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foyer that smelled of
curry and chickpeas, then entered an L-shaped living room, where he
confronted a long-dead Christmas tree. "What's with the tree?"
he asked, circling around it, the rust-red needles Uttering the carpet.
    Seated behind a wooden desk nicked
and scratched from years of abuse was a man of possibly Eastern European
descent, his soft cow eyes skittering back and forth as he struggled to
open a potato chip bag. "Sorry, chief," he said. "Haven't
gotten around to it yet."
    "It's April already. It's almost
Passover, my friend. Get rid of it or I'll cite you."
    "Absolutely." He tossed
Jack the keys. "It's a mess up there, just to warn you."
    "When was the last time you
saw her?" "I haven't seen her in months," the super said.
"Not since Christmas."
    "What'd you two talk about?"
"Nothing much. She was a little strange." "Strange
how?"
    "She kept to herself, mostly.
Came and went at odd hours. Very unfriendly. Only said hello if you said
it first, that sort of thing. But she paid her rent on time. Until last month,
that is."
    Jack could feel the sweat collecting
underneath his arms and soaking into his pin-striped shirt. There was
something embryonic about this apartment. Something womblike. He
felt like an egg inside an incubator. "When she stopped paying the
rent, you didn't try to contact her?"
    "We have a procedure we're
supposed to follow. First you give the tenant a written warning, then a
notice.
    Then you start eviction proceedings.
I left a bunch of messages on her machine, but she never called me
back."
    "Which apartment?"
     
    "Two oh six. Stairs are faster."
The stairwell held a mingling of smells-exhaust fumes from the underground
garage, cat piss, faint traces of booze from an impressive array of
empty liquor bottles. The cement walls were painted nicotine yellow.
He found the apartment down the second-story hallway, inserted the key
in the lock and, bracing himself for the nightmare which would surely
flare before his eyes, opened the door.
    A terrible odor hit him, and he
drew back. "Christ." The garbage hadn't been taken out in weeks.
The shades were drawn, and the place was dark and stifling. Slipping on a
pair of latex gloves, Jack entered the apartment, swept aside the living
room drapes and cracked a few windows. He saw steel-blue carpeting, cream-colored
walls and plenty of trash strewn about. A rancid odor pervaded everything.
It would follow him home tonight, back to his apartment in Santa Monica,
where he'd take a tepid shower, crack an ice-cold beer and watch the game
on ESPN. His social life consisted of a wing chair and a Wega flatscreen , since very
few women wanted to date a guy who'd just gone through the pockets of a
dead man.
    A faucet was dripping somewhere
inside the cluttered apartment. Jack broke the filter tips off two cigarettes,
shoved them up his nostrils and breathed through his open mouth. The dead
plants on the windowsills resembled prehistoric lizards, their bony
arms reaching for the sky. Several old movie posters (Jaws, Alien, Rosemary's
Baby) had been ripped off the walls, and mysterious stains bloomed on
the carpet-brown stuff that sort of made you wonder. The ceiling was leaking
in places, swelling the wood and depositing lacy cloud formations
with rusty borders. The haphazard sofas and armchairs were so saddle-backed
you could probably suffocate in them. There was a stereo system in fairly
poor condition and a working computer, a large glass ashtray overflowing
with the same brand of cigarette, a bunch of candy wrappers and banana
peels strewn about. He picked up a travel book from Idaho. Who went to
Idaho for whatever reason? He upended a paper bag full of receipts and
phone bills, and out spilled dozens of snapshots.
    Fingerprint evidence was fragile;
one touch could destroy it. Jack held each snapshot gingerly by its edges
and examined various candids of the missing woman-inside her apartment, out on the balcony, down by the beach. Her poses
were silly and