Outside, the ground was dry, but the temperature was dropping and the wind was picking up speed. It was normally a twenty-minute walk between Jesse’s place and my old building, but the weather made me pick up my pace. The Lower East Side was louder at night than I remembered. I’d always though of Essex as the dividing line between the haves, to the west, and the have-nots to the east. But since Schiller’s Liquor Bar had parked itself at the corner of Rivington and Norfolk, the have-nots seemed to be losing ground. Still, the hipsters were nowhere to be found east of Attorney Street. There were groups of teens and young men, refugees from the projects, milling around like they were waiting for the action to start. No one accosted me, but when I got to Claudia’s building I felt relief, as if I really were coming home. The sensation lasted only a moment, because there was a huge man parked on the stoop. He was hunched forward with long legs spread apart. He was dressed in black, his head obscured by a hood. The only details I could make out in the streetlights were the stark white high-top trainers on his feet and the red glow of the cigarette in his mouth. I stopped dead, wondering if he’d try to rob me or push his way into the building if I opened the door. His hooded head turned in my direction and he startled me by tossing the cigarette into the gutter and bolting. He lumbered towards Pitt Street and disappeared around the corner. I looked over my shoulder to see what had startled him, but there was nothing threatening that I could discern. Hurrying into the building, I unlocked the door and closed it behind me, but no one tried to follow me in. Paranoia had struck again.

Heading up the stairs, I heard a sitcom laugh track on the third floor and some Gregorian chanting on the fourth, but otherwise the building was quiet. The elderly tenants were likely asleep and the younger ones were probably out. On the fifth floor, the police tape dangled at the side of Claudia’s door. When I put my key in the top lock, it wouldn’t turn. I moved it in the other direction and locked the door. Great going, NYPD, I thought. At least they’d managed to secure the bottom lock. I let myself in and turned on the light, stunned by the sight around me. The tidy apartment had morphed into a disaster zone. Books had been pulled out of the shelves and dumped on the floor. Paper was scattered everywhere, as if a tornado had torn through the room. The sofa cushions had been pulled out, their casings unzipped.