Page 57 of The House Guest

‘In danger?’

‘Yes. It’s pretty urgent, actually. If I don’t find him ...’ I left the rest to her imagination. ‘The thing is, I don’t know his name. But he’s young, around twenty, and built, and he usually wears a blue baseball cap with the Mets logo.’

‘Huh, there are a lot of those around.’

‘I know. But I think you’d recognise this guy. He’s good-looking, blue eyes, spends a lot of time at the pool across the street.’

‘Sorry, can’t help you.’

She left the building.Now what?I could randomly knock on doors, but that would probably lead to someone calling the police. I might be better off going back to the park and hanging around.

Or, I thought as I spied the fire-alarm button on the wall of the lobby, I could do something radical.

I smashed the glass and hit the button. Immediately a bell rang through the air, deafening me. People began to appear from the floors above, some dressed, some in robes, a mixture of ages. Most of them came down slowly, looking at each other and sniffing the air, wondering if it was a false alarm.

There was a crowd of around ten people in the lobby now, none of them making much of a move to leave the building, probably due to the absence of smoke. Somebody went off to find the super while others wondered where the hell he was.

‘I saw someone hit the alarm,’ I said above the din. People gathered around me. ‘He was in his early twenties, wearing a blue Mets cap. A big guy.’

An old man turned to his neighbour. ‘That sounds like it could be Jesse. Carol’s grandson.’

‘Carol?’ said the neighbour. ‘She’s in thirty. Hey, where’s Carol? Anyone seen Carol?’

I felt a little guilty for falsely accusing Mets of setting off the alarm – would he get into trouble for it? – but reminded myself what a douchebag he had been at the pool. Then someone came down the stairs with a lady of around seventy. At the same time, the super appeared and turned off the alarm, to sighs of relief all round.

‘What’s this about my grandson?’ Carol barked.

‘This guy said he saw him hit the fire alarm,’ said the old man who had first identified Mets.

Carol narrowed her eyes at me. ‘How do you know it was my Jesse?’

‘Do you have a photo of him?’ I asked.

She did. She produced a top-of-the-range iPhone and showed me a picture of her and her grandson together, smiling at the camera. It was him.

‘He’s a good boy,’ she said. ‘He gave me this phone. Let me call him now. Get this straightened out.’

The other residents of the building drifted back to their apartments while Carol searched for Jesse in her contacts. I looked over her shoulder. There was his address.

I left her waiting for him to answer and made a quick exit.

Jesse lived in a tall, drab building on a quiet street in Greenpoint, about fifteen minutes away.

I pressed the intercom and, after a few seconds, a voice said, ‘Yeah?’

‘Jesse? My name’s Adam. I need to talk to you.’

‘You’re the Brit. From the pool.’ My accent was that strong? ‘It was you, at my nana’s place?’ He strained to project aggression, but there was fear in his voice he failed to mask, I was sure of it. ‘Where’s your bitch at? She with you?’

His choice of words made me flinch. ‘I’m not really her boyfriend. We just made that up to stop you hassling her.’

‘Yeah, well, we stopped.’

‘I need to ask you some questions,’ I said quickly, before he could click off. ‘The woman I was with at the pool, Eden, I think she’s done something to hurt my actual girlfriend. Will you please let me in? Or come out and talk to me? I promise I don’t mean you any harm. Eden’s not my friend. Not anymore.’

I could almost hear his brain ticking over, trying to figure out if this was a trick.

‘Come up,’ he said, and he pressed the buzzer to let me in.