Passing by the pond, I headed north. The plan was to parade myself up and down the park. That would still make me a tough find because it’s a big place, but I didn’t need much, just a couple of MUD groupies to snap some pictures and at least one or two bounty hunters. And no muggers. That’d be good.
At the half hour point, I passed a police officer on horseback. I resisted the urge to ask him how many cops patrolled the park at night because that could be a major problem. Hopefully if there were a lot of them, they weren’t very quick responders.
I had a conversation once with the guy who designed the landscape for Central Park. His name was Frederick Olmstead, and by God could he talk. I’d had the misfortune of sharing a passenger compartment on a train ride from St. Louis to Chicago, and I think I got in maybe three words edgewise. Everything with him was nature, nature, nature, which I guess one could expect from a landscaper, but he really went over the top with all of it. He seemed to think his arrangements let “nature speak for itself” as compared to the gigantic, artificial floral displays of exotic plants that he seemed to show great disdain for. If I’d managed get a word in I would have told him I heard nature speak for itself on a number of occasions, and I suspect he wouldn’t like what nature really had to say.
I doubt he would have liked what happened to Central Park in the years since he passed either. Even in the dark I could tell that much of his original vision had been allowed to slip away with time. But everything does, doesn’t it?
At one hour from the time I’d first entered the park I reached the northern edge and turned around again, choosing a different path. If Tchekhy was wrong about any of this it was going to be a long night.
I found an unoccupied bench and took a seat. It was time to check. I pulled out the sat phone and flipped it open. The backlit display verified that things were going as planned. It read “Cntrl Pk-Now.”
Another hour later I’d moved to a different bench, this one in the middle of the park and overlooking the lake. I could see the moisture in the clouds that had engulfed the visible sky, and I could see my breath. It was going to snow, unless it got too cold for it. I’d worry that I was going to catch my death in the form of a cold, if I caught colds.
The closest I had come to any interesting activity involved a lengthy conversation with a wino who thought I was his wife, and two separate flashbulb incidents involving unseen cameramen who probably scurried off immediately to post their images of the legendary immortal.
I was tired. I’d ingested nothing substantial beyond pizza, vodka, and coffee, and walking the breadth of Central Park with that as sustenance can be taxing. If nobody showed soon I was going to take a nap.
But then I heard something. It was footfall coming from my left, faint but unmistakable, and definitely not belonging to any horse or demon. It was getting louder. Someone was approaching.
I watched as a young woman came into view. The bench was on a low hill, so while she’d probably been on the path for a while it wasn’t until she was about fifty feet away that I could even see her. She was wearing tight- fitting acid-wash jeans, sneakers, and a faded green army jacket that looked surprisingly good on her, given that green army jackets are not generally meant to be flattering. Underneath the coat was a black turtleneck. She had long, dirty blonde hair that obscured part of her face.
I had reason to suspect everyone because Central Park at night—no matter how many cops are around—is not a very safe place to take a nighttime stroll. But it was difficult to see potential danger in this attractive, five- foot-three package heading my way.
Once she got close enough for it to be entirely too obvious that I was staring, I shifted my gaze to the lights reflecting off the surface of the water, relying on the occasional stolen glance and my peripheral vision to track her progress.
I have a failing when it comes to attractive women. I’m a starer. Can’t help it. You’d think after a few dozen centuries I’d be able to do something about this, because most women can sense when they’re being stared at and some react negatively to it. But while I can look at another man’s face and see twenty people I’d known over the centuries who looked exactly like him, every woman looks fairly unique to me. So, when I stare, it’s either out of mild wonder or outright awe, depending on how drunk I am.
When she reached the bench she sat down next to me. I was doing my damnedest to pretend I didn’t notice anything, which is stupid, because pretending not to stare is even more obvious than staring. I turned and gave her the “hey, how ya doin’?” nod that mankind has perfected over centuries of hanging out together in public places. Given neither of us was exactly waiting for a bus, this came off as silly—to me, at least—but I had to acknowledge her somehow.
We sat for another minute, staring at the lake.
“I thought you’d be shorter,” she said finally.
I looked at her. “I’m sorry, what?” Brown eyes. Very nice.
“Living so long and all,” she explained. “People were shorter way back when. I figured you’d be shorter.”
“Do I know you?”
She brushed the hair back from her face and smiled. She had a fascinating triangular structure to her face, with high cheekbones and a chin that tapered to a point. “Sure. I’m Jonas Milagro.”
A man’s name, last I checked. But that sort of thing changes so often I no longer assume. “Should that sound familiar?” I asked. And it sort of did.
“It ought to. A few hours ago somebody using my name posted a photo of you on the Internet.”
That’s where I’d heard it.
“But, I have two accounts,” she said. “I also go by the name of Alan Guff.”
That’s definitely a guy’s name. “You don’t look like an Alan.”
“Well thank you,” she smiled. “I don’t think I look like a Jonas either.”
“Not really, no.”
“It’s not unusual. You go on a MUD to pretend to be somebody else, right? So, I switch genders sometimes. Usually it’s the other way around. I belong to ten different MUDs, and I think maybe twenty percent of the ‘women’ on them are actually women.”
“So… you’re here because your account was hijacked?” I asked.
“No. But maybe you can introduce me to whoever did that for you sometime. Neat trick. I’m here because I think you’re the real thing. And I want to know what made you decide to drag half of Manhattan into Central Park tonight with your little ‘come and get me’ post.”
“Maybe I was just bored.”
“Oh? Were you?” She looked me in the eyes. “Just bored? Because it looked a little desperate to me.”
“What’s your real name?”
“Clara.”
“Clara, if I told you that tonight the most dangerous place in this entire city is next to me on a park bench, would you believe me?”
A strange expression passed over her. It was fear, but not exactly fear. Like the prospect of danger was something erotic. “I might,” she said with a grin. “What kind of danger are we talking about?”
“The kind that could be permanent,” I suggested.
“You’ll have to do better than that, Mr. Immortal. Girl doesn’t take a nighttime stroll in Central Park if she’s afraid of a little danger.”
I could see that. Clara was starting to remind me of a repressed French duchess I used to spend time with. She liked being spanked with an ivory hairbrush.
“All right,” I said. “It’s a trap.”
She looked a tad skeptical. “For who?” she asked. “You?”
“No, I set the trap. It’s for someone else.”
“And you’re springing this trap alone? Or are there soldiers hidden in the lake or something? Because you don’t look like all that much, if you don’t mind my saying.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Sure it is.” Clara took my hand in hers and gave me a flirty smile, and the possibility dawned on me that I
