The sidewalk was packed, swarming with office workers on lunchtime errands, and every face I looked in looked back at me with what I was suddenly sure was a knowing stare, as if they were all mentally comparing me to the mugshot they’d seen in the paper. I tried to keep my face averted; but how, in a crowd like this? A woman walked past, talking furtively into her cell phone, and I couldn’t help the paranoid impression that she was talking about me, telling an eager 911 operator where I could be found. I ducked into a payphone, grateful for the small degree of privacy its narrow metal walls afforded, and dialed the phone number I’d gotten from Rodeo the night before. It rang three times before a woman said, “Hello?”
I struggled to remember the name I’d given last night. I couldn’t. “I have an appointment with Sharon at one,” I said.
“Is this Douglas?” Douglas. That was it.
“Yes,” I said.
“Where are you?”
“Right here,” I said. “At the Food Emporium. Where the woman I spoke to said I should—”
“On the payphone?”
“That’s right.”
“I need you to turn around, honey.”
I turned, reluctantly. The building across the way had sixteen windows. No telling which one she was in. No telling who might be looking out the others.
“All right,” she said after a pause that probably lasted less no more than a few seconds but felt endless. “You’ll go to 260 East 51st, ring the bell for 1FW.”
“1FW,” I said.
“See you,” she said and hung up.
For a moment I thought about whether I should go, whether it was too risky. What if she had read the paper this morning? But it didn’t take me long to realize that the risks were much worse for me out here. If nothing else, given what she did for a living, she’d be less likely to call the cops than the people around me now.
I found the building and she buzzed me in. She was waiting just inside, standing in the doorway of the front, west apartment. She was about my height, slim, with brown hair tied back in a tight ponytail and a spray of freckles across her cheeks. She looked like she was in her late thirties—maybe even early forties, though that could just have been the toll the job had taken on her. She had on a thin summer dress and her nipples were tenting the fabric thanks to the cold air I’d let in from the street.
I waited for a moment of recognition, a sign of fear, some indication of danger, but I didn’t see any.
“Sharon?” I said.
She held a finger to her lips and didn’t say anything till she’d ushered me inside and closed the door behind me. Even then she spoke softly. “Sorry, I just don’t want to bother the neighbors. We’ve had some complaints.”
“I understand,” I said, quietly. “That’s fine.”
“Want to get comfortable?”
Even if I’d wanted to, the apartment wouldn’t have made it easy. It was tiny, even for a studio. There was just room enough for a massage table and a single folding chair, barely any other furniture; the phone was on the floor under the table.
But that was fine. I wasn’t here to get comfortable. I sat in the chair.
“Sharon,” I said. “A woman you used to know suggested I contact you. She calls herself Rodeo. I don’t know if that’s what she called herself when she worked here.”
“Sure. I remember Rodeo. She’s a good kid.”
“She told me you might remember another woman who worked here. A friend of mine. Her name was Dorrie Burke. You might have known her as Cassandra.”
As I said this, Sharon’s hand crept up to her mouth and she backed away. She couldn’t go far, not with the massage table behind her.
“I’m not here to get anyone in trouble,” I said, “I’m just trying to help, trying to find out what happened to—”
“You’re John Blake, aren’t you?”
Damn. “Listen, whatever you read in the paper, it’s not true. I swear.”
“The paper?” she said. “What paper?”
“The Post, the News—wherever you read my name.”
“I didn’t read your name,” she said.
“Then how do you know who I am?” I said.
“Dorrie told me,” she said. “She said you’d find me.”
“She what?”
“You’re the detective, right? She told me...oh, man.” She walked around to the other side of the table, bent over to open a small cabinet wedged in next to the radiator. When she came into view again, she was holding a laptop computer in one hand and a handbag in the other. The laptop was connected to the wall by a phone cable. She set it down on the massage table and reached into the handbag, took out a slightly creased envelope. The envelope had something written on it in blue ink. I couldn’t read it because Sharon’s hand was shaking.
“She told me she was going away. She said you might try to find her, and that when you were looking for her you might find me. And that if you did, I should give you this.” She held the envelope out to me. I could read what was written on it now. It was my name. The handwriting was Dorrie’s.
“You know she’s dead, right?” I said it softly. I’d have said it that way even if she hadn’t told me about the neighbors.
“Yes.” It came out almost like a sob. “I know.”
“How long have you had this?”
“Since Saturday,” she said.
“Why didn’t you get in touch with me? Why didn’t you tell me about it?”
She shook her head, back and forth, kept shaking it as she spoke. “I tried. Your phone number’s not listed.”
“You could have tried up at Columbia.”
“I did. I went there on Monday afternoon. I waited for more than an hour. You weren’t there.”
“You could have left a message for me.”
“I did leave a message. I left it on your desk.”
I thought of the pile of pink message slips I’d seen on my desk. None had looked obviously urgent or important. “What did you write?”
“My name and number,” she said, “and that it was about Dorrie.”
All the messages had been about Dorrie. Everyone had been calling with condolences. Another name, another phone number—it hadn’t stood out.
“I’m sorry, Sharon” I said. “I didn’t realize—”
“It’s okay,” she said.
I took the envelope from her. As I ran my thumb under the flap to break the seal, I thought of Dorrie licking it shut. This envelope must have been one of the last things she’d ever touched. It was probably the closest I’d ever be to her again.
There was a single sheet of paper inside.
John,
Please, please, if you’re reading this I know you’re trying to understand why I’m gone, but don’t. Darling, don’t. Sharon doesn’t know, and she can’t know, and you can’t know either. For your sake, not mine.
You’ve been so good to me, John. You deserve someone better than me. Find someone. Or don’t, if that’s not what you want — but forget you ever knew me. Please. I don’t want you hurt.
I know how badly you must want answers, but please, John, this once, just let it go.
D
I folded the page, tucked it back into its envelope, then saw the look on Sharon’s face and took it out again. Reading it wouldn’t make her happy, but not reading it would be worse.
She handed it back a moment later.
Let it go, she’d written. Like hell I’d let it go.
The desperation in Dorrie’s voice, the fear—I could hear it as if she were standing next to me speaking.
“Sharon, I need to know exactly what she told you,” I said. “When she said she was ‘going away.’ Did she say where she was going? Why was she going?”