“So?”
“So if this aunt of yours were to turn up dead, you might cross out one of the Fs in our matching BFF tattoos.”
“Maybe a B too,” I say, playing along.
“So, we’re gonna drive down there ’cause I have probable cause from a reliable source. Kidnapping or some bullshit. Is that enough for you?”
“Plenty, Ronelle. You’re saving a life.”
Ronelle plants her elbows on the table, which in itself is enough to scare off the waitress who was coming over with refills.
“But if you’re setting me up, Dan, then I’m gonna look a little deeper into all the criminal shit that happened in your vicinity last year.”
I am prepared to take any deal at this point. “Okay, Ronnie. I’ll sign whatever confession you want.”
“And you promise me now: no throwing punches, none of your black-ops, wet-work bullshit.”
I am squirming to be off. “No bullshit of any kind.”
“You better believe it, Dan,” says Ronelle, tossing a twenty on the table, even though she didn’t have anything. “I just got the lieutenant’s desk and I want to hang on to it for a while.”
My phone burbles rather than tweets after its time in the river. I can’t help checking it.
Stop waiting for that white knight to come rescue you. You are your own white knight.
I cover the phone with my hand.
Ronelle squints suspiciously. “Got something interesting there, cowboy?”
“Nope,” I say, sliding out of the booth. “Not interesting and not helpful.”
Ronnie slides out her side and suddenly we’re standing very close to each other and I don’t know whether I’m supposed to back away or not. Ronnie steps even closer and puts the flat of her hand on my back. Her eyes are two chocolate drops and her lips when she smiles could belong to a nice person. She’s smiling now.
“Ronnie,” I say, but that’s as far as I get because I don’t know what to say next and also her hand is sliding lower under the band of my jeans.
This is all very public and I don’t really have the time, but I can’t help thinking back to the night we had together, which was pretty wild.
Something must show on my face, because Ronnie laughs.
“Don’t flatter yourself, McEvoy, I’m just checking something.”
She slips two fingers under the thong strap and snaps it good.
“Still wearing it, huh?”
I nod, hoping that none of the diner’s half dozen early birds are watching this little show.
“It’s been a busy day and I don’t carry spares.”
“That could be a problem,” says Ronnie, wiping the river mud from her hand with a napkin. “You’re never gonna get into the Broadway Park looking like a decrepit old bum.”
There was absolutely no need for old in that sentence.
We swing by a twenty-four-hour Kmart on Broadway to pick up some clothes for me that don’t smell of river sewage. With a little persuasion from Ronelle’s badge, the manager relinquishes the employees’ bathroom key and I spend a few minutes scooping crud out of my cavities and staring at myself in a mirror that seems to have some kind of fungus growing between the glass and aluminium. I look pretty shook up, like the zombie version of myself, and this impression is reinforced by the sound of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” playing over the store speakers, or maybe that’s what put the idea in my head in the first place. I stand still to listen to the Vincent Price section, which I have always liked, and realize that there is no song playing over the speakers—in fact there are no speakers.
I need to pull myself together pronto.
I stuff most of my wet clothes in the trash apart from the boots and jacket, which I bag.
Outside the restroom there’s an old Asian guy holding a cup so I toss in a five figuring I’ll take whatever karma can be bought and the guy says:
“Screw you, cue ball. I’m waiting to use the facilities.”
Shite. I can’t put a foot right these days.
“Sorry, man. I assumed you were looking for a buck.”
“’Cause I’m Korean, right?”
I am too weary for this and I’m afraid to stand up for myself in case I spark off another conflict.
“I apologize, okay? Whatever. Just give me back the five or keep it, whatever. No bad blood. Annyeonghi gyeseyo.”
The old dude is patriotically unimpressed by my mangling of his birdsong language.
“Stop talking, cue ball. Your words hurt my brain.”
For some reason, getting into it with this ancient Korean brings on something of a mini-breakdown. I think it’s partly the randomness of it—this guy doesn’t have a beef with me—and partly the cue-ball thing. Sure I have a forehead the size of JFK’s proposed new runway, but thanks to Zeb’s surgical skills my bald patch is gone, so I thought my hair wouldn’t be such a target. Yet this restroom-waiting, empty-cup-holding, angry old motherfucker has nailed me twice already. Would it pain Jesus so much to send a few more decent people my way every once in a while? I know they’re out there. Jason is one. Evelyn is another, underneath the layer of pickling.
Yeah. And Edit was one too. Remember?
I want to bawl like a drunken aunt. I wanna grind my teeth to stumps and punch the wall, but I don’t and the effort of containing it starts me shaking all over. For a moment I think I might actually be having a heart attack, then the moment passes and I collapse onto a chair beside the Korean guy.
He drapes his spindly arm around my shoulder and says:
“My son.”
And I think: Wow. Is this guy going to surprise me by playing into his stereotype and delivering a nugget of wisdom?
“I never see a man shake after taking a dump before.” He pats me on the back. “That must have been a hell of a dump. Hollowed you right out. I think maybe I’ll wait here a few minutes, let the extractor fan do its work.”
Clever but not very wise. I pluck my five dollars from his cup and go back outside, into my life.
Predawn lasts a little longer in Manhattan because of the urban topography and what light does manage to find a through line is faded and whittled until it arrives gray and limpid on the sidewalks.
Yeah, I know. You’re thinking that maybe I should concentrate on the problems I got instead of contemplating early-morning light in Manhattan.
Limpid? Fuck me.
The Broadway Park House is exactly where I left it last night, standing sentry over Central Park, built on money so old it started off as goats. Ronelle pulls her Lincoln in hard, bumping the front wheel up on the sidewalk, letting the doormen know who’s in charge before she even steps out of the vehicle.
The experienced guys get the message and hang back, but one young buck bristles at how the Broadway Park bay has been defiled and is over like a shot.
“Can I park that for you, ma’am?” he asks, pronouncing ma’am like his pops owns a plantation somewhere.
Ronnie doesn’t even look at him. “You don’t touch my car, kid. And if anyone does touch it, I’m holding you responsible. Got it?”
The kid may have blurted out some kind of reply, but at that stage we are already through the door.
Ronnie has a menace about her that is particularly effective in post offices or hotels. Wherever people are responsible for shit. They take one look at Ronelle Deacon with her game face on and they start thinking, Not me, please God, not me.
Ronnie strides through the lobby making a beeline for the concierge desk, snapping her fingers at a lady trying to hide behind the monitor.
“Hey, hey, sweetie,” she says. “Get me Edit Costello on the phone.”
The lady makes a perfunctory attempt to uphold the hotel’s privacy policy.
“Miss Vikander-Costello does not wish to be disturbed. She sent a memo.”
Ronnie flashes her badge. “See this, sweetie? This trumps the shit out of your memo. This takes your memo out back and beats the crap out of it. This bends your memo over and—”