Page 63 of Delusional

That made me chuckle again. I looked around and didn’t see any other employees.

“I’ve been with Watson construction for seventeen years now. Vic married Pry’s mother about fifteen years ago. The boy’s been coming and going since then.” The man wiped his brow with an actual handkerchief he took from his pocket. Then he said, “I know Pry is an embarrassment to his stepfather. The kid could have it all. Instead, he just parties and hangs out with a bunch of weirdos.”

“What kind of weirdos?”

“The kind that live off their parents and don’t work. So people like Pry. He doesn’t seem to do much of anything except… hang out.”

“Do you happen to know where he hangs out?”

“I heard he likes to go to some club set up in a warehouse not that far from here,” the man said.

“Can you give me any directions to this club?”

In my pocket-size notepad, he drew me a quick sketch with a few landmarks. I knew the area he was talking about, but this sounded like a pop-up place, nothing I would be familiar with. I shook the man’s hand and said, “Thanks very much. Guys like you make our job a lot easier.”

The man smiled and said, “When I was a youngster, maybe fourteen or fifteen, I made some bad choices. A young cop who worked our neighborhood caught me vandalizing a car one day. Instead of taking me to jail, he took me over to some athletic fields not far from our apartment in Harlem. He showed me a bunch of other young people about my age. Then he took the time to introduce me to every one of them. He’d come by and pick me up from our apartment every afternoon until it was a habit that I did on my own. I have no doubt he saved me from a life of disappointment in jail.”

“Those are the kinds of the stories I like to hear. You remember the cop’s name?”

“Of course I do. Dave Sharp.”

I laughed out loud and told him that I knew Dave well. I also told him that Dave’s son, Scott Sharp, was working patrol in Queens now.

I could feel the temperature dip as the sun slowly disappeared. I turned to Maggie and said, “We better get going.”

CHAPTER 77

MAGGIE CHIN AND I were able to find the club in the warehouse easily from the man’s little sketch of the streets, showing which shops were on which corners. I suspected the man was used to dealing with people who needed things explained simply.

The nondescript entrance featured a door with no sign. We waited in front for a minute, trying to figure out how much information we wanted to spill to find Leonard Barr. I was about to ask Maggie a question when we heard a thundering clap of music that lasted only about two seconds. It literally made the door pulse.

I abandoned any pretext and opened the door. The place was exactly as advertised: a simple warehouse with an open two-story space. There was a makeshift bar across the back wall and a dance area set up in the middle. Mismatched tables and chairs were spread haphazardly across the otherwise bare concrete floor.

There were a number of people working in the space. Two men and a young woman were fiddling with some sort of sound system all the way on the far side of the warehouse. Several other people were sweeping the floor or stocking the shelves behind the bar. One of the people near the sound system flipped a switch, and once again the speakers boomed. Being inside the room this time made it much more intense. I couldn’t imagine what the warehouse would be like filled with people.

A tall man in his mid-twenties standing near the sound system noticed us and marched over. He had wire-rimmed glasses and a silver ring through the center of his nose. He shouted at us, “Who the hell are you? Get outta here!”

I find it’s always best to ignore people who are shouting at you. Responding doesn’t do any good and generally makes them much more upset. Maggie silently agreed with my strategy. We waited patiently until the young man came right up next to us.

“Are you deaf? I said get out of here,” he repeated.

Maggie flashed her ID quickly. “If you’re serving alcohol, I’ll need to see your license and certificate of occupancy.”

That shut the man up quickly.

Maggie didn’t let up. “I also need to see a complete list of employees. I’ll be conducting random interviews. In addition, I’ll need your exact hours of operation and the safety precautions you’re using for the crowds that gather in here.”

Now the lanky hipster was at a loss for words. “I, um, I’m not sure, um, where all that stuff is. It might take me a while to find it.”

Maggie said, “Let’s start with the employees. I’d like to speak to those three first.” She pointed at two women behind the bar and a heavyset man working on the sound system. “One at a time.”

When the hipster didn’t react, Maggie said, “Are you deaf? I told you I wanted to speak to those employees right now.” She didn’t raise her voice, but her strict, administrative tone was terrifying. At least to a city employee like me.

The three employees shuffled toward us. The young heavyset man didn’t seem bothered by talking to us or too concerned about getting back to work. He asked what we needed, and we showed him a picture of Leonard Barr and told him he went by the nickname Pry.

The man said he might have seen Barr in the club over the past few weeks but couldn’t be sure.

The two young women watched their coworker walk away, then had a quick discussion about who would be next to speak. Finally the shorter of the two, a girl in her early twenties whose black hair had a pink fringe around it, sauntered toward us. I noticed a snake tattoo that crept up her neck and disappeared into her hairline behind her ear.