse down a corridor, watching her glide, wondering if her own buttocks would ever be that firm and high after the baby was born.
    Ruby was shown into a roomy corner office containing the standard equipment of a Manhattan lawyer’s quarters, including potted palms and stuffed leather animals. She sat down in a chair next to a two-foot-high rhinoceros in waxy oxblood leather, across from the standard teak wood lawyer’s desk.
    “I’m sorry I couldn’t accommodate you yesterday afternoon, Ms. Flagg,” said Harvey Vennum Jr.
    He rose halfway from his chair and stuck out his hand for a shake. Ruby looked him over, making a comparative appraisal. Vennum had wavy, dark blond hair, whereas Hock’s black shock was thinning fast. Vennum was slender and athletic, Hock was built like a peasant. Maybe if Hock kept up at the gym he could look like this lawyer, excep1 for the hair. Hock could never look as dapper in lawyerly charcoal gray worsted, though; a man is either born with a graceful neck, shoulders, and hips, or else he is born Hock. IJ
    “There’s really no problem,” Ruby said. “I’m sure you ve got other clients. Besides which, I was sort of sick yesterday.”
    “I’m sorry to hear that.”
    “Anyway, here we are.”
    “Yes. Ms. Flagg, you aren’t backing out of our deal, are
    you?”
    “No. no—it’s not that. It is about the house, though. Some details I need to know.”
    “I see.”
    Vennum swiveled around in his chair and picked up a file from the credenza behind him. He turned again and opened the file on his desk. “Well, here’s just about everything we have on the estate of Arnold Rosenbaum, the old house included,” he said. Vennum riffled a short stack of old, yellowed papers.
    “Did you know,” Ruby asked, “that there’s a squatter living in the house?”
    “Ms. Flagg, I’m not the building superintendent. I’m only the estate lawyer.”
    “Do you have records on the tenants in your file?”
    “Tenants? I suppose so. For what period?”
    “About twenty-five years ago.”
    “That would take us back to”—Vennum riffled some more—“yes, here it is. Mr. Rosenbaum was in residence, until his disappearance late in the year. Let’s see now, Mr. Rosenbaum occupied the parlor floor, and also the next floor UP- That would leave the garden floor, and the top floor and attic. Now, let’s see...”
    “Was there a doctor in the house?”
    “I’m looking for the rental records... Ah! Here, there was Mr. and Mrs. Malachy Wollam, and a boy and girl. They were the top floor, plus attic. Pity, there’s a notation here. The Wollam girl died of consumption, it says. Isn’t that what they used to call tuberculosis?”
    “I think so, yes,” Ruby said.
    “Now, the garden level,” Vennum said, reading on through the abstract of legal records. “I suppose it was a doctor’s office. Isn’t that strange? A girl dies and there's a doctor in the house. Well, anyway, the official tenant name Was West Side Family Clinic.”
    “That’s all, just West Side Family Clinic?”
    “Are you looking for someone in particular?”
    “Not really.”
    “Because if you are, Ms. Flagg, the principals of this medical clinic would be a matter of public record. I could easily check through the City Health Department.”
    “I'd appreciate it. Thank you.”
    “Done. I’ll have Eileen get on it right away.”
    “The lady in the cream suit?”
    “Yes. My secretary. Now then, tell me, Ms. Flagg—when will you and your husband be wanting access to the house?”
    “Soon. Today if possible, or tomorrow.”
    “I’ll have Eileen ring up the custodian. He’s a bit of an eccentric, so it might take a while. But you’ll need some days anyway, to line up your civil engineer. Maybe an architect as well at this point?”
    “That can all wait for the next time. I think we’d just like to see it for ourselves as soon as possible.”
    “Very well. I’ll arrange it. Eileen will give you a call.”

    I returned the car to the civilian clerk at the police garage on Eleventh Avenue and Forty-first Street, behind the Federal Express office, and walked three blocks back to my apartment house. Eddie the Ear was absent from his post outside Dinny’s Lounge, no doubt gone