Seven Minutes to Noon

and I knew he was right.”
    “There’s no math that could convince me I could ever get a house like this, Pam.”
    “Wrong again! Come here. I’ve got something to show you.”
    Alice put her hand on the knob but didn’t turn it. She hated real estate, hated this whole thing. Maybe she was wrong; maybe she could wrest her soul out of Brooklyn.
    “Give me five minutes of your time!” Pam delivered the ultimate salesman’s pitch with such enthusiasm that Alice burst out laughing.
    “All right,” Alice said. “Five minutes.”
    Pam set them up at her dining room table with a legal pad and a calculator. Twenty minutes later, Alice was convinced that she and Mike could afford to pay one point two million dollars for a house, so long as it came with two rental apartments and was in a good enough area to command high rents. She was flabbergasted.
    “Your one point two today,” Pam said, “was my hundred-fifty thou yesterday. And another piece of good news. I did a little research this afternoon. Even though your friend’s apartment was stabilized, it wasn’t registered with Housing, so the ball’s in the landlord’s court if anyone decides to play him.” Pam threw up her hands, showing Alice the backs of her bloated fingers, pinched by their rings. “But when I saw who it was, I knew it wasn’t going to be me, no way. Julius Pollack is the worst scum landlord I ever saw. I wasn’t one bit surprised.”

Chapter 19
    Alice was stunned by the news that Julius Pollack had been Lauren’s landlord. All these years Lauren’s landlord had been Metro Properties, a cold, corporate entity. Now, with a name attached — and not just any name but that of a man whose callousness Alice could personally vouch for — the vitriolic fight at the other end of Lauren and Tim’s eviction made perfect sense. Alice was so upset by the revelation that, by the time she turned the corner onto Warren Street, she had broken into a near run.
    Her mind spun with questions. Hadn’t she mentioned Julius Pollack’s name to Pam at the coffee shop that morning? How could she have left out that crucial detail? Should she have recognized the importance of his name? Julius Pollack. It was just a name. It had never occurred to her until this moment that there could be such a thing as a real estate tycoon in their little neighborhood; that the tenants of Carroll Gardens might be puppets; that above them, one man held all their strings, twitching them to his own purposes. Alice ran faster, her babies jostling within her, a heavy sweat collecting on her face. By the time she reached Maggie’s, she was so exhausted she could hardly climb the stoop.
    “What’s wrong?” Sylvie opened the door and stared at Alice.
    “I was afraid I was late.” Her breathing was labored and she forced a slow, calming breath. “The kids okay?”
    “Fine. They haven’t stopped playing since they got here. Come in, let me get you something to drink.”
    “Water would be nice.”
    Alice followed Sylvie into Maggie’s all-white kitchen and sat on a counter stool, catching her breath, while Sylvie poured her a glass of ice water. The sudden coldness on her tongue and its wash down her throat calmed her. She drank another long swallow.
    “I just found out,” Alice said, “that my new landlord and Lauren’s old landlord are the same man.”
    Sylvie’s eyebrows rose. “Oh?”
    “Pam told me. Apparently the man’s even worse than I thought.”
    Alice drained her glass and set it on the marble counter. Sylvie sat on the stool next to her. Small, sharp voices rose from the downstairs bedroom level, approaching the pitch of trouble before unwinding suddenly in laughter.
    “I feel like there’s some relevance,” Alice said, “but I can’t put my finger on it.”
    Sylvie picked up Alice’s glass and crossed the kitchen to refill it.
    “Thanks,” Alice said. She drank only half the water this time, finally sated. “Pam said she’s going to check him out for me. She’s really something, isn’t she? Thanks for introducing us.”
    “Please,” Sylvie said. “Anything I can do.”
    The kids came streaming up the stairs, locked in a three-way battle over a single toy. They all had their hands around it and moved in a clump, unraveling at the top of the stairs to reveal the point of contention: a tiny Lego astronaut with a visor that moved. Nell had the prized toy in her steel-tight grip, with both boys clawing at her hands to get it.
    “Ethan,”