Stained Glass: An Alexi Sokolsky Supernatural Thriller (Alexi Sokolsky: Hound of Eden Book 2) by James Osiris Baldwin

Author:James Osiris Baldwin [Baldwin, James Osiris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gift Horse Productions
Published: 2016-07-24T18:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

The next stop was Crown Heights. When I trod up out of the subway, the street felt taut with unspoken Cold War tension. Gangs of defiant young Hasidic Chabadnik huddled together on street corners, prickly and alert. On the other side of the road, equally defiant gaggles of Caribbean men clustered and talked beside cars and fences. It had been a month since the Crown Riots, but there was still a strong police presence, too – I spotted two blue cars nestled among the line up on the side of the road, and a pair of awkwardly Anglo-Irish officers walking around the block on foot. The weather was decaying into a storm, and the young oaks planted down the sides and center strip of Eastern Parkway fluttered in the cold north wind as it whipped through the buildings and made the fire escapes rattle and hum.

Dr. Yuzef Levental lived and worked in the same building: a white rowhouse block with a short spike fence, tall spiked window bars, and a short, immaculately groomed hedge. Two tiny juniper seedlings flanked the concrete pillars by the door. I buzzed his door, and waited.

“Hello, who is there?” Dr. Levental’s voice was distorted by the intercom, though he sounded as crisp as ever.

“It’s Alexi Grigoriovich,” I replied, and continued on in Russian. “I was wondering if you have time for an early-morning visit?”

There was a pause, and then the intercom shut off. After a few moments, the door buzzed, and I pushed my way into the chilly entrance hall.

Dr. Levental was waiting for me in the threshold of his office, one hand on the doorknob, the other on the frame. By appearances, he could have been my father in another life. Ascetic and sharp-featured, his eyes were black and steely, his face weathered with age. “My goodness, Alexi, it’s been months and months. You look terrible! What has happened to you?”

Before I’d left the clubhouse, I’d put on decent clothes and even brought a hat to cover my head out of respect for the doctor’s Orthodoxy, but there were some things clothes couldn’t hide. My suit was looser on my frame, face gaunt, eyes sunken. “It has been a difficult time, doctor. Alecheim Shalom. It is good to see you well.”

“And peace be unto you, Alexi. But I doubt you are visiting me for peace.” We kissed cheeks before he drew me inside, turning into the house. “Come, close the door. Oy, why do you have a cat?”

“Therapy animal.”

He teched. “Is it properly housetrained?”

“Of course. She’s a perfect gentlewoman.”

Dr. Levental – he was never ‘Yuzef’ – was as devout as he was opportunistic, and he balanced his faith, his extracurricular interests, and his otherwise legal profession exceedingly well. The interior of the office was somehow both ostentatious, in that old New York apartment way, and monastic because of its large expanses of empty space. Like me, he kept floor to ceiling shelves that were full of books. Medical, historical, mythological books. It was a sight that revived the deep-bodied, hollow longing I’d felt since losing my apartment.

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