11
THE CAB driver had taken on a grim expression when Aliyat gave him the address. He was plainly glad to let her out there and be gone. For a moment she felt forsaken.
Twilight lingered in the sky, but the rotting walls around her closed most of it off and night already possessed the street. What lampglow fell dully on it showed bare pavement, cracked sidewalks, scraps of paper and plastic, shards of glass, empty cans, cigarette butts, refuse less describable. A few windows, not boarded up, glowered at her. She saw nobody looking from them. It was as if she could smell the fear, one more stench among those that loaded an air still hot.
She hastened to the Unity’s tenement. The fagade was as dingy as the rest, refurbishing must wait its turn, but she ought to find freshness well advanced within. The workmen had gone home hours ago. Had the neighborhood shown life while they and their cheerful clatter were on hand?
The door was locked. It hadn’t been on her last visit. She glanced over her shoulder as she leaned on the buzzer, and gripped her purse tightly against her ribs.
A dark outline appeared in the safety-webbed glass. The man was studying her through a peephole. He took what felt like a long time to let her in. She recognized him but not the other standing nearby, though each wore the badge of a security volunteer. Well, she could not know every member any more. Neither man was he whom she had expected.
“Missus-lo!” the first exclaimed. “What’re you doin’ here, this late?”
“I need to see Randy Castle,” she said fast. “I was told he’s staying here now.”
“Yeah, he is.” A tongue clicked. “You shouldn’t of come, Missus-lo. ‘Speci’lly not alone.”
I realized that as soon as I arrived, she kept from admitting. Instead: “Well, he works all day.” —for a hauling company, which kept him on the move, unavailable to her. “I thought he’d be at Hope Flower.” —the Unity complex where he had an apartment in a safer district than this. “When he didn’t answer my calls, after I’d tried for hours, I rang his parents and they told me where he was. We need him for a job and he hasn’t any phone here.”
“We do.” The guard gestured at the instrument on a table amidst the clutter left by the carpenters. “I’d of fetched him.”
“No, I’m sorry, this is a confidential matter.”
“I see.” His trust was instant and absolute. “Well, he’s right down the hall, Number Three.” As he pointed, he forced a smile. “Don’t you worry none, Missus-lo. We’ll get you home okay.”
“One way or t’other,” muttered his companion.
Beyond the lobby, the corridor had been restored, awaiting only paint and a carpet. She knocked on a new door. The big man flung it open. “What?” he growled, and then, seeing her: “Hey, what’s goin’ on?”
“I have to talk with you,” Aliyat said.
With awkward, touching deference he ushered her in and closed the door again. The apartment was neatly finished but barely furnished, no tenants having been expected yet. Several books rested on a table beside a hotplate, and he had been covering notepaper with scrawled exercises. Like most young folk of the Unity, he was improving his education; his dream was to become an engineer. “Make yourself to home, Missus-lo,” tumbled from his lips. “Glad to see you, but wish you hadn’t come, know what I mean? What can I do for you?”
Because he wanted her to, she took the single chair. He offered to make coffee. She shook her head, and he sat down on the floor at her feet. “What’s wrong?” she inquired. “Why have you moved? Where’s Gus?”—the former night watchman.
Starkness replied. “Laid up, Missus-lo. Bunch o’ punks came in, uh, four nights ago an’ beat him pretty bad.”
“Has Mama-lo heard?” she asked, appalled.
“N-not yet. We figured might be best to tell you first, get your ‘pinion.” The disciples trying to protect the saint, Al-iyat thought. And Corinne might, after all, order abandonment of the project rather than grappling with violence. Men who have learned to be proud don’t easily retreat. “Only you was out of town.”