Page 20

CHAPTER NINETEEN

According to the navigation app, the Belmond estate is forty-two minutes out from where Molly has dropped her pin on the Lower East Side.

Gun Guy keeps his foot on the gas, which I appreciate. I stay on the phone with Molly. She and Henry are now at Katz’s Deli, the famed New York staple that claims to be the oldest deli in New York City. They have a big menu, but if you order anything other than a variant of the pastrami sandwich you deserve to be mocked and bullied. I tell her to stay there, not to leave, to make sure she has people around her and an eye on the door. I call Marty, but he’s at a friend’s bachelor party on the Jersey Shore. I’d try Craig, but really, what can he do? I consider calling the police, but again where would that go?

They’re in an always-busy restaurant. They’re safe.

I’m now, according to the navigation app, forty-three minutes out.

“When did you realize he was following you?” I ask.

“I saw him when I left the apartment,” Molly says. “Then when I left Duane Reade.”

“What does he look like?”

“Like central casting bad guy. Sunglasses even though it’s cloudy. Long hair.”

I sit up. “Face tat and denim jacket?”

“You saw him?”

“He was hanging outside when Belmond picked me up. Is he still out front? Can you still see him?”

“I’m not near a window.”

I want to get a photo of the guy, but I don’t want Molly taking any risks. I tell her to stay put. We keep driving. I tap my foot impatiently, ask her for updates. Fifteen minutes later, I get a text on my phone:

Don’t like Molly in this blue outfit as much.

“Molly?”

“Yes?”

“What are you wearing?”

“This doesn’t seem the time for flirtation, Sami.”

“I’m not—”

“I know, I know. Sometimes I need a laugh, okay? It helps. I’m wearing the blue overalls.”

Another text comes in:

Your wife’s got a great bod. Tell her I like it when she shows it off just for me.

I take deep breaths, try to remain calm.

“What is it?” she asks.

“Another text came in,” I say.

“Read it to me.”

I don’t want to, but I don’t want to be accused of being patronizing again. So I do. When I finish, Molly says, “Am I being fashion-shamed by my stalker?”

“I love you in those overalls.”

“But you’re easy,” she says. “Sami?”

“Yes?”

“How far away are you? I’m getting a little weirded out.”

“Twelve minutes. Should I call the police?”

“No. There are two uniforms in here anyway.”

“That’s good. Just stay put.”

“Who do you think he is?”

“I don’t know.”

I have been speaking in a low voice the whole time because I don’t trust Gun Guy. For all I know, he’s working directly with Scraggly Dude. I’m trying to surreptitiously watch him, see if he touches his phone or sends a message or anything. So far, he hasn’t. He may be overhearing bits and pieces, but nothing I’m saying is going to help much.

Six minutes out.

I put the phone on mute and lean forward. “You still carrying your gun?” I ask him.

“I am,” he says. “And yes, I got a carry permit. No, you can’t borrow it.”

“How about your other gun?”

“Other gun?” He chuckles. “Oh, you mean when we found you in the woods and we said we could kill you and plant it on you. That one?”

“Yeah,” I say. “That one.”

“That was all a bluff, Kierce.”

Was it? “I’m employed by the Belmonds now too.”

“I heard. Still can’t borrow my gun.”

“How long have you worked for the family?”

“Long time.”

“When you were waiting outside my place, did you notice a guy with a face tattoo and long hair?”

“The one watching your place?”

“Yes.”

“He was there when I arrived.”

“What time was that?”

“Twenty minutes before you came out.”

“He was standing there that whole time?”

“Yep. Not that I’m eavesdropping, but is he the guy following your wife?”

“Yes.”

“He probably served time.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Five dots tattoo on his eye,” Gun Guy says. “Like the five on dice. Four dots on the outside representing walls, the one in the middle supposed to be you serving time. He’s either a convict or wannabe. I didn’t get wannabe vibes off him.”

“You seem to know your stuff.”

“I didn’t get hired just because of my good looks.”

“But come on,” I say. “Those helped.”

He smiles at that. “Sorry about the punch and the whole threatening-your-life thing.”

“Are we having a moment?”

“God, I hope not.”

“Do you know what the Belmonds hired me to do?”

“I think I can figure it out.”

“Any insights you can offer?”

“Not a one.”

“What’s Victoria like?”

“I didn’t get hired just because of my good looks,” he repeats. “I’m also the soul of discretion.”

“You’re the total package, that’s for sure.”

“It’s amazing I’m still single,” he says. Then: “What are you going to do when you find this tattoo guy?”

“Ask him questions,” I say.

“You’re not a cop anymore.”

“He’s stalking my wife.”

Gun Guy nods. “Fair point. You want me to stick around in case?”

I still don’t trust him—or would it be more apt to say I see no reason to trust him? But I don’t see much harm in having backup. We settle on a plan where he drops me off and circles around in his car nearby in case I need him.

When we are two blocks from Katz’s, I get out of the back. The streets are packed, a mingling of locals and tourists seeking designer knockoffs and pastrami. I didn’t bring earphones, so I tell Molly where I am and that I’m on my way and lower the phone. When I get closer, I slow my roll. No sign of Scraggly Dude. I stand on the corner of Avenue A where Boulton & Watt used to be. Katz’s Deli is on the other side of Houston. I survey. Still no sign of Scraggly Dude. Molly had entered the deli forty-five minutes ago. He could have left. Or he could be hiding somewhere else.

I’m not sure how to play this.

I move off the corner and say to Molly, “I don’t see him.”

“Should we leave then?” she asks.

I wonder about that. I could have Molly walk out of Katz’s and see whether anyone follows her, but I’m not prepared to use my wife and son as bait.

“No,” I say.

I explain that I will come in and get them, but first, I want to circle the block a few more times. I switch the call over to Gun Guy. “You see him at all?”

“Negative,” he says.

I take the next twenty minutes to search the streets. It is an awkward thing to do, what with him knowing what I look like. But I don’t see him. I check my texts periodically, even though I’ve now set my phone to notify me if anything new comes in. Nothing else about my wife’s wardrobe.

How long can I keep this up?

Molly says, “Henry is getting antsy. And by ‘antsy’ I mean thirty seconds until a full-fledged thermonuclear meltdown.”

Enough. There is nothing to be done. I tell Gun Guy I’m calling it off. He says, “Roger that.” I head into Katz’s Deli and find Molly and Henry sitting in the back corner, Molly facing the door so she could see if Scraggly Dude entered. She stands as soon as I enter. I hurry over and scoop up Henry just as he’s about to burst into tears. Seeing Daddy fends that off, at least for the moment. My son smiles at me, and I think about Talia Belmond and not knowing where her child was for eleven years, and the thought alone almost breaks me.

“What is it?” Molly says.

I shake it off. My wife stands. She has a take-out bag in her hand.

“What’s that?” I ask.

“Pastrami sandwich on rye, mustard, slice of kosher dill,” she says.

My favorite. “I love you, you know.”

“I’d say I love you too, but I think this sandwich says it better.”

“The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” I say.

“More like two inches lower than that.”

I smile at her. The more nervous she gets, the more she jokes. “It’s all going to be fine,” I assure her.

“I know.”

We start back home. Scraggly Dude (or should I call him Tattoo Face?) already knows where we live, so there is no point in trying to lose him or any of that. I attempt to spot him on the sly. Twice, I wait after turning a corner. Sometimes, without warning and in midsentence, I spin, seeing whether maybe I can catch him behind me or something. After I spin for the third time, Molly says, “Please stop that. You look like you’re having a seizure.”

When we get back home, I check the entire apartment thoroughly. No one here. Molly comes in and puts my sandwich on a plate. The sandwich is so stacked with meat I almost ask her whether it came with Lipitor. It’s an old joke, but there’s a reason they stick around.

“So,” she says, “fill me in on what the Belmonds wanted.”

I do. When I tell her about the money, she whips out her phone and checks the bank app.

“Oh my god,” she says.

“Right?”

“It’s…” She bites down on her lower lip and blinks away tears. I reach my hand across the table and put it on hers. She turns away for a second. It’s hard for me to watch this. She never made me feel stupid or bad or guilty for being thrown off the force, even though getting fired was all my fault. I know that. I can chalk up my excesses to a need for justice and going the extra mile and all that. But it was dumb and careless.

My point?

Me losing my job has put us into a precarious financial position. We lost everything. We are in debt up to our eyeballs. Molly never wants me to feel bad about that, pretends it isn’t a big deal, proudly and bravely battles through our bills, like so many of us are doing. But now, as I see her so overawed by our new bank balance she can’t even look at me, I realize the toll my mistakes have taken upon the woman I love.

“It’s for real,” I tell her.

We sit there for a bit, holding hands, her looking away and then at our account balance, now in six figures from low fours, and back up again. Eventually she says, “If you keep holding my hand, you can’t eat that sandwich.”

“I can try with one hand.”

“You’ll make a mess.”

She lets me go. I take a bite.

“It feels right, Sami,” she says. “This job. This money. It feels good. Like kismet. You need to find out what happened to her too. It’ll give you closure. It’ll give her family closure. And maybe it’ll give that poor woman closure, I don’t know. It’s the right thing. But this money, am I wrong to be excited about it?”

“You are not wrong.”

I take another bite of the pastrami. It’s too much food for now. I wrap it up and bring it to the refrigerator and as I do, my phone buzzes indicating an incoming call. A name doesn’t pop up from my contacts, but I recognize the number. I debate stepping in the other room to take the call, but I don’t think that’s the right play here.

I hit the green answer button and say, “Hello?”

“I can’t believe you have the same number.”

“Hey, Ella,” I say. Then: “So do you.”

Ella is the older sister of my murdered fiancée, Nicole. It’s been a long time, probably because we both remind the other of Nicole and neither of us needs that. The only connection between us was our love for Nicole. When she died, there was no reason for us to communicate anymore.

“So they freed him,” she says.

“For now.”

“And it’s your fault.”

I don’t bother replying.

Ella says, “No one called to tell me.”

“Someone should have.”

“Would have been nice to get a heads-up,” Ella says. “I found out when a reporter came to the salon for a quote.”

Ella owns a hair salon in Queens called Bangs for the Memories.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“That’s not why I called.”

“Okay.”

“He was creeping by the salon.”

“Tad Grayson?”

“Yes.”

I grip the phone tighter. “What do you mean, creeping?”

“What do you think I mean?” she snaps. “Like he was standing out front and watching. I’m inside, giving Delia a hair coloring and wax treatment, and I look out the store window and there he is.”

“What did you do?”

“I went outside to confront him.”

“And?”

“And he ran away. I called the cops. They told me I could try to get a restraining order, but I’d have to prove imminent danger or something.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying that,” Ella says. Then: “I heard you’re married now, got a kid.”

“A son,” I say. “His name is Henry.”

“Nice. She would have smartened up. Nicole, I mean. Left your ugly ass before you tied the knot.”

I again choose silence. Ella always thought I wasn’t good enough for Nicole. I wasn’t, but then again, I’m not good enough for Molly either.

“I saw his press conference on TV,” Ella says.

I still don’t reply.

“Tad was pretty convincing.”

“Psychopaths can be.”

“You think he’s still dangerous?”

“Yes.”

“To us?”

“Yes.”

That’s when I glance out the window, past our fire escape. And standing down on the street corner and leaning against a lamppost, staring straight up at me from two floors down with a smile on his face, is Scraggly Dude.