The Doorman

The novel opens late at night on Central Park West, where Chicky Diaz, a doorman who has worked at the Bohemia Apartments for 28 years, stands guard while a protest march roils the city following a police shooting of a Black man. Chicky, the building's most trusted employee, is carrying a concealed gun for the first time in his career. As pairs of armed men in black tactical gear converge on the Bohemia, the novel rewinds to that morning, tracing the backstories of three intertwined lives that lead to the night's violent climax.

Emily Longworth, a former art consultant, lives with her husband Whitaker "Whit" Longworth and their two young children in the Bohemia's most expensive apartment. She married Whit partly for his wealth, generated by Liberty Logistics, a defense contractor that manufactures body armor. Over the years she has discovered that Whit sells to terrorist organizations and authoritarian regimes, and that he hires escorts who resemble Emily so he can choke them. Emily learned about the escorts from Chicky, who encountered one of the beaten women while moonlighting as hotel security. The marriage has become one of mutual hatred. Emily has secretly siphoned more than five million dollars into an offshore account, leaked damaging company financials to the press, and removed the ammunition from Whit's handgun after discovering he kept it loaded in a bedside drawer accessible to their children.

Julian Sonnenberg, a 50-year-old art gallerist, lives in the Bohemia's least luxurious apartment with his wife Jennifer and their two teenage children. He co-founded a gallery specializing in Black contemporary art with his college best friend Ellington Toussaint. Julian has a congenital heart condition that requires imminent surgery; his cardiologist has warned that any activity raising his heart rate above 80 percent of maximum could trigger fatal valve failure. His gallery is under financial strain, and Whit is threatening litigation over a painting Julian procured whose authenticity is questioned. Julian also serves as president of the co-op board, where he battles racist members and argues against hiring armed security for the night's protest.

Julian and Emily have been conducting a secret affair. What began as flirtation deepened into love after Emily invited Julian to help select art for her apartment. Emily rented a painting studio in Hell's Kitchen as cover and purchased disposable phones to hide the relationship. Emily's best friend, Skye Walker, grew suspicious, and Jennifer deduced the affair through circumstantial evidence.

Chicky's personal life is in collapse. His wife Tiffani died of lymphoma, and his total debt exceeds three hundred thousand dollars from medical bills, credit cards, a loan shark, and his three daughters' college tuition. He took a bouncing job at his cousin Junior's bar, where he ejected El Puño, a Golden Gloves boxer turned drug enforcer. Junior then betrayed Chicky by revealing his Bohemia employment to El Puño, who demanded that Chicky facilitate an inside robbery of the building. Chicky purchased an illegal revolver and refused to participate.

That day, crises converge. Emily is forced off a museum board because of Whit's business revelations. A second Black man is killed by police, fueling the evening's protest. At an arts gala that evening, Whit, drunk and belligerent, makes provocative remarks about racial equity, and Ellington punches him. Jennifer confronts Emily through a veiled metaphor, signaling she knows about the affair. Outside, Julian encounters a white nationalist mob who threaten him with antisemitic slurs before a cop intervenes.

Emily goes to calm her panicking father, whose reactionary politics disgust her. On the way, her driver-bodyguard DeMarquis and she are accosted by white vigilantes who assume the Black man is kidnapping her. Alone with her sleeping children afterward, Emily resolves to leave Whit. DeMarquis drives her back to the Bohemia, where she notices a suspicious vehicle and no doorman on the sidewalk.

Six trained gunmen have seized the building, using Chicky as a hostage to access four apartments. They rob the unoccupied Van der Luyden apartment, bind the elderly Maxwells, and strip Mrs. Frumm's apartment of valuables while the nearly deaf widow apparently sleeps. The men are disciplined professionals in body armor who move with military precision.

Julian, walking home through the park, spots the armed men and alerts Oleksander "Olek" Ponomarenko, the building's superintendent, by throwing pebbles at his basement window. Olek straps on a concealed Glock and plans a two-pronged rescue with Julian, who grabs a wrench.

In the Longworth apartment, the robbers cannot find Whit, who is hiding in a dark bedroom. A robber fires twice into the darkness, but both bullets strike Whit's body armor, the very product that made him rich. Emily enters, is seized, and recognizes the ringleader by his voice and gait as Justin Pugh, Whit's vengeful ex-business associate who had threatened the family after Whit publicly severed ties with him. Julian, having climbed 11 flights, hears Emily scream and bursts through the door swinging the wrench, kneecapping the robber holding her. The robber fires twice: one shot misses, one kills Julian. Chicky rushes in and shoots the robber dead. Olek enters through a hidden service door and is found shot in the hallway as the remaining robbers flee. They are never apprehended.

Whit emerges unharmed, accuses Emily of orchestrating the robbery, and reveals he knew about her affair with Julian. Emily picks up the dead robber's gun and shoots Whit in the neck. He falls, bleeding but alive. She fires a fatal second shot.

Chicky, shot in the abdomen, witnesses everything. Before losing consciousness, he instructs Emily on the story they will tell: The robber who killed Julian also killed Whit, and Chicky exchanged fire with the robber. He tells her to wash her hands to remove gunshot residue. She calls 911, and police arrive moments later.

In the aftermath, Emily retreats to Southampton with her children. The police do not suspect her. Chicky maintains the cover story. Olek privately tells Chicky he saw and heard everything, including Emily killing Whit, and will never reveal the truth. At Julian's memorial, Jennifer asks Emily if she loved Julian. Emily answers yes. Jennifer responds, "Good. Me too." They share a car to the service. DeMarquis gives Emily the only copy of a surveillance dossier proving the affair; Whit had hired DeMarquis himself to compile it. DeMarquis has destroyed all originals and asks only to keep his job.

In the final scene, Emily meets Chicky in Central Park and gives him a bank statement for a numbered Cayman Islands account holding 10 million dollars, having already paid his medical bills and his late wife's debts. Emily tells him he saved her life; he demurs. She clarifies that without him she would spend the rest of her life in prison. They embrace, the first time in 30 years Chicky has hugged a resident. Emily walks away around the lake, and Chicky sets off toward home, reflecting that all of them are "flung together, the housewife and the gallerist and the doorman, you are who you are, until you're not" (386).