Chapter One
He climbed the stairs, his boots falling heavily on burgundy floral carpet and,
where it was threadbare, on the scarred oak beneath.
The stairwell was unlit; in neighborhoods like this one the bulbs were stolen
from the ceiling sockets and the emergency exit signs as soon as they were
replaced.
John Pellam lifted his head, tried to place a curious smell. He couldn't. Knew
only that it left him feeling unsettled, edgy.
Second floor, the landing, starting up another flight.
This was maybe his tenth time to the old tenement but he was still finding
details that had eluded him on prior visits. Tonight what caught his eye was a
stained-glass valance depicting a hummingbird hovering over a yellow flower.
In a hundred-year-old tenement, in one of the roughest parts of New York
City....Why beautiful stained glass? And why a hummingbird?
A shuffle of feet sounded above him and he glanced up. He'd thought he was
alone. Something fell, a soft thud. A sigh.
Like the undefinable smell, the sounds left him uneasy.
Pellam paused on the third-floor landing and looked at the stained glass above
the door to apartment 3B. This valance — a bluebird, or jay, sitting on
a branch — was as c ... read full excerpt from: Hell's Kitchen ebook
