I shrugged. “If it’s open, I guess.” It wasn’t as though we would be charged with trespassing. We were here with police backup, a unit of officers gathered right around the building, waiting for my cue to come forward and take my father into custody.
Simultaneously, we looked back to Drew, who stood at the edge of the driveway. Hunting down convicts who’d jumped parole was not his area, but when JC had reached out to him, he’d met with Officer Taylor, the cop who had been on my father’s case since he’d shown up at the Eighty-Eighth Floor and demanded I give him twenty thousand dollars. Together, the men had arranged both for the team of police and the deal I wanted to offer my asshole excuse of a dad.
Now, Drew nodded.
With that as permission, JC threw the door open. “Hello?” he called out as he stepped tentatively inside.
A terrible stench wafted from the condo and clung to me. It smelled like feces and vomit and urine and chlorine all mixed together. I covered my nose with my hand and paused half a second, wondering if it had been a bad idea to not let one of the plainclothes men to accompany us after all. I’d wanted to talk to my father without them, though, and I still did. If we needed them, all either JC or I had to do was say the word and the mic I wore would relay the message. So with a rush of courage, I grabbed the hem of JC’s jacket and followed him in.
The interior of the condo was dark even though there were still several hours before nightfall. Heavy blackout curtains over the windows shut out the sun. I blinked, letting my eyes adjust, as JC tried a switch on the wall to no avail. The door had swung shut behind me, but I pushed it back open to let some light in and immediately started to retch at the sight. The room looked like it was straight out of an episode of Hoarders. It was strewn with trash and dirty dishes crawling with maggots. Small drops of what looked like blood were smattered all over the walls and ceiling. Flies buzzed around a bucket in the corner, and I was certain without looking in it that it was filled with shit. At the other end of the room, a man and a woman were passed out on the floor, needles and spoons lying around them.
I half regretted bringing JC to this horrid place. I wished he could never know that I was related to someone who lived in this pigsty. Someone who was this disgusting. It was embarrassing.
Yet he was the one who turned toward me, blocking my view. “We don’t have to do this, Gwen. Just say the word, and the men outside can come in here and take your dad into custody. You don’t have to offer him your deal.”
He was right—I didn’t have to offer my father anything. For as little as he’d given me in my life, I didn’t feel obligated to him, which made it hard to explain my reasons for wanting to see this idea through, even to myself. Maybe I felt like I had something to prove. Or maybe it was about being the bigger person. Or maybe my few days of pregnancy had already changed me into someone more maternal. Someone who wanted what was best for my flesh and blood, even if the feeling wasn’t mutual.
Whatever the reason, I was committed to it. And as many strings as our authority friends had pulled to fulfill my requests, they couldn’t out and out skirt the law.
“If I see him,” Officer Taylor had told me, “I’ll have to arrest him.”
That meant that if I wanted to make this deal with Dad, it had to come from me.
“It’s okay,” I assured JC without much confidence to back it up. “I’m okay. Let’s just find him and get this over with.”
Reluctantly, he agreed, but he made me wait by the door while he crossed the room to nudge the sleeping man. “We’re looking for William Anders,” he said, when the guy seemed relatively coherent. JC’s detectives kept tabs on my father at all times, so we knew he was currently on the premises. Not having to trudge aimlessly through the shithole would be welcomed. “Is he upstairs or down?”
The man sat up, bobbing as he did, obviously still high on whatever drug he’d taken. It took him a minute, but finally he answered. “Will is down.”
Down was exactly the answer I was hoping he wouldn’t give. If it was this dark on the main floor, I couldn’t imagine what it would be like in the basement.
JC apparently had the same thought. He pulled out his cell phone and turned on the flashlight before gesturing for me to join him at the basement door. I stepped carefully over to him, then—my hand clasped tightly around his—we went down the stairs together.
Downstairs was even worse than the main floor. Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on how I wanted to look at it—the lights worked and were already on as we descended, making it easier to avoid the used needles and blood rags underfoot, but the waste was significantly worse, and the scene was chilling. How did people live like this? Existing merely for the next hit with no thought to hygiene or nourishment or even comfort. It boggled my mind and plucked at the nugget of filial affection that I kept buried deep inside.