Through The Grinder

And, frankly, if Sahara McNeil’s name showed up as a registered user of the SinglesNYC dating site, too, I wouldn’t be surprised. After all, Sahara had turned up at Cappuccino Connection night, which meant she’d been mate shopping — so it was highly possible that she may have tried SinglesNYC.

Bottom line: If I could find the one guy, other than Bruce, who was associated with all three women, I’d probably have my killer. And I’d happily serve him up to Quinn on a platter finer than Torquemada’s.

“Yes. There is a new lead,” I murmured, almost to myself, my eyes still closed. “SinglesNYC.com.”

“What?”

“Matt, listen to me.” I opened my eyes and turned to face him. “This isn’t just about my being charmed or duped by Bruce. This is about me trusting my own judgment. It took me a long time to believe in myself, but I do. And I trust that I’m right on this. I have one more lead I need to check out. It’s an important one. Can’t you trust me, just a little longer?”

From a safe distance, the Genius followed the bubbly girl as she left the Village Blend. Her thousand dollar shearling was easy to spot in the crowd of Old Navy pea-coats, leather jackets, and cheap synthetic parkas.

There was no plan here. None.

The Genius didn’t care. Something could be improvised. The Genius was truly gifted with improvising, and this girl had just gone too far tonight, teasing him unmercifully, laughing and flirting with him for a solid hour before rising to go.

The girl walked east from Hudson, toward Seventh Avenue South.

Good, thought the Genius. Very good. Perfect.

The Saturday night streets were crowded with college students and partygoers, straight and gay couples, uptown slummers, bridge-and-tunnel kids, night club groupies, drunks and drag queens. The carnival was nowhere thicker and louder and chaotic than Seventh Avenue South.

On a corner near a college bar, the crowd had overflowed onto the sidewalk. The bus stop midway down the block was the perfect nexus.

Joy strode to the corner and waited for the light to change, ready to cross the wide boulevard. A blonde young man with a goatee said something to her. She turned and smiled.

Good, thought the Genius, go ahead and tease the boy. You like to tease, and you’ll be just distracted enough for the improvised plan to work.

Here it comes, the Downtown M20, speeding right along, swerving toward the curb to get to the stop half a block down. Here it comes, your last stop, Joy Allegro.

The crowd was thick, and the shove was easy, no one could even tell who’d sent the girl off the curb and right into the path of the oncoming monster.

For the Genius, this final impact would be the sweetest, most satisfying of all…

Twenty-One

Matteo and I emerged from the subway at the 7 train’s last stop in Manhattan, Forty-second Street and Broadway.

We ascended the stairs to street level, pushed through the subway station’s doors, and hit the raucous Saturday night wall of Times Square crowds. Hundreds of bodies were jostling for space on the packed sidewalk. Matt guided me to a relatively sane spot near the doorway of an office building, and by the light of a million neon bulbs, he pulled out his PDA. A quick cellular connection got us the SinglesNYC web site and its FAQs got us the address of its main office and some bad news.

“The office is closed already,” said Matt. “And they’ll stay closed until Monday morning. No Sunday hours.”

“Let me see. Maybe if the site lists the proprietors’ names we can look up their home addresses in the phone listings. One of them might be listed publicly.”

I took the PDA and jumped around the site a little. “Bingo!”

“You get some names?”

“No. Even better. Look, a seminar is being held tonight.” I glanced at my watch. “It’s starting now. We have to get downtown. If we grab a cab, we can walk right in.”

“A seminar? What sort of seminar?” Matt called. I was already moving through the crowd and into the street, raising my right arm high.

“Some sort of dating guru seminar thing,” I yelled over my shoulder. “It’s held once a month at the big auditorium at the New School. Taxi!”

We caught a cab and drove down to the corner of the Avenue of the Americas and Twelfth Street, then walked half a block to the New School of Social Research at 66 West Twelfth.

As we talked over our final plans, we walked by a building under renovation. Matteo stopped dead in front of a shocking poster plastered to a plywood construction barricade.

The huge poster displayed an image of a woman’s naked torso, her breasts shaded by the discrete placement of an arm. Bold black lines had been drawn all over her flesh as if she were a cow, the lines delineating various cuts of meat — shoulder, loin, ribs, chops, shank, etc.

“Jesus, I hope this isn’t an advertisement for the dating seminar we’re going to,” said Matteo. “I heard it was a meat market out there, but I never took the term quite so literally.”

“Very funny.”

I glanced at the poster and saw it had nothing to do with the SinglesNYC site seminar. It was advertising a Meat No More charity lingerie show at the Puck Building later tonight. I shuddered, remembering Brooks Newman and his “genius” scheme as the new director of fundraising for that vegan group. It looked like he’d pulled it off.

I wasn’t sharing my recognition with Matt, however, because I wasn’t all that keen on conveying how Newman had turned our innocent little Cappuccino Night playgroup into a playgrope.

“Let’s go,” I said.

The foyer to the New School’s main building was busy and brightly lit. I approached the information desk, where a bored student tried to study his notes despite constant interruptions.

“Excuse me,” I said. “I’m looking for — ”

“SinglesNYC? End of the hall, turn right, and go to the tables for registration. Look for the ‘Pull the Plug’ sign.”

Did I look that desperate? Or was it simply assumed that every single woman in New York City was man- hungry and on the make?

The seminar was already underway, so there were no lines at the registration table. On a stand was a large placard that read PULL THE PLUG with a cartoon of a trendy couples kissing over a computer tossed into a garbage can.

“Are you a registered member of SinglesNYC? If you are, there’s a thirty percent discount to hear Trent and Granger,” said a perky young woman wearing muddy brown lipstick and a short matching dress with a neckline even lower than the one I’d worn for Bruce.

“No,” said Matteo. “We’re not registered members.”

“Yes, actually,” I admitted.

Matteo looked at me in stunned surprise. “You have been busy while I was away.”

I ignored Matteo and gave the woman my e-mail address and she cross-checked it on a laptop. I felt like grabbing the computer and fleeing into the night, certain that all the information I needed was imprinted inside of that little machine’s drive. But nothing in life is that easy, and I’d probably get caught halfway down the block with the heels I was wearing.

“Clare Cosi? Welcome to ‘Pull the Plug: Freeing Yourself from the Mouse,’” she said, handing me a brochure.