Page 21

CHAPTER TWENTY

I don’t hesitate.

“Call you back,” I tell Ella and hang up. I throw open the window to the fire escape.

Molly stands. “Sami?”

“Stay here. I see him.”

“Wait,” Molly says.

I don’t. I am already scuttling onto the fire escape. Funny. I’ve never been out here before. For one thing, we’ve never had a fire. For another, the escape outside our window appears rusty, unstable, and uninviting. When my feet land on it, I find it is indeed all three of those things. The thing shakes to the point where I fear it might just peel away from the brick and send me plummeting. It doesn’t, of course.

“Sami?”

It’s Molly again. I get it. She wants me to stop. Scraggly Dude could be armed and dangerous. I am being impulsive, possibly reckless, and my history with acting this way is not good. I get all that, but I also can’t help it. I once read that we humans are irrational because we are not well described by the rational-agent model. We believe that we make our own decisions with free will, but we don’t. Never have.

So let’s blame that.

Scraggly Dude has already spotted me coming after him and turned to run. He has a head start. It will be difficult to catch him—and if I do, he has size over me. There is little point to what I am doing. I should have stayed where I was. I should have snapped a photo of him and texted it to Marty or called the cops to help. That would seem the rational thing to do.

But would the cops do anything anyway? Would they get here in time, or would he slip away again?

I release the fire escape ladder so it will reach the ground, but it gets stuck on the rusted track. I hop on it, figuring my weight will get it moving. It doesn’t budge. I don’t have time to play around. I half climb, half slide to the bottom, hang off the last rung, and drop to the ground. The drop is farther than I expected. I land hard, forcing me to roll rather than stand upright.

Scraggly Dude watches me for a few seconds, frozen perhaps in something like surprise, but he soon realizes what’s going on and turns to run. He is round and chubby, and when he runs, his arms move like those inflatable noodles in front of car dealerships. Again I should pull up, but when I think of those texts about what Molly’s wearing and about him scaring her—scaring my Molly—sorry, man, it would be irrational for me not to go after him with everything I have.

He made Molly feel unsafe. He made Molly call me for help.

You don’t let that pass.

This may not surprise anyone, but I’m not a great athlete. I’m not saying I was last picked for kickball or anything like that. I was decidedly middling. I do not have terrific hand-eye coordination, and my footwork could best be described as lacking, but I do have speed and stamina. For now, that’s all I need. I roll back to a stand and sprint after him.

Scraggly Dude has a block lead, but he is slow, lumbering, the noodle arms working like a drag rather than a propulsion. I swear I can feel grease coming off his long hair and spritzing my face as I get closer. He tries to veer right, but takes the turn too fast and nearly loses his footing. He looks at me over his shoulder. His face is red, his chest heaving.

I’m closing in.

The blood in me is rising.

There are people on Rivington Street. A few turn and stare. Most don’t. I’m tempted to call out to stop him, that I’m police, but I’m not and I’m not sure how all that will play out.

Besides I’m gaining on him.

Scraggly turns down Clinton Street, heading toward Delancey. He passes Clinton’s Exotic Plus & Deli, a place I’ve strolled by a hundred times, but I don’t know if I want to have my sandwich made by the same guy selling vapes and hookahs. That may be a “me” issue. Molly says I need to widen my horizons.

I continue to gain ground.

He suddenly swerves left toward a store called Lot-Less Closeouts. Picture a less-glamorous Dollar Tree, which I know is not easy. Molly sometimes buys cleaning supplies and gift bags at the Lot-Less. It may save money, but it isn’t worth it. Scraggly Dude grabs the door handle. That slows him down enough. I dive at him, my body fully extended and horizontal. I wrap my arms around his knees and take him down like a cornerback making an open field tackle. I hear him grunt when he hits the pavement.

He shouts, “What the…?”

I start to climb on top of him. He squirms away, kicks out at me. Nothing lands, but I can’t quite get a grip on him. We both scramble to our feet.

Scraggly Dude holds up a hand and signals that he’s trying to catch his breath. When he does, he pants, “Get the fuck away from me.”

“Who are you? Why are you following my wife?”

“I don’t have to tell you anything.”

“Yeah, you do.”

“Or what?”

I don’t have a fast answer. That makes him smile.

“I’m going to walk away right now,” Scraggly says. “You’re not going to stop me.”

He takes a step. I block his path. It’s semicomical, I guess. People are beginning to stare. He is far larger than I am, but there is no way I’m letting him go.

“Why are you stalking my wife?”

Scraggly steps to the side, I step to the side. Then he steps at me. I try not to move back. It is one of those moments where one of us is waiting for the other to get physical. We stand now, my chin up against his chest.

“Get out of my way,” he says.

“Who are you?”

“I don’t have to tell you a goddamn thing.”

He walks into me, his bulk pushing me back a bit. I don’t know exactly what to do here. I’ve “caught” him, but what do I do now? He plans on just walking away. Do I, what, hold him captive? Beat the answer out of him in broad daylight? To prevent him from simply leaving, I will have to get more physical. He is big. He has the tats. He has probably spent time in prison. Of course, none of that bothers me. If it gets physical, I know I will win.

That probably sounds cocky. It’s not.

I try to hold firm. He takes another step forward. I tilt off-balance and push him back. That’s all he needs. He smiles and charges. I let him. We go to the ground.

And that is when I lose my shit.

I mentioned that I wasn’t being cocky. Here’s why. I have one strength as a fighter, but it is a very effective strength: I totally lose my shit. I am relentless, unstoppable. I just keep coming at you like some little Pakistani Terminator. Scraggly Dude punches me in the cheek hard. He dances back, thinking the fight is over. I don’t even blink. I just keep coming. He hits me with a body shot, lower ribs. Maybe he’s cracked one, I don’t know.

But I don’t stop.

That’s my superpower. I’ve been in scrapes before. I don’t lose, because there is no quit in me. I don’t feel pain when the adrenaline starts pumping. Scraggly starts to turn away from me, realizing he may have bitten off more than he expected to chew. I jump on his back like something coming out of a tree. He stumbles under my weight, drops to his knees. I hang on until his face hits pavement.

Then I grab his hair and smash his face into the sidewalk. I pull him back up by the greasy hair, arching his back, my mouth near his ear.

“Who are you? What do you want with my wife?”

He smiles and I can see blood on his teeth. “Go fuck yourself.”

I smash his face into the pavement again.

I pull back to do it again. And that’s when someone hits me with a blindside tackle.

“Police! Stop resisting! Hands behind your back!”

Someone else leaps on me. Two uniformed cops are on me now.

“No,” I say. “Listen to me—”

I’m face down now. One of the cops jumps up a little and lands with his knee against my spine. I know the move. I’d done the move. It hurts.

“Hands behind your back!”

I’m tempted to tell him I’m a cop, but when they find out I’m no longer one, that might be a mistake. They won’t listen now anyway. I let them cuff me. I wonder whether Scraggly Dude is going to run. But he’s not. He’s just smiling.

“This guy is crazy, man,” Scraggly says. “He just starts chasing me.”

The officer looks at me. “Sir?”

“He sent my wife texts. He’s been stalking her.”

“Do you have any proof?” the cop asks me.

“He’s cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs,” Scraggly says. “I’ve never seen this guy before in my life. I’m standing on the corner of Avenue C and suddenly he’s running after me like a psycho. Did you see what he did to me?”

Scraggly points to his bleeding mouth.

“Sir,” the officer says to him, “would you like to press charges?”

“No, man. I just want to go home.” He winks. “I got a hot wife and baby boy waiting for me.”

Rage engulfs me. “He’s lying.”

The cop gives me a world-weary-cop sigh. “And again I ask, do you have any proof?”

“Bring us down to the precinct,” I say. “My wife will tell you.”

“Tell us what exactly?”

“That he’s been stalking her.”

“Stalking her how?”

“He was outside our apartment this morning. Then my wife went for a walk, and she saw him following her. Then I saw him just now staring up at her window.”

“That’s bullshit,” Scraggly Dude says.

“He also sent two texts.”

“Sir,” the cop asks me, “do you know this man?”

“Not by name—”

“Does your wife know this man?”

“No.”

“Because the fact that your wife saw the same man on the streets of New York City, even if intentional, is not a crime. You get that, right? Do you have proof he was the one who sent you these texts?”

“Just bring us in.”

“No, sir, we aren’t going to waste time and resources bringing two douchenozzles into the station. It’s your lucky day. We are going to let you both go with just a warning. You”—he points to Scraggly Dude—“get out of here. Now. You”—he points to me—“you wait with us for a few minutes and then head in the other direction. We clear?”

“Get his name,” I say.

“We don’t want his name. And if we got it, we are not giving it to you.” Then he turns to Scraggly Dude. “Go.”

Scraggly doesn’t have to be told twice. He starts running with the noodle arms.

When they uncuff me, I quickly reach for my phone, so I can take a pic. I worry for a moment the two cops might startle, think I’m reaching for a gun, but they don’t move in the slightest. Still, by the time I get my phone up, Scraggly Dude and his noodle arms are gone. A moment later, so are the cops. I get up off the curb.

A Pakistani man steps out of the door and says to me, “Turn on your AirDrop.”

“Why?”

“Just do it, please.”

I do. The man clicks an icon on his phone—and a photograph of Scraggly Dude, clear as day, comes through. The man smiles at me.

“Thank you,” I say to him.

He nods and disappears back into the store.

As I walk back to my apartment, I send a WhatsApp message to my special students to meet tonight. I also call my dad and ask him to come over tonight and hang with Molly and Henry, because I have class and I don’t want to leave them alone. I stare at the picture of Scraggly Dude my Lot-Less friend had taken and zoom in on the face tattoos.

The five dots.

Gun Guy was right. He had served time.

I debate sending Marty the photograph of Scraggly Dude to get an ID, but while that works on television, it doesn’t in real life. I’ve had cases—too many to name—where we had crystal-clear surveillance footage of suspects caught in the act, but we still can’t figure out who they are. You have to post the pictures to the public or get them on television. That’s how you get a name. You’ve undoubtedly seen on the local news or more recently, some social media account, the grainy surveillance photos in those “the police need your help in identifying the suspect” type stories.

Still, I text Marty the photograph and ask him to help identify the guy.

Two seconds later, Marty calls. “What’s this about?”

“The guy was following Molly.” I fill him in. He agrees that the odds we will get something are slim, but he will see what he can do.

Then I add, “I got hired for a pretty big job.”

“Nice,” he says. “By?”

“The Belmond family.”

Silence from Marty.

“No reaction?”

“You tell me out of the blue you might be able to solve the Victoria Belmond case, even ask me to get you info on the case, and boom, the family hires you.”

“Yes.”

“So either you were soliciting business in a cold-call fashion,” Marty says, “or you aren’t telling me your real connection to the case?”

Now I’m the silent one.

“I’m betting on the latter,” Marty says.

I’m not sure how much to give here. “I may have seen her while she was missing.”

“Victoria Belmond?”

“Yes.”

“While she was kidnapped?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“In Spain. I’d just graduated college. I met a girl in a bar. We hung out for a few days. I think it’s her.”

“I see,” Marty says slowly. “We can get rid of the ‘I think’ portion of that, can’t we? You’re pretty sure it was her, aren’t you?”

“I am.”

“Wow. So solving this case is a real possibility for you.”

“I don’t know how real.”

“And if you need a law enforcement officer to get credit for an arrest, I’m standing right here.”

I don’t want to go into the whole NDA thing—in fact, have I breached it by telling Marty this?—or that part of my generous compensation involves leaving law enforcement out of it. “Look at you being all ambitious,” I say. “I didn’t know you had it in you, Marty.”

“You have no idea,” he says.

When we hang up, I place another call, this time to Lenore Spikes. I want to get an okay on travel expenses. I tell her the main thing I need and await pushback, but Lenore says, “No problem, I’m on it. Anything else?”

“Two things, actually,” I say.

“Shoot.”

“I need to interview Thomas Belmond.”

“How’s tonight?”

“I have a class, so I can’t be there until maybe ten-ish.”

“That’s fine if it’s fine with you. Thomas will be home.”

“Okay,” I say.

“What else?”

I switch hands. “I’ll need to meet with Victoria again.”

There is a hesitation.

“Ms. Spikes?”

“Lenore,” she says quickly. “Call me Lenore. You understand that she doesn’t remember anything?”

“She remembers some.”

“The family doesn’t want her”—she takes a moment to find the right word—“agitated.”

“Neither do I.”

“I’ll get back to you on that. Best I can do.”

She hangs up without another word.

Molly is waiting for me, and I fill her in on my encounter with Scraggly Dude. When I finish, I say to her, “I have something of a plan.”

“For?”

“For us.”

“I’m all ears.”

“I have a class tonight. Early. And then I need to drive up to see Thomas Belmond.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t like the idea of leaving you and Henry alone, so I invited my father over.”

Molly arches an eyebrow. “Seriously? Your father?”

“Just until I get back.”

“You invited your father because you’re worried about us.”

“Yes.”

“And what, pray tell, do you think your father is going to be able to do? Like, if that guy comes back, is your father going to fight him off? Your father, Sami. He can’t fight his way out of a wet paper bag.”

“Fair point,” I say.

“Luckily your son and I love having your dad over anyway.”

“But I should probably get someone to watch the place. Maybe I’ll ask Marty to park in front or something.”

“We’ll be fine. We will stay in.”

I think about that.

“You said you have something of a plan,” Molly says.

“Yes.”

“Was the plan having your father defend us?”

“No,” I say with a smile. “The plan is brilliant.”

She arches an eyebrow. I love when she does that. “Do tell.”

“We pack suitcases,” I say.

“Oooh, go on.”

“For you, me, and Henry.”

“We’re going on a trip?”

“We are,” I say. “We leave tomorrow night.”

“And where are we going?”

My smile widens. “The Costa del Sol of Spain.”