“Why?”
“They don’t say. Just ‘Your possibility has ceased.’”
“What kind of grammar is that?”
Pablo laughed bitterly and waited for the waiter to leave the drinks. “I pushed the rules. And stop that oh-not-mister-perfect smile.” He hesitated, finally explaining about Needleman’s, Olak and Kenuda.
Puppy whistled softly. “Weird about Needleman’s. I was just there last week.”
“No shit, why?”
“Cheng took me to discuss my now famous status.”
“Cheng?”
“Albie to me. First Cousin Cheng to you.”
“Cheng,” Pablo said in grim disbelief. “He knew about the place?”
“They knew him, too.”
Pablo’s eyes widened knowingly. The lights came down. Puppy draped his right leg over Zelda’s chair. “Zeld’s putting on the weight, huh? We’re going to need a donut intervention soon.”
Wearing the sparkling black gown and a two-foot high silver crown, Mooshie traveled over the stage in an aerial seat harness, waving a wand at her loyal subjects, standing and applauding. Even Grandma joined in with a faint smile.
• • • •
WHEN CLARY GOT hungry, she crept out of the woods and into a town, always making sure she stayed near the road saying Nuevo York, only traveling at night. Americans were especially unfriendly at night. A nasty boy with pimples followed her along the grocery store aisles so she couldn’t steal anything. Another store turned out to be a bar, where the owner, who also had a gun over the register like all of the Crusaders who must be very scared of Allahs, chased her out; but not before she sipped some warm beer.
She had a few dollars left. The shoes she’d stolen fell apart. What cagar. Her father and mother had beautiful handmade shoes with leather that smelled so good you wanted to eat the toes. But these said good-bye yesterday morning. Suddenly rocks bit her heels and the bottom of the shoes were waving see you Clary, I had enough of this walking. She wrapped a torn piece of shirt around her feet and bought a pair of shoes in Linton Town, making rasping noises and convincing the fat owner that her throat was sore. The owner was like any Crusader and didn’t care if she talked as long as she had money.
After buying the pretty green shoes and an ice cream cone, she had only two dollars and coins left. She had a feeling she would need to take a bus or a train; she probably couldn’t figure out how to steal a car. So she kept to the woods until her hunger made her dizzy and she had to steal food. Between the polizia and the Crusaders that was hard. She took some cookies in a store by pretending to be sick and moaning “Mama Mama” so the owner would let her run out without checking her pockets. That also worked in a pizzeria. When the waitress asked for money, Clary gagged and managed vomit; the Crusaders preferred no money to a girl poisoned. They were also afraid of polizia.
She was nibbling on a sandwich some Crusader left on top of the garbage when the train hooted noisily, calling her. She threw away the disgusting food and ran down the road, following the train, pulling up carefully by the tracks. Many Crusaders were climbing on, dressed in nice clothes. It would be easy to join them, but she needed a ticket.
Clary squinted at the sign by a clerk’s window inside the train station. The words were small and there were many numbers. She poked her head over the counter.
“New York?”
The clerk shrugged. “Roundtrip?”
Clary slid her two dollars and coins under the bottom of the metal frame.
“Roundtrip’s $43.20, one way’s $23.50, which it’ll be?”
The annoyed clerk pushed the money back while an ugly woman behind made impatient noises; Clary wanted to pull out her tongue. She pocketed her money and hurried along the track near two disgusting Crusader men. They stepped aside to let her on; she curtsied and calmly took a seat in the middle of the car. It had lots of heat and felt very good.
She fell asleep, but not for long. A train conductor with a stupid Dia de los Muertos hat poked her shoulder and held out his hand. She shook it and he smiled.
“Ticket, honey.”
Clary held up her finger as she searched her pockets. “New York?”
“Fifth stop.”
“New York Bronx.”
“Fifth stop. Ticket, honey.”
She held out the same two dollars and coins, along with an empty candy wrapper. The man sighed since getting money from eleven-year-old girls wasn’t a pleasant part of his job.
“One way’s $26.75 on the train, but I’ll give it to you for the regular $23.50.”
Clary mimed that was very nice, but she’s happy to give him the two dollars just the same. That didn’t please the conductor so she tried acting sick and moaning “Mama, Mama,” which caused some alarm among the passengers, but no one gave her more money and the conductor didn’t care, holding out his hand again.
“If you’re sick, you’ll have to get out at the next stop. I’m not cleaning up.”
A man with gray hair across the aisle handed the conductor a card. “I’ll take care of it.”
The conductor shrugged, swiped the card in a little box and left her alone. She watched him go into another car.
“It’s okay.” The man smiled. “Your ticket’s paid. New York Bronx.”
Clary curtsied.
She sat with the gray-haired man, who chattered in English for a long time until the forests disappeared and huge ugly buildings jumped up on both sides of the tracks like they were waiting to scare her. The man laughed as she pressed her face against the window, New York Bronx getting bigger and dirtier.
The train went into a dark echoing tunnel and came out slowly onto a track surrounded by lots of trains and lots of people. The gray-haired man pointed out the many trains and the escalators and the posters of happy Crusaders eating cereal and drinking beer, and then all the many stores in
