We Are Here (25 page)

Kristina sent a smile back, a quick but heartfelt one that said she probably wasn’t as annoyed at me as she had been earlier—and carrying something else that I couldn’t determine—and went to placate the owners’ wrath. Not for the first time it struck me that after six months of being model employees we’d begun to make a habit of not being where we were supposed to be, and that Mario and his sister hadn’t lasted so many years in the restaurant business by tolerating flakiness for long.

I didn’t see Kristina again until table service was done and I went downstairs to the bar. It was busy at first but gradually settled down to regulars. I perched at the corner of the bar and waited, drinking a line of beers—sent in my direction without need for interaction—until Kristina saw a gap in business and headed my way.

“I saw her again,” she said without preamble.

“Who?”

She told me about the message on the window of our apartment, working out what it might mean, and going to Union Square. “And do
not
give me grief about this.”

“What do I care?” I said. “I mean, it displeases me as a patriarchal asshole who mistrusts any woman’s ability to handle any situation, but otherwise, why would I give a shit?”

She opened her mouth, then closed it. “Sorry.”

“So what happened?”

She told me about walking with the girl—Lizzie—into SoHo, and the beginnings of a conversation that had been derailed first by a gift and then by … well, she wasn’t too clear about what had happened after that.

“You think they were cops?”

“They didn’t look it, but what do I know about fashion trends in undercover police?”

She was trying to make light, but I could tell she was unsettled. I put my hand on top of hers. She looked at it. “Is this a public display of affection?”

“No. My hand was cold.”

“I hate it when we fight.”

“Me too. So let’s not do it. Show me the thing.”

She pulled it out of her pocket, keeping it hidden in her hand until it had been dropped into mine. An attractive piece of modern jewelry. It didn’t look cheap, either. “And they handed this to you, even though they’d met you only an hour before?”

She nodded, then had to go serve someone. I clocked that the person sitting two stools along from me was paying a little too much attention—underground bars in the East Village are exactly the kind of place you’d go to buy something not legally come by—and so I dropped my hands into my lap.

By the time Kristina came back I thought I’d worked out what was going on. “The guys. Describe them again.”

She did, and I nodded, feeling excited. “That fits. The man who kept still—he sounds like the one I saw at the church, who had some beef with the priest—Reinhart. He’s not a cop. He’s a criminal.”

“How do you know?”

“Trust me. These people you met in the park, Lizzie and her friends: evidently they’re skilled at fading into the background—we’ve already seen how good
she
is at that. And Lizzie didn’t seem surprised that two of her friends had stolen something, right?”

“No. She looked disapproving, but she wasn’t surprised.”

“So that’s what they do. They’re an urban tribe, whatever, living between the cracks—and they survive by stealing. So they’re going to need someone more plugged into the world than they are, with connections for selling stolen goods. I’m thinking that’s Reinhart.”

Kristina thought about it, nodded. “Maybe. Though … they didn’t seem like thieves.”

“Not archetypal assholes who take stuff because they’re too lazy or dumb to do anything else, no. But you know what this city’s like. There’s the normal citizens but then all the other layers. Street people, thousands of them. Others living in the tunnels near Penn Station or crashing under a different bridge every night. What if some of these people got organized?”

“Lizzie mentioned people called ‘Fingermen,’ and others I don’t remember,” Kristina said thoughtfully.

“Fingermen has to be a name for the ones who steal stuff, right? They have some people who are good at remaining unnoticed, slipping into places, and taking things, and specialize at it. The money they get goes into food and clothes and burner phones and whatever else they need. That’s why Reinhart was taking an interest. He could have worried that
you
were a cop, or a competitor. If he’s got a lucrative arrangement with these people, he’s not going to want others muscling in. Could be that’s why he was threatening the priest, too.”

“Why?”

“Maybe Jeffers is trying to lead them in a different direction. Stop being bad; walk toward the light. You said Lizzie didn’t look happy about the stealing. The guy in the white shirt I saw going into the church—he was with her and the priest in Union Square, right? And he’d taken the scared-looking guy to the church, presumably to introduce him to Jeffers, maybe to start the process of getting him out of the criminal life. When Reinhart turned up the guy bolted—perhaps because he knew Reinhart was going to be pissed at him being there.”

“Maybe. But that’s a lot of maybes. And …” She shook her head.

“What am I missing?”

“I don’t know There’s something
about
these people. They didn’t seem like runaways or homeless people. They had more to them than that.”

It seemed to me that one of the things they might have, in Kris’s eyes, was a life that didn’t involve living in a tiny apartment and serving beers underground, an existence that seemed edgier and desirably off the grid of mundanity. I shrugged. “It’s the best I’ve got.”

“And I’m not saying it sucks. But then what’s the deal with Lizzie and Catherine?”

“Didn’t you ask?”

“Yes. She didn’t want to talk about it. I got the sense … I don’t know, that maybe Catherine did something to her, or something. Let her down.”

I had another idea. “Maybe they case people’s houses too. Stalk normal citizens, map their schedules and routines and work out when would be a good time to stage a burglary.”

“No way,” Kris said. “I don’t believe she’d be a party to something like that.”

“Kris, you only just met her.”

“Yeah, and tell me you don’t make character assessments just as fast. You pegged this Reinhart guy as a villain in two seconds flat.”

“I trust your judgment. But people on the edge will countenance doing things that—”

Kris shook her head firmly and wouldn’t talk about it anymore.

When we got back to the apartment the message on the window was gone. That meant someone had been out on our roof again, and while Kris seemed to be becoming comfortable with our window turning into some kind of low-tech Facebook, I was not.

As we lay in bed I asked Kristina if she’d at least talk to me before meeting with Lizzie or any of her friends again. She said she would. I wasn’t sure that I believed her, however, and I wasn’t sure I understood what this said about the way things stood between us.

At two in the morning Maj rose from the floorboards where he’d been lying. Sometimes there were others here too, sometimes not. This night, he had lain alone. Sleep had never come easy, but he always made the effort. The Gathered used to say it was as important to them, and their minds, as to anyone else. So he tried. Recently he’d found it harder, however. And tonight, though he’d gone through the motions of returning to the upper floor of a boarded-up ex–digital goods store in Midtown (a recent casualty of online retail dominance; though the upstairs room was messy and pigeons had already made it in through a broken window to start spreading shit and feathers, the roof was in place and at least it wasn’t damp) it had not come at all.

He’d suspected it might be that way after meeting with Lizzie earlier. She’d told him about her near encounter with Reinhart in SoHo. She’d done so even though she knew he’d disapprove of what she’d been doing—hanging out with a tourist from the other side. She was open about what she did and thought and had told the truth. What she’d done wasn’t what was bothering him, though he’d told her to be careful, both of Reinhart and her new acquaintance.

What was bothering him was the increasing suspicion that …
something was going on
.

None of the Angels worked for Reinhart. Several used to in the past, like Flaxon, but all had stopped after coming under Lizzie’s influence. So why had Reinhart been watching them tonight? And why had he turned up at the church? The two events so close together had to be connected. So far, the worldviews of Jeffers and Reinhart had coexisted without contact. Both men knew of each other and the competing pulls they represented, but there had been dead space between them.

Last night Reinhart had crossed it.

He was making it personal, and once he’d started down that road it seemed unlikely he’d retreat. It had not been lost on Maj that Reinhart’s parting comments had been delivered at him. Why? Golzen kept recycling his pitch that Maj should come and work for Reinhart—a transparent attempt to bind him into Golzen’s messianic nonsense about Perfect—but last night was the first time they’d been in the same room.

So why had Reinhart spoken to him directly? As if he felt he had some kind of call on him?

Maj didn’t know. He didn’t like not knowing.

He slipped out of the building via the broken window, walked across the next roof, and then dropped down into a backstreet.

Though he’d never been to the building on Orchard, it was easy to find. He’d heard tell of its general location, and had to walk the streets for only half an hour—keeping an eye out for surreptitious-looking friends, shadows slipping around street corners—before homing in on a walk-down with a black door at the bottom. A sketchy club, now empty for the night. The door was thick but lighter than it looked, and unlocked.

Maj walked into the large, empty space. There was no one there but for a slight figure sitting slumped at the bar. With a start, Maj realized who it was.

It was the teenager he’d last run into when he’d been walking with David, the girl in the gray hoodie who’d invited him to a party in the Meatpacking District. The change in twenty-four hours was disturbing. Gone was the it’s-all-good teen he’d gotten used to bumping into on the streets. Her face was pale now. She’d been crying, and her eyes were ringed with smudged black makeup.

“Are you okay?”

She didn’t say anything. She looked like a Missing Person poster, and when someone emerged from the shadows to the side of the bar, Maj put two and two together.

“You asshole,” Maj said. “What did you do to her?”

“Provided enlightenment,” Golzen said. “My business has always been to help people get where they’re going.”

Maj turned to the girl. “What did he tell you?”

She looked away. “What I am.”

“What—friendly? Fun?”

“No. What I
really
am.”

“Then why are you here?”

“He said there was a man who could help me.”

“He lied,” Maj said. “Reinhart will make you cheat and steal. Ask yourself what Lizzie would say about those things. You like Lizzie, right?”

“She’s wonderful.”

“Right. And she thinks Reinhart is scum.”

“Hey, hey,” said a voice. Reinhart came striding toward him from a doorway at the end of the room. “Good to see you, Maj. Glad you made it to the nest at last.”

“Leave Jeffers alone,” Maj said.

Reinhart grimaced, looked sad, held his hands out, palms up. Playacting. “
That’s
why you’re here?”

“He helps people. You don’t.”

“Wrong, my friend. That is my whole point. That is why I’ve been trying to get Golzen to put us together for a talk. Which he’s apparently now done, for which I’m grateful.”

“He’s a good dog, right?”

“There’s a place in this world for people who do what they’re told, Maj. Good things come to them.”

“Charity. Exactly the bullshit we’ve had enough of.”

“I agree. I agree. No more handouts. I can help with that, Maj. I can help all of you. Time is running out for the old-school. You need to step up, come enjoy a new way to be. I can get you there.”

Meanwhile the girl had slipped down off her stool and was approaching along a curved line, like a cat. She crept closer to Reinhart, looking up at his face.

“Are you Reinhart?”

He frowned at her. “Who are you?”

“Are you going to like me?”

“Get away from me, you freak,” Reinhart said, turning to Golzen. “Who the fuck is this?”

“A Dozeno. Just turned her,” Golzen said with pride. “She’s wide open. Dumb as a sack of rocks, but we could get her eavesdropping PIN numbers or something, once she’s got her ditzy head around what she is.”

The girl kept staring up at Reinhart’s face. “Are you going to be my friend?”

He laughed. “
Friend
? If you were real, you’d be strapped facedown to a bed right now, getting broken in. As it is you’re good to me for only one thing and I will get into that later, but right now I’m
busy
, so fuck off.”

“I don’t understand.”

Reinhart sent a backhand blow at the girl’s face. It went straight through her head, but she flinched and fell back. He looked at her thoughtfully.

“Actually,” he said to Golzen, “there’s substance there. She might be able to do basic fingerwork, with training. Make a note.”

The girl straightened slowly, hand against her face. “You know?” she said to Maj. “I think you’re right. He doesn’t seem like a very nice man.”

“He’s not,” Maj said. “Go find Lizzie. Talk to her. She’ll help. I can help too.”

“Maybe,” the girl said. “But the thing is … I don’t really know you either. Or Lizzie. Or anybody else.”

She turned from him, from everyone, and wandered away into the darkness in the corner of the big, empty basement, crying once more. Reinhart watched her go, as if finding the sight interesting. Or amusing.

Or … something.

“You’re everything we don’t need,” Maj said to him. “Stay the hell out of our world.”

He walked out and didn’t look back.

And that, Golzen felt, was hopefully that. Reinhart turned to him, however.

“I don’t see your buddies,” he said irritably. “I asked you to stick them to that guy. I think I said ‘like glue.’ I didn’t see any glue. I don’t see your guys. Were they outside, waiting? Tell me they’re outside.”