Terminal City by Linda Fairstein

charged their parking fee or one of you jotted down plate numbers.”
    “You told me you don’t have a date. How you gonna do that?”
    “We’ve figured it within a day or two,” I said. “Will you let us into your office to check them out?”
    “I don’t keep ’em here, lady. The owner has eight garages. All the stuff gets forwarded next day to Queens, where he operates. Go there if you want, or call my manager. I’ve only worked here two months.”
    A car nosed down the ramp and squealed to a stop a few feet away from us. The attendant walked over to the machine on the wall that dated and timed the receipts and handed a ticket to the woman who got out of the car.
    “How long you gonna be, lady?”
    She told him she planned to retrieve the car at five. As she turned to walk away, he gave her sculptured body a thorough top-to-bottom once-over, then spit again.
    “What’s in here besides a garage?” I asked. I was wondering if there was a place for someone to conceal himself—or a large trunk—for any period of time. Whoever stole the piece of luggage could not have been certain the opportunity to grab the object would present itself on a busy Manhattan street in the middle of the day.
    “My cage,” he said.
    I looked over at the glass-enclosed booth, which had a stool for the attendant, a small desk, and a cash register, and space for little else.
    “Restrooms around the corner. Help yourself to a look.”
    I walked thirty feet away and found the doors to two unisex bathrooms. The narrow stalls held a toilet and sink. With an occupant, there would be no room for a steamer trunk.
    “Any other way out?” Mercer asked, as I was on my way back.
    “Used to be this was connected to a hotel that was demolished,” the man said. “Long before my time or yours. The ramp swings around to a lower level. Holds a load of cars down there.”
    He turned away from us to take the receipt and payment from a man in a business suit who had come for his car.
    Mercer had been excited to follow this lead. Now it appeared to be as much a dead end as the garage with a once-elegant history. “I’ll get uniform to come over and sweep the place. Check out the basement, too.”
    “Look, it’s possible the man who swiped the luggage just came down the ramp from the street to get out of sight for a while,” I said.
    “With a steamer trunk? Somebody in here would have noticed that.”
    “So there are a bunch of other employees the guys will have to talk to. I mean he may have just waited till he thought the coast was clear. Put the trunk in a corner at the rear of the garage. Tucked it next to a van in the basement and waited a few hours.”
    We walked up the ramp and back out into the sweltering afternoon sun, a sliver of which seemed to find us in between the tall buildings.
    “You want lunch?” Mercer asked.
    “A bucket of water and something light.”
    “We’ll pass a takeout place on our way back to the Waldorf.”
    We squared the block and started walking north on Park Avenue. The wide boulevard carried traffic north- and southbound, three lanes each divided by a median that was maintained as a garden throughout the year. The begonias were a great touch of color in August, the only plants seemingly able to withstand the intense heat and direct sunlight.
    “So nothing from Mike this morning?” I was unable to suppress my curiosity and anxious to confront him about his deception.
    “I’d tell you to chill, but it’s too hot for that word to have any meaning.”
    “You want to know what happened this—”
    “I most distinctly do not. Got that, Ms. Cooper?”
    I stared ahead at the sidewalks filled with pedestrians for as far ahead as I could see. Boxy glass office buildings lined both sides of the broad avenue, eventually giving way to some of the priciest residential real estate in Manhattan.
    “I thought you and Vickee were in favor of our—uh, flirtation.”
    “I’m in favor of minding my own business.