On the west side of the Upper East Side, amid a cluster of dilapidated old houses.
All right, this place looked more like a desolate graveyard than those overcrowded slums, utterly lifeless.
The people living here were mostly listless elderly residents, or packs of stray cats.
No one cleared the trash from the streets anymore. Even thugs looking to rob passersby did not want to come here.
Poor, broken-down, old, and worn-out—that described the place completely. Even standing here, Harvey could feel its desolate filter.
"Harvey, pull the clothesline tight!"
Gilda Dent stood holding several pieces of clothing and called upstairs. This was an old-fashioned two-story house.
More precisely, the upper floor was a triangular attic that could have housed children. Its window had rusted shut.
It might not have been opened in ten years.
Harvey Dent wore a somewhat tattered work uniform as he pushed through dense cobwebs and thick dust on the floor.
He struggled to the window and, after the rusted latch snapped, used every ounce of strength he had to shove it open.
Sunlight streamed in, and a brisk breeze immediately blew away the stuffy odor inside.
The smell was like a mixture of cat droppings and the stench of an elderly corpse, but Harvey Dent did not care.
He braced himself against the windowsill and looked outside. They had a place to live. They had a foothold in this city.
The owner of the house was a generous, kind man who lived in Texas. The house had belonged to his mother.
But his mother had died. Harvey had heard that a thug had forcibly stuffed the white long-haired cat she kept into her mouth, suffocating her to death.
By horror movie standards, this was unquestionably a haunted house. The owner had hired an agency to