Night Film

55

Even though it was getting dark, Washington Square Park was crowded with students and skateboarders, doting couples, a break-dancer with an eighties boom box who’d attracted a crowd. Most of the women stopped mid-conversation to beam, dazed and enchanted, as Sam nimbly plodded past them, tightly holding my hand. Though she’d agreed to put on her black coat and pink Rapunzel backpack, she’d refused to take off her tutu, tights, or ballet slippers.

“She’s a very nice woman,” I said. “We’re going to chat with her and visit her dog for a few minutes. Okay?”

Sam nodded, brushing her gold curls out of her face.

“What’s wrong with your hand?” she asked.

After my cliffside escape from Oubliette, my hands were cut up badly.

“Don’t have to worry. Your dad’s tough. Now give me the four-one-one on Mommy. Is she still working at the gallery?”

Sam thought it over. “Mommy has a problem with Sue,” she answered.

“The manager. They’ve always butted heads. What about your stepdad?”

“Bruce?” she clarified.

Good. He was still a proper noun like me. Thank Christ he wasn’t Dad.

“Yes, Bruce. Has the SEC investigated him yet? Any arrests for insider trading I should know about?”

She squinted at me. “Bruce has a spare tire.”

“Mommy said that?”

Sam nodded, hanging heavily on my arm. “Mommy makes him drink green juice, and Bruce goes to bed hungry.”

So Old Man Quincy had put on a couple of lbs. and was suffering through one of Cynthia’s infamous juice cleanses. Suddenly I felt fantastic.

“Does Mommy ever mention me?”

Sam considered this for a minute and then nodded.

“Oh, yeah? What does she say?”

“You need serious help.” She even mimicked Cynthia’s self-righteous inflection. “And you’re off the rail and you’re acting out a teenage foozy.”

Gone off the rails. Shacking up with a teenage floozy. I should have stopped asking questions after the spare tire.

I bent down, scooping Sam into my arms because we’d reached the dog run, a fenced-in area along the south perimeter of the park. It was packed with romping dogs and their mute owners, who hovered around the periphery like overbearing stage parents, nervously watching, armed and at the ready with leashes, balls, pooper-scoopers, and treats.

“Okay, toots. We’re looking for a big black dog and a lady with red hair, mid-thirties. When you spot them, keep it on the down low. No pointing. No screaming. Be cool. Ya got it?”

Sam nodded, looking. Then suddenly, she squeaked shrilly and kicked me. She made a face, pointing, but only with her pinkie.

“You see them?”

She nodded again.

Sure enough — in the remotest section of the dog run, there was a gaunt woman with red hair and an old black Lab hunched on the bench beside her.

“Stellar surveillance work, honey. They could use you at Homeland Security.”

I took a moment to glance behind us, making sure there was no one watching. I’d been keeping a vigilant eye out, ever since I’d been back in the city, in case there was further sign of Theo Cordova, but I’d noticed nothing out of the ordinary.

I unlatched the gate, and we stepped inside.