The young boy looked up and noticed them for the first time. His eyes were reddened and rimmed with purple shadows underneath. They flickered over T.S. with dulled suspicion, passing by with disinterest until they spotted Auntie Lil. And then the boy literally jumped. Both feet—expensively clad in high-priced athletic shoes— actually left the carpet. His eyes grew wide and he turned even paler than he had been before. Then he slumped against the wall and stared harder at an oblivious Auntie Lil. When she finally turned around and noticed him, the young boy's face cleared and settled back into a dull mask of apathy.
"Son?" T.S. said, sorry to be a middle-aged man at that moment. Even that close a kinship to the thing that had just left them was too close for T.S.
The boy stared again at Auntie Lil. He stopped short of shaking his head, gave T.S. a sharp look and took off running. He pushed past them and fled through the fire door, following the bald man down the steps without a single word.
"What in the world?" Auntie Lil sniffed. The elevator finally arrived and she stepped inside it indignantly. "How very rude."
T.S. didn't think that "rude" even began to describe the boy's behavior. Never mind the sweating man's. But—having seen what the loud music had tried to hide—he did not intend to explain it to Auntie Lil, not even with all her knowledge of people and years of self-professed experience.
There were just some things he'd have to keep to himself.
Auntie Lil would not leave the building until they tried to speak to the superintendent about Emily's identity.
"I think we should leave this to the police," T.S. suggested for the third time. "We may be in over our heads." He did not want to say anymore.
"Nonsense. If you don't spoon-feed the police everything, they're no help at all." She pressed the superintendent's bell firmly and did not let up. T.S. was sure that no one was home, but after a good twenty seconds of nonstop buzzing, the door flew open and an irritated round face peeked out.
"What the hell you think you're doing leaning on my buzzer like that?" a small Hispanic woman demanded of Auntie Lil. She was missing a front tooth.
Auntie Lil responded to her rudeness by pushing the door open and peering inside the apartment. Despite the sunny day outside, the drapes were tightly shut and no lights were on. An old air conditioner in one corner of the room hummed loudly, chilling the apartment to near-refrigerator conditions. A tattered red sofa dominated much of the only room that was visible and a short, fat man dressed in a sleeveless undershirt and a dirty pair of pants lay across it. He was ignoring the intrusion and slurping at a beer while he stared at the only light in the room: a television set turned loudly to a game show. Auntie Lil decided to shout above it.
"Where's the super? I want to know the name of the old woman who lives on the sixth floor," she demanded, without any attempt at politeness or a cover story. Auntie Lil had decided that she did not like the events now unfolding.
"I'm the super," the woman who had answered the door replied indignantly. "And you take your crabby old hands off my door."
Auntie Lil stepped back and glared at the woman. T.S. moved beside her for support. Together, they stared down the superintendent. She was as short and round as the man on the couch, and her hair had been dyed an unlikely orange. She wore a shapeless shift that was torn under one arm and she, too, held a beer in one hand.
"What is the name of the old woman who lives on the sixth floor?" T.S. asked more politely, though the effort was painful to make.
"There's no old woman living on the sixth floor," the super replied nastily. "No one lives on the sixth floor at all. Go away before I call the police."
T.S. opened his mouth to argue, but before he could get a single word out, the door slammed firmly shut in his face.
"Well, I never," Auntie Lil said. "We are going to the police. I don't like the looks of this, at all."
"We're doing more than that," T.S. suddenly decided. He had seen enough to make him very angry. And when he was angry, T.S. could be every bit as determined as his aunt. "I'd like to keep a very close eye