In the Midst of Death by Block Lawrence

Author:Block, Lawrence. [Block, Lawrence.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Published: 2011-10-27T02:44:43+00:00

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I N T H E M I D ST O F DE AT H

131

Doug Fuhrmann lived on Ninth Avenue between Fifty-third and Fifty-fourth. To the left of the ground-floor hardware store there was a doorway with a sign over it announcing the availability of furnished rooms by week or month. There were no mailboxes in the vestibule and no individual buzzers. I rang the bell alongside the inner door and waited until a woman with henna-bright hair shuffled to the door and opened it. She wore a plaid robe and had shabby bedroom slippers on her feet. “Full up,” she said. “Try three doors down, he’s usually got something available.” I told her I was looking for Douglas Fuhrmann.

“Fourth floor front,” she said. “He expecting you?”

“Yes.” Although he wasn’t.

“ ’Cause he usually sleeps late. You can go on up.”

I climbed three flights of stairs, making my way through the sour smells of a building that had given up along with its tenants. I was surprised that Fuhrmann lived in a place like this. Men who live in broken-down Hell’s Kitchen rooming houses don’t usually have their addresses printed on their checks. They don’t usually have checking accounts.

I stood in front of his door. A radio was playing, 132

L AW R E N C E B LO C K

and then I heard a burst of very rapid typing, then nothing but the radio. I knocked on the door. I heard the sound of a chair being pushed back, and then Fuhrmann’s voice asked who it was.

“Scudder.”

“Matt? Just a second.” I waited and the door opened and Fuhrmann gave me a big smile. “Come on in,” he said. “Jesus, you look like hell. You got a cold or something?”

“I had a hard night.”

“Want some coffee? I can give you a cup of instant. How’d you find me, anyway? Or is that a professional secret? I guess detectives have to be good at finding people.”

He scurried around, plugged in an electric tea kettle, measured instant coffee into a pair of white china cups. He kept up a steady stream of conversation, but I wasn’t listening to him. I was busy looking over the place where he lived.

I hadn’t been prepared for it. It was just one room, but it was a large one, measuring perhaps eighteen by twenty-five feet, with two windows overlooking Ninth Avenue. What made it remarkable was the dramatic contrast between it and the building it was situated in. All of the drabness and decay stopped at Fuhrmann’s threshold.

He had a rug on the floor, either an authentic I N T H E M I D ST O F DE AT H

133

Persian or a convincing imitation. His walls were lined with floor-to-ceiling built-in bookshelves. A desk a full twelve feet in length extended in front of the windows. It too had been built in. Even the paint on the walls was distinctive, the walls themselves—where they were not covered with bookshelves—painted in a dark ivory, the trim set off in a glossy white enamel.

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