Chapter 3 - The Cold Third Floor
Number 412 Verona Street looked like every other pre-war tenement on the Lower East Side: five stories of soot-stained brown brick, an iron fire escape that clung to the facade like a rusted skeleton, and an entrance with four cracked concrete steps leading to a door whose glass panel had been replaced with plywood three years ago.
The Lincoln idled in front of the building, its headlights cutting two bright cones of white light through the rain, illuminating the trash bags piled along the curb and the broken plastic crates stacked beside the basement chute.
Before Moretti could open his door, a battered green Buick pulled up behind them with a screech of worn brake pads. A short, balding man in a drenched raincoat scrambled out of the passenger side, clutching a heavy leather medical bag in one hand and a green portable oxygen cylinder in the other.
"That's Rossi," Silvio said from the front seat.
"Let's go," Moretti said.
He stepped out into the rain. He did not wait for Silvio’s umbrella. He reached back into the car, lifted Rosie out by the waist, and carried her under his arm like a bundle of ledger books, keeping her feet above the gray slush on the sidewalk.
They entered the vestibule. The smell hit them immediately—damp plaster, boiled cabbage, cat urine, and the faint, sweet chemical tang of roach spray. The hallway radiator stood against the wall, its cast-iron ribs dead and ice-cold to the touch.
On the ground floor, a door cracked open. The squinting, unshaven face of Vinnie the superintendent peered through the gap, held by a brass security chain.
"Hey! Who's making all that racket with the—"
The words died in Vinnie’s throat. His jaw went slack, his bloodshot eyes widening until the whites showed all the way around. The brass chain rattled violently as his hands fumbled to undo the lock.
"M-Mr. Moretti," Vinnie stammered, pulling the door wide, standing in his grease-stained undershirt. "Sir. I didn't—nobody told me you were coming down here tonight. The boiler, sir, the parts are on backorder from New Jersey, I swear to God, the trucks couldn't cross the bridge because of the—"
Moretti didn't even slow his pace. He walked past the superintendent as if the man were an empty laundry basket. "Silvio."
"Yes, boss."
"Take Vinnie down to the basement. Show him the boiler. If it isn't throwing heat by the time I come back down these stairs, break his left collarbone."
"Understood, Mr. Moretti."
"No! Wait! Mr. Moretti, please, the valve is just stuck!" Vinnie shrieked, his voice trailing off into desperate apologies as Silvio took him by the shoulder and guided him down the wooden steps toward the furnace room.
Moretti carried Rosie up the stairs.
First floor. Second floor. The steps groaned beneath his weight. The air got colder as they climbed, rising toward the roof where the draft seeped through the skylight. By the time they reached the third floor, Rosie could see her own breath pluming in small, pale clouds before her nose.
"Apartment 3B," she whispered, pointing down the narrow hall where the yellow wallpaper was peeling in long, curling ribbons.
The lock on 3B was broken; it had been held shut by a bent brass slide bolt that Rosie had pulled into place before leaving. Moretti set her down, pushed the door with the flat of his palm, and it swung inward with a dry screech.
The room was nearly dark.
A single floor lamp with a cracked plastic shade cast a dim, jaundiced triangle of light across the linoleum. In the center of the room sat a bare double mattress resting directly on the floorboards, piled with three layers of mismatched wool blankets and two old winter coats.
On the mattress lay Clara.
She looked forty, though Rosie knew she was thirty-two. Her dark hair was matted with sweat against her temples, her skin the color of skim milk left in the sun. Her breathing came in short, raspy hitches that rattled deep inside her ribcage—a terrible, dry sound like someone rubbing sandpaper against the inside of her chest.
"Mama," Rosie cried, running across the cold floorboards, dropping to her knees beside the mattress. "Mama, I got the soup. I got the bread. And there's a man—"
Clara’s eyelids fluttered open. Her eyes were glazed with fever, bloodshot and disoriented. "Rosie... baby... I told you... the rain..."
Then Clara’s gaze shifted past her daughter’s shoulder.
She froze. The rattling breath caught in her throat, turning into a violent, racking fit of coughing that curled her small frame into a knot. She pressed a stained handkerchief to her mouth, her knuckles white with strain.
When the fit passed, she looked at the doorway.
Moretti stood there, his head nearly brushing the doorframe, his dark wool coat damp from the rain, his broad hands resting at his sides. Behind him, Dr. Rossi was already setting down his black bag and unscrewing the brass regulator on the green oxygen tank with a metallic hiss.
"Luca," Clara whispered.
The word was barely more than an exhalation, but it made the room seem to contract.
"You look like hell, Clara," Moretti said softly.
"I told you... ten years ago," she gasped, her hand reaching out to pull Rosie against her hip. "I told you I didn't want... your money. I didn't want... your people."
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Moretti walked across the room. He didn't look at the cracked walls, the water stains on the ceiling, or the empty electric space heater sitting unplugged in the corner. He stopped beside the mattress, sank onto one knee, and looked directly into Clara’s fevered face.
"You didn't want my money," Moretti said, his voice dropping into that dark, immovable register. "So you took my daughter and brought her here to starve in the cold."
