I DID IT RIGHT. Habits die hard. Like the woman I loved. The building was an old meat-packing plant in the shadow of the triangle formed by Atlantic and Flatbush, on the edge of the gentrification blot spreading east from Boerum Hill. A nonprofit corporation owned it. Four stories. The ground floor was a loading bay for trucks. The front-facing windows were new, vinyl-trimmed. The sides were flat-faced brick. The back windows were covered with iron bars. Front door was steel, set a few inches into the frame. The City Planning Office had the records. The place had been gut-renovated four years ago. The top floor had a domed skylight.
Traffic was light in and out. Most of the visitors were young. White. Empty-handed.
I went to see a guy I know. An ex-cop who doesn't pretend he's honest. For three hundred bucks, he told me the place had six separate phone numbers and two pay phones.
"You want the numbers, the toll calls?"
"How much?"
"A grand gets you the numbers, and one month's bill for each number."
"I'll let you know."
Four cars registered to the corporation. Two vans, a station wagon, and a Mercedes sedan.
Five hundred bought me an IRS scan. The corporation called itself Mission 999. It declared almost three hundred grand last year in contributions, none larger than a couple of thousand. The guy I paid told me that it had never been audited.
I had a picture of Elvira. Pretty little brunette in a school uniform. Looked about thirteen. Smiling a school-picture smile.
It made me think of something. Something that wouldn't come to the surface.