Shallow Graves

de-habbed crackhouses straight out of the South Bronx .
    I opened the gate and climbed the steps. Four doorbell buttons, three of them labeled. The front door was locked, but from the handle it looked like a spring job, no bolt. Through a glass panel I could see it was the only secured entry, the staircase to the second floor lying behind an opened, inner door. Probably an internal buzzer system tied into the bell buttons. I was thinking that Empire should be glad it didn’t have the landlord on this one when I remembered the building was owned by the dead woman’s family.
    I examined the bells. The top button was captioned “Dani, M. T.“ Expecting nothing, I tried it and got what I expected. Next was the unlabeled one. Nothing again. Next was “Fagan, S.,“ which I took to be “Sinead,“ the other model Holt had mentioned. Still nothing. The bottom button said “Super.“ A four-unit building probably didn’t need its own superintendent, but landlords had a tendency to own several properties in the same neighborhood and to put the manager up in one of them. I pushed the bottom button and got nothing a fourth time.
    I walked down to the super’s separate entrance and knocked. No answer. I climbed back to sidewalk level and looked up at the building. No shade or drape moved abruptly. I went out the gate, then down the block and around to the alley behind the building.
    A lot of South End houses have postage stamp backyards, with patios off the basement door. This block was more like Back Bay , with the house almost abutting on the alley itself. No parking, maybe ten feet between where the fire escape’s raised last flight would come down and where two big trash cans stood covered against the wall and near the back door.
    The escape itself was black except for rust spots here and there. My eyes followed it up the rear wall. The raised last flight retracted to a landing outside the window on the elevated first 1 floor. The escape then switchbacked to a landing at the second-floor window, a third flight ending in a landing outside the j third-floor window. Mau Tim Dani’s apartment. There were no bars on any of the back windows either. Christ, these folks were asking for it.
    Somebody nine feet tall probably could reach and pull down the raised, last flight of fire escape. The green trash cans were ribbed plastic and looked sturdy enough to support my weight.
    I had just positioned the second can under the escape when the basement door opened.
    A man dressed in droopy pants and a strappy T-shirt put one foot over the threshold, keeping the other inside the door. Maybe five six, he had the face of a pug from the club fights at union halls in Dorchester . Both eyebrows had divots missing, and the nose detoured more than once on its way to his mouth. The left ear was cauliflowered, the right loppy, like the Velveteen Rabbit. His hair was black, thinning unevenly at the crown, scrufly around the sides. Pushing fifty, his head flicked right, like he was ducking a punch, and he sniffed twice in quick succession through his nose.
    “Whaddaya think you’re doing?“
    “You the superintendent?“
    “Who wants to know?“
    “John Cuddy.“ I reached into a pocket for my ID. “I tried the buzzer and knocked.“
    He brought the other foot outside and stood in front of me.
    I handed him the holder, open. He stretched out his arms and studied it.
    “I’m a private investigator, Mr....?“
    He looked up from the ID, then down again, although there was no picture on it to compare against me.
    “Whaddaya want from me?“
    I extended my hand for the holder, which he gave back carefully. “I represent the company that insured the life of the woman who died here.“
    “The...?“
    “She was a model. Mau Tim Dani?“
    This time he winced before flick, sniff/sniff. “I don’t know nothing about that. Nothing.“
    “That’s okay. I’d appreciate your letting me see the apartment, though.“
    “What for?“
    “She was killed there, Mr....“
    “Don’t mister me, pal. Okay?“
    Not my best start ever. “Okay. You got a first name?“
    “Yeah. Carmine.“
    “All right. Carmine—“
    “But everybody calls me Ooch.“
    “Ooch?“
    “Yeah. From when I was in the ring. The other guy’d hit me, everybody went ‘Ooch! You see that shot?’ “
    I laughed politely. “You fight, you’re going to get hit, right?“
    “You can take it from me.“
    “So, can I get a look at the place?“
    Flick, sniff/sniff.