“She hasn’t done any of that!” Tonya shouted. “There’s no sheriff here.”

“Calm down, Ms. Sayre.”

Recalling how Kelner had hung up on her the prior day, Tonya held the phone to her chest and forced out a long exhale.

“You can call the police,” Kelner continued, his voice emanating from the cell’s speaker. “They can stop them and give me time to file the paperwork.”

“I’ll do that.” Tonya panted. The effort of keeping her emotions in check was greater than the exertion of her earlier sprint.

She hung up and started dialing 911, mentally rehearsing what she would say to the operator. She was being illegally evicted from her apartment. She needed the police to force the movers to cease and desist. They should slap Ms. Bosco with a summons.

The sight of Layla stopped her from completing the three-digit call. Her kid stood on the landing several steps above, her masked face red from crying. Tonya leaped up the two steps and pulled her daughter into a hug. “It’s okay.” She petted Layla’s reddish blond hair as she reassured them both. “I’m going to fix everything. They’re not allowed to throw us out.”

Ms. Bosco emerged from the building, boldly barefaced as usual. She shook her head at Tonya, a principal scolding a student. “I didn’t want to do this.”

“You’re not allowed to do this,” Tonya shot back. “I’m calling the cops. You can’t evict me. You have to give notice and file a grievance with the courts. There are rules.”

“Rules.” Ms. Bosco spat on her own stoop. “I know all about Cuomo’s unfunded mandates. Telling people like me and my husband who worked our way up to buy a building decades ago when this area was filled with crime and drugs, when it wasn’t safe to raise a family here, that we have to starve on our social security while supporting other people who get their real money from God-knows-where doing God-only-knows-what. You don’t want to call the police. I’ll tell them about you and your kid’s private school and paying for this apartment all on a waitress’s salary.”

The threat stifled the arguments on the tip of Tonya’s tongue, forcing them back into her throat where she could choke on them. The police would want names of the men responsible for each of those checks—names that she couldn’t provide lest she risk losing both sources of income.

“You can’t do this,” Tonya said for the umpteenth time, knowing that her tone no longer sounded convinced. “It’s against the—”