The building on the corner of Transverse and Union Avenues was a five story block of apartments built in the seventies and was known as Garden Court. The garden was a small common at the front entrance of the building in the shape of a square, bordered by a boxwood hedge, in which bloomed a succession of flowers correlating to the season; daffodils, iris, daylilies, petunias and finally, as the end of the year approached, chrysanthemums. The apartments in the front of the building had a good view of this if you sat out on your balcony, a selling point used by the real estate agents. Across the street was another building constructed at the same time, on exactly the same floor plan. Since the front apartments faced each other across the street, the tenants discovered that those balconies had very little privacy, and they were seldom used. Most people stayed in their apartments with the window curtains drawn. From the sidewalk below, you could look up at the windows and their red, blue, green, yellow and brown curtains as you walked by.

In the nineties, the building was converted into a co-operative and the apartments were sold to the tenants, or, if the tenants refused, to anyone of the general public who was approved by the co-op board. You bought your apartment, paid a monthly 'maintenance' fee that included the apportioned property tax, a share of the centralized heating and cooling bill, and a parking spot in the lot behind the building in a numbered space that corresponded to your apartment. Each apartment owner was responsible for his/her electric and media bill. Any necessary building maintenance such as roofing repairs, parking lot repaving, masonry or window replacement was assessed and apportioned to each apartment. There was also a contract including a book of the building's rules, administered by the co-op board, that the tenants had to sign. All garbage bags had to be small enough to fit into the garbage shoot. Any re-painting, re-carpeting, re-modelling had to be approved by the co-op board. Any moving, delivery or servicemen were not permitted to use the tenants' elevators; they had to use the service elevator. All proof of apartment insurance had to be posted by Dec. 1. No noise was to exceed your apartment. All holiday decorations visible from outside the building had to be approved. No loud music, barbecuing, picnicking, ballplaying or dog walking were permitted on the grounds. You had to pass a background check. You had to pass a credit check.

The idiosynchroses of these arrangements attracted a motley assortment of somewhat transient tenants who spent very little time outside their apartments. Most of them tended to be single adults, divorcees or widows and widowers. A fair amount of them were either retirees, who no longer had children or spouses and who had sold their single family homes for cheaper accomodations; or young professionals who had not yet married, medical interns or legal secretaries just out of college and paying off student loans. There were few children. Due to the fact that there was limited parking for guests, there were few visitors.

The building's superintendant, a man of late, middle age named Jim Maloney, lived in a basement apartment of the building. He was a stocky man, built squarely, with a bit of an obvious beer belly and somewhat unkempt, salt and pepper hair, with a scrubby stubble on his cheeks and chin. He had a lined face with a scar over one cheek. His eyes were deep set and dark, almost black, and if you saw his hands you would notice that his fingernails were always dirty. He had hairy arms and there was wiry, black hair sticking out of his collar at his throat. In an arrangement common in those days, he was paid a small salary but not required to pay rent. If the tenants had small problems like stopped drains, leaky faucets, faulty light switches or loose tiles in their bathroom floors, they buzzed Jim in his apartment and when it was convenient he would come up and fix their problems. Sometimes they made sure they were home when he came to their apartments, but sometimes this was not possible and he would let himself in and work in them by himself. He had a master key to all of the apartments.

He had his own assigned parking space and in it you could almost always see his car; it was a 1984 Pontiac Grand Prix with a large dent in the left quarter panel, a bit of rust along the lower edges of the doors, a chip in the windshield glass, and crushed in wire rims on the passenger side. Sometimes an old bic cigarette lighter could be seen discarded next to it, sometimes a crumpled beer can, sometimes empty fast food bags. He wore stained t-shirts and blue jeans in the summer, and an old, denim jacket with a button missing in the winter. Sometimes he carried a tool box, sometimes he didn't.

If there were no calls, Jim spent the morning in his basement apartment. It had no windows. If you went down there, you would often smell coffee or toasted bagels in the hall outside his door. Sometimes you would see a garbage bag out there. You could hear the sound of television news and weather programs, talk shows, and game shows. By the afternoon, he would come up from the dark, quiet confines of the basement apartment into the lobby of the building. The lobby was decorated in an eclectic, neutral style and was furnished with various couches, easy chairs and coffee tables. It was part of his duties to clean them, and after cleaning them he could often be seen sitting in one of the couches or chairs, looking out of the front glass at the little garden in the front of the building, or watching the tenants coming and going, his can of pledge and a roll of paper towels on one of the coffee tables. The tenants came and went without hardly addressing him. Sometimes they nodded, sometimes they ignored him altogether.

After a while, he started walking around in the halls. They were almost always empty. The grey doors were all shut and even if he pressed his ear against them, he could hear nothing in the apartments. Sometimes a door would open suddenly and someone would walk out of their apartment to go to work or go shopping. He would pass them in the hall, clutching his tool box, with a quick glance and a nod, nothing more.

As the months went by he started cutting short his time watching television in the mornings and evenings to be in the lobby or out in the courtyard as the tenants came and went to go to work. There was the lady who always came back to the building at six thirty a.m. with her hair all disheveled in a rumpled jacket, wearing sunglasses. There was the tall man in the glasses and grey trench coat, clutching his briefcase in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, who always left at seven and set out at a brisk pace down the block for the train station. He returned every evening at seven, walking much slower, hanging his head. In the summer he traded the grey trench coat for a sports jacket. Then there was the portly black lady who wore the gaudy clothes, prints of yellow, green and red, who always seemed to be humming amazing grace. She would go off at a leisurely gate for the bus stop only to return an hour or so later, carrying things in plastic bags. In the afternoon she repeated this same ritual. The Spanish lady would come down with her black hair in a kerchief at eight, with her daughter hefting an immense back pack. She always looked suspiciously at Jim and hurried on, pushing the shy, little girl toward the bus stop. After the school bus picked up the little girl, she went away down the block. The little girl would return from the bus at four, walk back into the lobby, and go up the elevator alone. The Spanish lady with the kerchief wouldn't return until nine at night. Then there was the young, blond nurse with the striking figure, who left the building in her blue uniform after dinner time and came back again early in the morning. She always looked passed people, down the block, at someone else or something else that caught her attention. The elderly couple with the grey hair always left Garden Court early in the morning, dressed in spandex, and in very high spirits, talking with their heads together around a cell-phone. They always smiled cheerfully at Jim and wished him a "good morning!" They would leave in a strenuous walk and come back around ten just as fresh as when they left. They always seemed to be tanned, even in winter. They would stay up in their apartment for a couple of hours, and then Jim would see them pulling around the side of the building in their dark, blue BMW convertible, laughing and smiling cheerfully in their sunglasses.

Only when he was called to do maintenance work was he invited into the apartments. A Mr. Halloran buzzed him once for a leak in his bathroom and he went up to his apartment, 3C, with his wrenches. Mr. Halloran was a nervous little man with a bald head and beady little eyes who answered the door dressed rather sloppily in a robe and a pair of slippers. He ushered Jim hurriedly into the bathroom, as if he were anxious that Jim would come and go as quickly as possible and not see much of his apartment. The bathroom looked as if several pictures had been removed from the walls; there were pinholes in the faded wallpaper. Mr. Halloran stood in the bathroom doorway blocking it with one of his arms,, breathing impatiently as he watched Jim work. Jim squatted down to get into the cabinet under the sink with is back to Mr. Halloran. In the cabinet he noticed, next to the usual collection of bath tissue rolls, soap bars, mouthwash and shampoo containers, a jar of petroleum jelly and a half empty bottle of baby oil. After he finished replacing the elbow joint and putting the fittings back to together, he gathered his tools without a word and got to his feet, turning to look at Mr. Halloran's face. Mr. Halloran looked away. Then, he escorted Jim quickly to his front door, but before he left, Jim stole a quick passing glance at the living room where two, large photographs of naked women over a couch caught his eye.

A Ms. Backstrom left a message for him to clear out a stopped drain. She wouldn't be home. Jim went up and let himself into her apartment. It smelled of incense. He went into the kitchen and found a cracked plate and a plastic bowl drying on the drainboard, along with a coffee cup with a kitten's face on it. Looking around the kitchen he saw a few drawings of cats, in various ridiculous poses, on the walls. One was sitting in an easy chair reading a newspaper with her slippers on. Another, with curlers in her hair, was standing in front of a mirror, smoking a cigarette. The kitchen window looked out onto the fire escape and he drew back the curtains to see a folded up telescope on a tripod in a small, plastic chair. Next to the chair was an igloo cooler. After he finished snaking out the drain, Jim walked around the rooms of the apartment. The living room had a large picture window covered by a coral colored curtain. He drew back the curtain and saw a pair of binoculars on a small metal table out on the patio. The carpet of the living room was an odd, fluorescent pink color, and very thick. A very large LCD television hung on the wall opposite a red, velvet love seat. The coffee table was made of glass and on it was an ashtray with the remains of a joint in it. He opened the drawer of an end table and found in it a pink cigarette lighter, a package of strawberry flavored rolling paper, a roach clip with a flamingo feather tassel and a piece of paper with names and phone numbers on it. Underneath the television was a shelf with video cassettes; he recognized the titles: 'Sleepless in Seattle', 'Fifty Shades of Grey', 'Saw', 'Brooklyn' and 'Pretty in Pink.' Then, he left.

One day he went up to the top floor of the building and walked to the end of the hall, to the back corner apartment, 5-G. He took out his master key, opened the door, and went inside. The apartment was very messy. There were dirty dishes, pots and pans, tongs, spoons, cups, forks, knives and a casserole dish piled in the sink. All kinds of clothes were strewn all over the bedroom floor; socks, shoes, t-shirts, boxer shorts, jeans, panties, bras and a couple of dresses. The sheets, pillows and blanket of the bed had all been tossed and turned and kicked into a scrambled heap. A plant that had not been watered in weeks wilted in a pot next to the bedroom window, where the thick, brown curtains had been drawn shut. He opened the top drawer of the bureau and took out a black lace bra and a pair of panties. He took off his clothes and put on the bra and panties and looked at himself in the mirror. Still wearing these he walked into the living room, took a bottle of merlot out of the wine rack next to the sofa, got himself a wine glass and poured himself a drink and went back into the bedroom. He put on the TV. He put on the stereo and watched an episode of Charlie's Angels with the volume turned down so he could listen to the stereo. He tuned in a disco station and danced in front of the mirror. Then he took off the bra and panties, tossed them on the floor, got dressed, put the glass in the sink and left.

He took the elevator down one floor and stepped out into the hall. He looked up and down, but there was nobody to be seen and no sound from the behind the closed, grey doors. He walked slowly passed 4-C and 4-B, stopping to listen at the doors. He went on to 4-A, listened, and then went back to 4-B and opened the door with his master key.

This apartment was very neat. Several jackets and coats hung on a rack on the wall next to the door. One of them was a grey trench coat. The kitchen was spotless and all the cooking utensils, china, pots and pans were shining, stacked neatly in their cupboards. He opened the doors to see. The stove looked like it had never been used. He opened the stainless steel refrigerator and saw in the door compartments a half drunk container of v-8 juice, a half drunk container of flavored seltzer water, a butter dish, a carton of eggs, a bottle of ketchup and a jar of mayonnaise. There was a loaf of wheat bread on one of the shelves, next to a sleeve of cinnamon and raisin bagels and a tub of cream cheese. The next shelf held a six pack of Heineken beer, a package of defrosted chop meat, and a bag of potatoes. He closed the refrigerator and went into the living room.

The walls were painted a creamy, coffee color, and the carpet was a textured brown. A tan, leather recliner sat in one corner, next to a book shelf. He noticed among the titles: 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich', 'Blitzkrieg', 'Gorky Park' and 'The Shining.' There was a video game system on a coffee table in front of the chair, and an old box TV monitor opposite. Next to the video game console was a Fortnight video game cartridge. He went over to a polished teakwood sideboard and opened one of the drawers. In it was a bowie knife, a bayonet, and a medieval axe. He closed the drawer and opened a larger one under it. In it was a luger pistol, a sawed off shot gun and a box of shells. He closed the drawer and left the apartment, his heart beating, his forehead sweating a little.

He walked down the hall to the elevator very quickly and once inside, pressed the L button. The elevator went down slowly passed the third floor, the second floor, the first floor. It came to a halting stop. The doors slid slowly open.

In front of him was the tall man in the glasses and sports jacket, clutching his briefcase, hanging his head. As the elevator door opened, he slowly raised his head and looked Jim in the eyes. He clutched his free hand into a fist, he seemed to clench his teeth, and a vein popped out at his temple.