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FIVE

T he internet is amazing. Now that he’s got his phone back, Eddie’s remembering how useful it can be. With just a few taps he’s able to find the addresses of all the places he’d typed into his notes app, even those places that have long since shut down. He pins them onto his map app, checks to make sure the extra film is in his tote bag, and heads out. He’s got places to go, and pictures to take.

His first stop is Chelsea, where he stands outside the townhouse where Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins used to host those parties that Albert mentioned. Eddie’s disappointed to see that it’s a pretty drab brownstone with a brand-new New York City garbage truck parked out front. Two men are tossing black plastic bags into the truck’s giant maw at its back. Eddie wishes they’d finish up and pull the truck away so he could get a better picture of the building, but they don’t. He snaps a Polaroid, hoping she’ll at least recognize the building itself. Click.

Next, he heads up to Times Square, to 1540 Broadway, where the old Loew’s movie house used to be. The theater was torn down many years ago, and the address is just a big boring glass skyscraper now. But he steps back across the street to try to get as much of the building into the frame as possible. He tries to capture the tourists and Spider-Man-clad buskers milling around on the street. Click.

Eddie checks his map app and heads up to Lincoln Center for a photograph of the iconic Metropolitan Opera building, where Cookie and Albert waited for tickets to see Maria Callas sing. It’s a beautiful building, but there’s not much happening outside today. Then, it’s over to Sixtieth Street, just a half block from Central Park, to find the Copacabana Club. Of course, it’s not there anymore. Just a boring old limestone office building. He takes the picture anyway. Click.

He circles back to the corner of Fifth Avenue and Central Park South, the Plaza Hotel. According to Albert, this is where Truman Capote hosted the famous Black and White Ball in 1966. Eddie’s not sure which side of the building he should include in his photograph, so he chooses the grand front entrance, where two bored doormen stand with scowls on their faces. Click.

Next stop: Mr Chow on Fifty-Seventh Street. It’s still there! Eddie’s not sure if he’s pleased to find the restaurant still open, or if he wishes it, too, had turned into something else—change is life, after all. But it doesn’t matter. Cookie will enjoy seeing it anyway. He waits, in case a waiter comes outside for a cigarette or something, but nothing happens. Oh well. Click.

The sun is starting to fade, giving the city over to the long summer twilight. Eddie checks the time. Still a few hours before Cookie will wake up, but he should go back to the hospital anyway. Maybe there’s news. Maybe it’s good.