Page 64 of Wrong Mail

I push it open and look inside.

"Hello?"

No one answers.

I step in.

The front room is full of people who seem only half there. Men and women sit along the walls in the brown light leaking through the boards. Their heads are tipped back, mouths open, eyes fixed on nothing. The smell hits me again, and for a second I put a hand over my mouth.

Nobody stops me.

Nobody is in any state to.

I move through the room with the photo lit on my phone. A woman on the floor barely looks at it before pointing toward the back.

I find him in a cramped den at the rear of the apartment.

He is sunk into a torn couch, one arm hanging over the side, his feet twisted awkwardly on the floor. I recognize him instantly. The face from the police mugshot has gone slack and gray. His eyes are half open, but they don't seem to register me.

Nearby, two men sit on the floor with their backs to the wall. A woman is curled in an armchair with her chin on her chest. Nobody looks up for long. Everyone here is chasing something or coming down from it.

I crouch in front of him, careful not to touch the foil or dirty needle near his shoe.

"Hey," I say softly.

His eyes shift again.

"I'm the woman from Hunts Point," I say. "The house on the water. You were there five nights ago."

His eyes drift toward me, then away.

"I'm not the police. I just need to know who sent you."

For a while there is nothing but his breath, shallow and too slow. Then, from a long way down, he says, "Wasn't s'posed to go like that."

I go very still.

"We got told," he says. “Husband's gone. Woman's alone. Easy money. In and out. Scare her. Steal a few things. Half up front, rest after." His head rolls.

For a second I want it to be a mistake. Maybe they were meant to go to the Ericksons' place next door and came to mine instead.

But that isn't what he just said. The job was a woman on her own, and the only woman on her own was me. The Ericksons' place was empty by then.

“You were told by who?" I ask. I lean in. "Who sent you?"

His mouth works. “A middleman set it up.” The words come apart. “Never met him. We got an address, a night. Half up front. Then we went.” His eyes almost find mine. “Scare her. Take some valuables. That was the job. Nobody was s'posed to die. Not him.”

And then he's gone under again. I could shake him, but I don't. I’ve interviewed enough people under the influence to know when I’m not getting anything more.

I bring up the photo of Henry before I've decided to, the one I took without quite meaning to, him on my terrace the day the cameras went in. He’s half-turned, not ready for the lens.

"Have you ever seen this man?" I ask.

His eyes open.

They move to the screen.

Something changes in his face.