‘No, I really need to show this to you. In person. You’ll understand why once you’ve seen it. Please, Dr Wilde? Just ten minutes. Five minutes, even. It’s really important.’
The pleading in her voice seemed completely genuine. ‘Look,’ Nina finally said, ‘I’m meeting a friend, and we’re going to dinner later. But I might be able to see you after that.’ The East Village was her old neighbourhood, not too far from where she and Lola would be having dinner. She tried to think of somewhere fairly close to a subway station, so she could return home afterwards with the minimum of fuss. ‘There’s a coffee shop called 52 Perk-Up on 7th Street, near Second Avenue. If I’ve got time, I’ll call you and we can meet there. I can’t promise anything, though.’
‘That’d be awesome,’ said Macy with evident relief. ‘Thank you, Dr Wilde. Thanks for talking to me.’
‘No problem. Bye.’ Nina disconnected, already wondering if she could come up with an excuse to let Macy down gently. Whatever she had to say about Berkeley’s dig, it wasn’t her problem.
Still, ten minutes of her time wouldn’t kill her.
Eddie spotted the long queue of people outside the nightclub from the far end of the block. Even relatively early in the evening, people were lined up four abreast in the hope of getting into one of the Upper West Side’s hottest new venues.
‘Looks pretty cool, huh?’ said Grant as his bright orange Lamborghini Murciélago cruised slowly along the street. For day-to-day travel round New York the actor relied on the ostentatious anonymity of the limo service, but when he wanted to be noticed he employed a vastly more eyecatching vehicle. ‘Check out that crowd - hell, check out those legs!’ He lowered his window for a better look at the miniskirted women waiting to enter. The car had already attracted attention, and when people realised a Hollywood star was at the wheel the reaction was almost a riot. Grant grinned his expensive grin and waved, blipping the throttle to let a tiny fraction of the supercar’s 631 horsepower howl through its exhaust pipes.
A section of sidewalk at the club entrance was cordoned off by velvet ropes: the VIP area. Grant pulled over, a valet swooping in to collect the keys in exchange for a token as he got out and stood before a galaxy of flashing phone cameras. Nobody needed to check that his name was on the VIP list, though Eddie didn’t receive the same star treatment. ‘Whoa, guys, he’s with me,’ said Grant as two bouncers closed ranks in front of Eddie like meaty sliding doors. ‘It’s cool, he’s my bodyguard.’
‘This little guy?’ rumbled the larger of the two hulks, smirking. Eddie gave him a scathing look. A brief stand-off, then the bouncers moved apart and he followed Grant inside. Behind, a snarl announced the Lamborghini’s departure for the parking structure down the street.
The club’s interior was on three levels, the lowest an almost pit-like dance floor with a higher area containing the long, neon-lit bar surrounding it. Overlooking both was a glass-walled balcony: the VIP lounge. The pounding music was as trendy and contemporary as the overdone hairstyles of the clubbers, and Eddie didn’t have the slightest idea of the band’s name.
‘Christ, I feel old,’ he muttered as he followed Grant up to the balcony.
Nina almost didn’t call Macy after her pleasant afternoon and dinner with Lola; in fact, until she opened her bag to check her phone for messages and saw the note, she had completely forgotten her earlier conversation. She could have simply shrugged and gone home, but the twin proddings of politeness and minor guilt swayed her otherwise.
She had no messages, so entered Macy’s number again. The same man answered, with the same suspicious air, before she heard Macy say in the background, ‘Is that her? Joey, give me the phone!’ One brief scuffle for possession later, and she was on the line. ‘Hi? Dr Wilde? Is that you?’
‘It’s me,’ Nina assured her.
She sounded relieved. ‘Thanks for calling back. Can you still meet me?’
‘Do you remember where I said?’
‘The coffee place? Yeah, Joey knows where it is. Can you meet me right now?’
‘Yeah, I guess,’ said Nina, still not sure if she should go through with it. ‘I can be there in . . . fifteen minutes?’
‘That’s great! I’ll be waiting for you. Dr Wilde, thank you so much for doing this. I’ll see you soon.’ She hung up.
Nina made a faint noise of exasperation, then set off. She might as well get it over with.
The area hadn’t altered much in the two and a half years since she’d moved out of the East Village; some stores and restaurants had changed hands and a few buildings had been renovated, but 52 Perk-Up looked much the same as the last time she’d been there. The paintings on the back wall were by different local artists, and new faces were serving, but beyond that it was as self-consciously bohemian as ever.
It was also small; she would have deduced which customer was Macy within moments even if she hadn’t sprung up to greet her. ‘Dr Wilde! Hi!’
‘You’re Macy, I take it,’ said Nina, coming to her table. Macy Sharif was not what she had expected; she had assumed that anyone involved with a dig as major as the Sphinx would be at least a post-grad. But the extremely attractive young girl before her, black hair tied back in a ponytail, was too young even to be a graduate, maybe still in her teens. She was also dressed more for spring break than study - as well as an extremely short denim skirt, she wore a very tight designer top emphasising her breasts. The slightly malicious thought crossed Nina’s mind that Berkeley might have chosen her for his team for reasons other than her academic qualifications, before she decided that was unfair. She didn’t know anything about the girl; she should at least give her the benefit of the doubt.
‘Yeah, that’s me! Hi.’ Macy seemed genuinely pleased at the meeting; maybe she really was a fan. ‘I’m really glad Lola managed to get hold of you - I tried calling your number in the phone book, but it wasn’t working. So I went there in person, but the building super said you’d moved out.’
‘Yeah, a few months ago.’ Now Nina was faintly unsettled; perhaps Macy was a fan in the original sense of the word, derived from ‘fanatic’. But she appeared normal and polite enough.
‘Do you want a coffee?’
‘No thanks, I’m fine.’ The table had another occupant, a man of Macy’s age with a fake tan, a necklace of chunky wooden beads and a spiky hairstyle that resembled something from a Japanese cartoon. He briefly looked Nina up and down, then turned his gaze back to Macy’s chest. ‘Hi,’ Nina said. The young man grunted.
‘You sure?’ Macy said. Nina nodded. ‘I could use something. Joey, go get me a cappuccino, will you? I want to talk to Dr Wilde in private.’
Joey grunted again and got up. ‘I’ll sit over there, keep an eye on the door.’
Nina gave Macy a curious look. ‘Something I should know about?’
‘I’ll tell you soon. Please, sit down.’ Nina sat opposite her. ‘Joey’s just watching out for me. He’s a friend from college - well, a friend with benefits.’ She grinned, making Nina a little uncomfortable about her openness. ‘He’s about the only person I know in New York. I’m from Miami.’
‘Right,’ said Nina, not particularly interested. ‘So, what did you want to talk to me about?’
Macy sat straighter. ‘First thing - can I just say it’s so great that you were willing to see me? I’ve wanted to meet you for ages. You’re like my hero!’
‘Really?’ Nina felt a little glow inside her; it was a long time since she’d had any kind of professional flattery.
‘Oh, totally! It’s because of you that I picked archaeology for my major. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, but then I read this and thought: wow, that is so cool.’ She took out several slightly tattered magazine pages from her bag, laying them out flat on the table. Nina immediately recognised them as an article from around a year and a half earlier, about her discovery of Atlantis. One of the pictures was a photograph of herself, beaming proudly. Her younger self had her hair in the ponytail she had favoured at the time, prompting her to glance up at Macy’s very similar style.