car. "How the hell should I know?" she said.
6
I HAD JUST arrived at the office the next morning and was still settling in when Myra came over to my desk.
"You have anything important scheduled for right now?" Myra asked.
"I was just grabbing a chance to go over my new batch of files," I said.
"There's a bunch of misdemeanors I haven't even looked at. What's up?"
"Come with me," Myra said. "We need to go on a mission."
"Where to?"
"The scene of the crime," Myra said.
We took the 2 train from Borough Hall out to its last stop in Brooklyn.
"You ever been out here before?" I asked once we were seated. The train was pretty empty; the commuter rush was mostly over, and we were heading in the opposite direction of most commuters.
Myra shook her head. "That's the point of the mission," she said.
"It's important that we have at least some kind of feel for the place where the
shootings happened."
We got out at the Brooklyn College stop, onto Flatbush Avenue, a street that was to Brooklyn what Broadway was to Manhattan: it traveled through virtually the entire borough. But this stretch of Flatbush looked noticeably different from the stretch that passed a half block from my apartment. It felt as though we'd gone back in time a little, the store signs all looking like they'd been put up in the 1950s.
The commercial strip appeared lively enough, however, with fast-food stores, delis, clothing shops, everything open for business. Virtually everyone on the street but us was black. We walked aimlessly for a couple blocks, just getting our bearings, cutting over on Avenue I, then turning onto Bedford Avenue.
The neighborhood changed completely as we did so. Now it was Orthodox Jews who occupied the sidewalks, which were lined with detached houses with yards and garages.
Eventually we came across the campus of Brooklyn College. There were security guards at every entrance to the campus, which we made no attempt to enter. We hit Flatbush again, turned right, then left onto Avenue H. The fast-food restaurants and stores of Flatbush dropped away, the number of people dropped and scattered, and soon we were walking alongside Glenwood Gardens.
As Lorenzo had said, the Gardens was the kind of project New York didn't build anymore, a series of identical towers sprawling across several square blocks. Even in the late morning it possessed an aura of dilapidated menace.
I found myself hesitating when Myra turned from the street into the project. She turned back to me, offering a tight smile.
"Anyone looking at us is going to think we're cops, lawyers, social workers, the IRS, something," she said.
"They'll leave us alone."
Myra turned out to be right: the people we passed stared at us hard, but nobody said anything. We took a quick walk through, slicing across the middle of the project, between where the shooter had stood and where the victims had been. I had a hard time taking anything in, too worried about catching someone's eye in the wrong way. The courtyard was fairly empty; just a cluster of young men standing outside the doorway of one tower, a young woman watching a small child playing in the middle of the yard.
We crossed through the main courtyard of the project and turned right onto Avenue I, heading back to Flatbush.
"So," Myra said, "I guess that's the Gardens. What'd you see?"
I glanced over at her, wanting to convey a little resentment that she was giving me a test, but also wanting to know if she'd seen something I hadn't.
"The whole place is like a fortress," I said. "The courtyard is completely cut
off from the street."
"That's true," Myra said. "But it isn't cut off at all from the
project itself. There must be a couple of hundred windows that look out onto
that courtyard."
"Sure," I said. "But our crime happened a little after midnight.
Could be nobody was looking."
"Could be," Myra said. "They would've heard shots, but people in a
project probably aren't all that likely to go stand in front of a
6
I HAD JUST arrived at the office the next morning and was still settling in when Myra came over to my desk.
"You have anything important scheduled for right now?" Myra asked.
"I was just grabbing a chance to go over my new batch of files," I said.
"There's a bunch of misdemeanors I haven't even looked at. What's up?"
"Come with me," Myra said. "We need to go on a mission."
"Where to?"
"The scene of the crime," Myra said.
We took the 2 train from Borough Hall out to its last stop in Brooklyn.
"You ever been out here before?" I asked once we were seated. The train was pretty empty; the commuter rush was mostly over, and we were heading in the opposite direction of most commuters.
Myra shook her head. "That's the point of the mission," she said.
"It's important that we have at least some kind of feel for the place where the
shootings happened."
We got out at the Brooklyn College stop, onto Flatbush Avenue, a street that was to Brooklyn what Broadway was to Manhattan: it traveled through virtually the entire borough. But this stretch of Flatbush looked noticeably different from the stretch that passed a half block from my apartment. It felt as though we'd gone back in time a little, the store signs all looking like they'd been put up in the 1950s.
The commercial strip appeared lively enough, however, with fast-food stores, delis, clothing shops, everything open for business. Virtually everyone on the street but us was black. We walked aimlessly for a couple blocks, just getting our bearings, cutting over on Avenue I, then turning onto Bedford Avenue.
The neighborhood changed completely as we did so. Now it was Orthodox Jews who occupied the sidewalks, which were lined with detached houses with yards and garages.
Eventually we came across the campus of Brooklyn College. There were security guards at every entrance to the campus, which we made no attempt to enter. We hit Flatbush again, turned right, then left onto Avenue H. The fast-food restaurants and stores of Flatbush dropped away, the number of people dropped and scattered, and soon we were walking alongside Glenwood Gardens.
As Lorenzo had said, the Gardens was the kind of project New York didn't build anymore, a series of identical towers sprawling across several square blocks. Even in the late morning it possessed an aura of dilapidated menace.
I found myself hesitating when Myra turned from the street into the project. She turned back to me, offering a tight smile.
"Anyone looking at us is going to think we're cops, lawyers, social workers, the IRS, something," she said.
"They'll leave us alone."
Myra turned out to be right: the people we passed stared at us hard, but nobody said anything. We took a quick walk through, slicing across the middle of the project, between where the shooter had stood and where the victims had been. I had a hard time taking anything in, too worried about catching someone's eye in the wrong way. The courtyard was fairly empty; just a cluster of young men standing outside the doorway of one tower, a young woman watching a small child playing in the middle of the yard.
We crossed through the main courtyard of the project and turned right onto Avenue I, heading back to Flatbush.
"So," Myra said, "I guess that's the Gardens. What'd you see?"
I glanced over at her, wanting to convey a little resentment that she was giving me a test, but also wanting to know if she'd seen something I hadn't.
"The whole place is like a fortress," I said. "The courtyard is completely cut
off from the street."
"That's true," Myra said. "But it isn't cut off at all from the
project itself. There must be a couple of hundred windows that look out onto
that courtyard."
"Sure," I said. "But our crime happened a little after midnight.
Could be nobody was looking."
"Could be," Myra said. "They would've heard shots, but people in a
project probably aren't all that likely to go stand in front of a
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