Cassandra seems pretty obsessed with ruining me—there’s no telling how she might respond to whatever I have to say. Should I tell Jane where I’m going? Make the cabbie stop at a bodega so I can pick up some pepper spray? The only thing I have time to do is text Jane:Alex Lyons (10:48 AM): I’m going to the Phthalo. If you don’t hear from me in an hour, call the cops.Hopefully the police won’t be necessary. I do have three years of kickboxing classes at my local gym—surely those evenings with Misty will help me out if I need to get physical!We pull up to the glitzy, modern façade of the Phthalo at 10:53. I throw a twenty and a ten at the driver and rush into the lobby.Even though this is a pretty fancy building, there’s no doorman anywhere to be seen. A gardener is tending to the enormous Japanese rock garden that takes up most of the entryway, but he completely ignores me as he draws intricate patterns in the sand. There is a directory to the right of him, and I find a Crandall, C, who resides in unit 3R.I am too impatient to wait for the elevator, so I take the stairs up to the third floor and turn right, where I find a heavy gray door with a batik of Patty Hearst, replete with beret and machine gun, plastered across it.I ring the doorbell once.
