Free Die for You by Lisa Unger Page A

anticipated the question. “I work Monday through Saturday, from six A.M. to six P.M. , sometimes later. I’ve worked in this building for twenty-five years.”
    Grady looked at his watch. “Working late tonight?” he asked. It was going on seven o’clock.
    “The night-shift doorman, Timothy Teaford, hasn’t arrived,” said Shane. “I can’t leave until he does.”
    “He call?”
    “No.”
    “Unusual behavior?”
    “Actually, yes.”
    “Can I get the name and address of this guy?”
    “There are two other part-time doormen who take the evening shifts and rotate the Sunday shifts. But naturally, they don’t have the same relationship with the tenants and the building that I do.”
    “Of course not,” Crowe said gravely. “I’ll still need their names and contact information.”
    “Of course, sir.”
    Crowe saw Breslow looking around at the lobby that opened into a courtyard with a tall stone fountain turned off for the winter. She had the class not to gawk or comment, but he could tell she was impressed. He’d seen plenty of lobbies like this one—the high ceilings, the marble floors, the large pieces of art, the plush furniture. He was Bay Ridge born and raised, working class to the bone, but had attended Regis High School in Manhattan. Regis had competitive admissions, tuition free to those who got in, so the socioeconomic structure was more diverse than at other area prep schools. But plenty of his friends and classmates were the children of the very wealthy, were now the very wealthy themselves—doctors, lawyers, writers, newscasters. He could be living like they were. But Grady had always wanted to be a cop like his father.
    After Regis, he attended New York University, though he’d been accepted at Princeton, Georgetown, and Cornell. He just didn’t understand spending all that money. Even with the partial scholarships he’d been offered at those schools, the tuition seemed staggering. His parents would have helped, but it would have left nothing for his sisters. NYU gave him a free ride. He joined the NYPD as soon as he graduated.
    He had the sense that his family was disappointed. They’d expected something more. His father was the least pleased of all. “All that hard work you put in,” he lamented. “You could have gone to public, skipped college altogether, if all you wanted out of your life was to chase skells.” Like most blue-collar guys, his father had a strict and simple formula for determining success: income minus effort. Police work was hard and dangerous and you’d never get rich as an honest cop. It was bad math. You ended up giving more than you got. But the Jesuits didn’t measure success that way; neither did Grady.
    Because of his education, because of a year doing the most dangerous work on a South Bronx buy-and-bust detail, and because of one flashy arrest, he got his gold shield fast. Five years on the job and he was a homicide detective. Too fast for some of the guys with more years on. Because of this, Grady wasn’t as popular as his old man had been. “Fuck them,” his dad advised. “They’re crabs in a barrel, people like that.”
    After Shane gave them the names and contact information of the other doormen, Grady and Breslow took the elevator up to the ninth floor and walked down the long hallway over plush carpet.
    “I think we’re in the wrong line of work,” Jez said, running a finger along the wall.
    “No doubt about it,” Grady answered, just to be sociable. He appreciated nice things—good clothes, upscale restaurants—but he was unimpressed by opulence. He knocked heavily on the door, modulated his voice to be deeper than it normally was.
    “NYPD. Open up, please.” He knocked again hard for emphasis.
    They waited a full thirty seconds, knocked one more time, then Grady unlocked the door and pushed it open. He could see from where they stood that a vase lay shattered in the entrance hallway.
    They moved to either side of the door, drew