the time. It wasn’t exactly an award-winning performance but the doorman looked at me with something approaching sympathy. “It’s just been so hard,” I gasped. “I still loved him!” I wailed.
He waited a moment, obviously considering his response. He gave a look that I interpreted to mean “you look pitiful and I think I’ll help you out.” His voice was so soft that I missed what he said the first time. “Four D.” He stopped me before I took off for the elevator. “Listen, if anyone finds out…”
My tears abated as quickly as they started. “I won’t tell a soul.”
He nodded again and held his hands out in a conciliatory gesture. “We have rules here.”
Obviously none that protect against the wearing of mullets, I thought, but I kept my lip zipped. Business in the front, party in the back…and not the hairdo for a man living in the new millennium. I dug into my bag and pulled out a five.
“I won’t forget this,” I said. But I realized that he had to. Before I left for the elevator, I went back into my bag and came out with a twenty; hopefully, it would be used at a hair salon. “This is between us, okay?” I made a sound like a sob, but it was a little over the top. He nodded nonetheless, so I ran for the elevator in the hopes that this guy couldn’t tell what a giant faker I was.
Ray’s apartment was a short walk from the elevator, and despite my nervousness about getting into the apartment, the key didn’t require any extra jiggling or special insertion to open the door. The yellow NYPD tape hanging across the door should have been a deterrent to me, but it wasn’t. I’m an old hand at yellow crime-scene tape by now. I opened the door and scooted under the tape to find a small living room with a nice balcony off it, a galley kitchen to my right, and a hallway off the living room leading to a large bedroom. The bathroom was across from the bedroom. It was decorated in early dorm room, with some Ikea furniture that was propped up by milk crates. Apparently, the money I had given Ray to buy him out of the house had gone entirely toward his new car. Figures.
Since Ray had been killed elsewhere, the apartment was not technically part of the crime scene, but obviously the police had been through here pretty thoroughly. Ray wasn’t the neatest guy in town, but the place had been tossed but good. I didn’t know what I expected to find, and particularly, what I would find that the police hadn’t, but I thought it was worth a little look-see.
But first, there was the more pressing matter of my bladder. I had had to go to the bathroom since leaving Dobbs Ferry, and while I had been able to keep the discomfort at bay, now that I was in the presence of a toilet, the situation had gotten critical. I went in and used the toilet, reaching behind me for the roll of toilet paper that sat on the back of the tank. It skittered out of my hand and rolled behind the toilet, just out of my reach.
“Dang it,” I whispered. I got off the toilet and onto my knees. “This is classy,” I commented to myself. I stuck my head between the toilet and the vanity next to it, praying that I didn’t get wedged in. My cell phone was in my pocket, so I knew that if I got stuck, I could call for help. Crawford would love to find me, with my pants around my ankles, stuck between two fixtures in Ray’s bathroom. My guess is that would put an end to any romance we might have had.
My fingertips grazed the toilet paper and I finally managed to get a good hold on it, dragging it toward me. But before I backed out of the space between the toilet and the vanity, something shiny, affixed to the back of the toilet tank, caught my eye. I reached up and yanked it off.
It was a plastic jewel case and inside was a DVD.
I guess the police hadn’t been over this place as thoroughly as I had thought.
I finished up in the bathroom and went into the living room. Damn that Ray. In addition to having the nicest car I had ever seen, he also had a giant flat-screen television. I took the disk