The buzzard in the Mercedes opens his door and extends out a long leg but doesn’t get out. He’s getting air, or can’t decide his next move.
“He told me you were a journalist,” Faith continues. “He said he wanted to get your attention.”
“Why didn’t he send me an email?”
But as I’m asking, I’m struck by a theory. Maybe he tried to send an email. Maybe he had originally tried to contact me using a fake account under the name Sandy Vello. On my computer, I’d found several emails from the address [email protected]. But the emails went to spam, or I ignored them. So did Alan then jack up his efforts?
Then another theory. On the piece of paper I found on Alan’s desk, I’d seen the date 2/15. That’s two weeks from now. But it’s a month after I received an anonymous email from an account bearing Sandy Vello’s name. And that email had read, “We have one month to stop the launch.”
“Faith, what’s happening in two weeks?”
“What do you mean?”
“What’s happening February fifteenth?”
“I don’t know. And to answer your other question-about why Alan tracked you down in the subway: I got the sense he wanted to reach you anonymously but also that he thought you were more likely to respond to dramatic overture.”
“Like getting pushed under a subway?”
“I didn’t expect that. I thought he was going to hand you something or whisper something to you and then run off. I was supposed to. . intercept you. . to get your attention so you didn’t follow him.”
I’m looking at the shops and buildings around the Mercedes. Why did the man come here? Is he merely looking for authentic take-out dumplings or something else? What’s interesting around here?
“It’s an awfully big favor you did. You must have known him well.”
Directly next to the Mercedes, on the same side of the street, a trinket vendor closes up for the day, using a pole with a hook on the end to remove inflatable dragons from an awning dripping with drizzle. To the shop’s right is a thin three-story office building or apartment complex, or maybe a combination. Its windows are dark, except for one on the second story with blinds. To the shop’s left is a storefront with a banner written in Chinese with some English: Safe Happy Travel Agency.
“I didn’t know him well. Just a little from the cafe.” Faith turns in her seat so now she’s facing me and the Mercedes. I glance at her silhouetted profile.
She explains that over the last year or so, she often saw Alan hunched over his laptop, intent, sometimes even muttering to himself, not with insanity but intensity. One day, a few months ago, when they were at adjoining tables, he struck up a conversation by offering to bet her a doughnut that he could guess what she wanted to do with her life.
“It was funny, not sleazy like you sometimes get.” Left unsaid: she often gets hit on. “His guess was that I wanted to be a meteorologist.”
“Not a bad line.”
“I bought him a doughnut. My first mistake.”
I turn to look at her and find her looking right back. Shade darkens the left third of her, as if lit by a bad movie director wanting to suggest her inner darkness.
“You want to predict the weather?”
Her face softens. She blinks and smiles with her cheeks and eyes, her lips barely moving. Even in dim light, they look full and pink.
“I filled in on Channel 4 for a few weeks when the meteorologist was sick. Alan also guessed that I wanted to be a singer, which was close too. I wanted to be an actress. It kind of took it out of me when I did a few commercials for bug spray. I was supposed to be a dispirited housewife with a cockroach infestation.”
“Faith. .”
“He called me Valerie.” She explains she reminded him of a younger Valerie Bertinelli, the actress from
“So you are an actor.”
“A hobbyist. I make my living as a transition specialist.”
“Explain.”
“I help people make transitions-one job to the next, one life situation to the next. It’s a bit of a New Age gig but it paid well when things were booming here. People wanted to assess their options and make sure that they made the right choice to fit their goals. When the economy tanked, I helped people come to terms with lowered expectations.”
“Paid well, past tense.”
“Things aren’t booming. In fact, they’re so dead that people can’t afford to cope with lowered expectations.”
“You liked him. Alan?”
She clears her throat. She pulls her jacket closed. “He seemed to know a lot about me. He was uncanny that way.”
“So you followed me because he was nice and geeky and lonely and needed a favor.”
“No. Because he promised to pay me one thousand dollars and I need the money. And he kind of freaked me out, because he knew so much about me. He presented both opportunity and a subtle kind of threat; I can’t fully explain it, but it’s the truth. I’m obviously not getting paid and I don’t care. I’m sorry this happened, that you got hurt, and I’m very sorry that I just want this to all go away and to not have this man bothering me, or. .” She pauses, and then stops altogether.
“What’s an Earth clown?”
“What?”
“Kathryn Gilkeson? Who is that?”
“I have no idea.”
“Alley.”
I’m looking across the street from the Mercedes. There is a butcher’s shop closing up for the day and a Chinese bookstore already closed. Between them is an alley with a man standing at its entrance, cupping his hands around his mouth, maybe blowing in them to keep warm. Next to the man on the side of the alley is a sign that is too distant for me to read, if it’s even in English.
The man scopes the street and takes two steps backward and disappears into the alley.
We fall into silence. I want her to continue the story but it feels like she’s said her peace or maybe we’re just tired or comfortable. Five minutes pass, then ten, more. I’m wondering why I’m not cold. I should be cold but I know concussion can mess with internal temperature regulation. We watch our buzzard. The already thin sidewalk traffic thins further. The butcher turns off his light.
I’m shaken by a buzzing noise. Faith reaches into a small purse and pulls out a phone. She looks at the bright green-and-white square of the screen, her caller ID. She clenches her jaw. She hits a button, sending the caller to voice mail. “It’s almost eight.” She puts the phone back in her purse. A second later, it buzzes again. She ignores it.
“Do you need me to step outside so you can take a call?” I’m looking at her in the pinkish light from the neon sign on the dessert store.
She cocks her head. “You’re kind.”
She leans forward, pauses, then she kisses me on the cheek. I’m flooded with a sensation that moves from the top of my concussed skull to my Achilles’ heels ragged from basketball and then zips up and settles in my loins. She pulls back, reorients slightly, and she kisses my lips, lightly, like the brush of a fingertip.
“I trust you.” Her words hover just above a whisper.
“Faith. .”
“I just wanted to get that out of the way.”
But I’m thinking about something else. The buzzard is out of the car and walking to the alley.
