The Last Minute

35

Brooklyn

Jack Ming sat in a movie theater. He was on his fourth feature film of the day. The theaters were nice, dark and quiet and he could think. Right now a romantic comedy, indifferently written and acted, played in front of him. He didn’t really want to see or hear anything violent or twisted. He didn’t like movies with gunfire, not since Rotterdam. Right now the movie’s hero thought his girlfriend’s mom had the hots for him, which wasn’t true, but, you know, was just hilarious. Not. His dinner had been a hot dog and a soda he bought at the theater and he rattled the ice in a jumbo cup.

His mother’s betrayal had stopped itching at him. He could not be surprised. She would never let him do as he wanted; the only freedom he’d had in his life was when he had run away and worn another name, in another country.

The notebook sat in a square, taped to his back. Earlier, in a Starbucks, he’d sat down in a lonely corner and paged through its mysteries again. Account numbers, pictures, email addresses. He studied the photo of the three people that had the words The Nursery written underneath. The word Nursery was suggestive: a place where something was born, or something was protected and grown. Just a photo of three people. But clearly three people who, by virtue of being together, revealed a secret about themselves. If Nine Suns meant nine people, then this was a third of them, and if you could take down a third, perhaps you could find out who the other six were. Perhaps you could cripple them.

He thought about trying to contact any of the people being blackmailed, but he decided against it. If he frightened them, they might vanish, and what would make the notebook valuable was if the people corrupted were still in place. If they took off running or hiding, then they would not be useful. On one page he’d found a single phone number. He was so tempted to call it, and fear and curiosity played over his heart.

More than ever, the notebook was his ticket.

But. He wondered why, if his mother had called the CIA, they weren’t already there when he arrived. Why not snatch him up at home? Had they just figured out it was him? If they waited for him to show up, and lounge around at home, they could take him with less fuss, perhaps.

He didn’t know what to believe.

He needed a place to sleep. Hostels were out of the question; he didn’t know who his mother would have looking for him, much less Novem Soles. If homeless people could sleep on the streets, he could as well. Just for one night.

He left the movie theater and ducked into another coffee shop. Lots of people his age, on laptops, chatting, pretending to write the next great American novel while they idled away their creative time on social networking sites. He got a decaf and sat in the corner and opened up the notebook, staring at the one phone number on the last page.