Уолтер Мосли - And Sometimes I Wonder About You

“Start from the beginning,” I said.

She turned her body in the chair until she was almost at profile to me and said, “I hired Twill, your agency, because of Fortune.”

“A friend of yours?”

“Well, um, not at first. Maybe eight weeks ago I was sleeping in my apartment in Park Slope when I heard something from the living room. I thought it was the dog caught behind the stuffed chair again but when I went out there and turned on the light I saw this young man — Fortune.”

“You didn’t know him?” I asked. That’s always a good question.

“No. He was there to steal.”

“A burglar?”

Liza nodded and said, “We were both surprised. For a long time, I mean a minute or so, we just stared. Finally he said, ‘I’m sorry about this.’ I asked him what he was doing and he told me that he was trying to steal my emerald necklace, the one that my grandmother from East Hampton had left me.”

“You didn’t know him but he knew about your necklace?”

“He is, was a part of a kind of gang. It’s these young people who work for a guy named Jones. Jones has organized dozens of young people, most of them under eighteen. They perform crimes for him. Fortune was one of the older members.”

“He told you all this?” I asked.

“After he apologized I offered to make him some tea. He said that he’d never had tea before and I said then he should probably try it with honey. We sat at the little table in the kitchenette for hours.

“He told me about Jones and how he lived in the subway tunnels and ran the gang of young people. He said that when Jones told any of them to do anything they had to do it or they’d be punished or even killed. He said that there were graves all over the subway tunnels that nobody would ever find except in the future.

“I asked him if this Jones man would kill him if he didn’t bring back the necklace and he said no. He thought he might get hit but that was all. He said that he’d just say that the necklace wasn’t there and maybe he wouldn’t even get in trouble at all.”

“How did he know about the necklace in the first place?” I asked.

“I go to NYU. My parents wanted me to leave it at home in my dad’s safe but it reminds me of my gran and so I brought it here. I told everybody about it. Fortune said that Jones has ears everywhere, especially in places like the Village.”

“What’s Fortune’s real name?”

“He’s an orphan so he doesn’t know. All he’s ever been called was Fortune.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“And so did this Fortune leave without taking your jewelry?”

Liza Downburton looked like a deer hypnotized by fear. She gazed at me, shook her head slightly, made to rise from the chair, and then fell back.

“I, we,” she said, “kind of fell in love.”

“I take it he’s a good-looking kid.”

“Yes but that’s not why, I mean, we really connected. Fortune was raised by a woman who worked for Jones. They lived in a tin shack in Queens not far from the Triborough Bridge. When people get too old to work for Jones in the street he pays them to take care of kids that will work for him when they’re old enough. Fortune lived in the tunnels after he was eight and now he has a room on Avenue D in the East Village and works at doing burglaries for Jones. He doesn’t like it. He wants to leave but Jones has killed people who left him and Fortune didn’t know where he could go.”

“So you gave him the necklace?”

She nodded.

“How much is it worth?”

“It’s insured for one hundred eighteen thousand dollars.”

“Oh. And you hired Twill to get the necklace back?”

“No. Since then Fortune and I have been seeing each other, when he can get away.”

I sat there looking at the lovelorn Liza Downburton thinking about one woman, Marella Herzog, who takes a man’s heirlooms, and another that gives hers away.

“He can’t let Jones know that he’s seeing you,” I surmised.

“No. He’s afraid that Jones’s people might try to get at me. Fortune wants to run away but he’s too scared so I came here to hire your office to help him. I talked to Twill and he said that he’d do it. He seemed so sure that I believed him. But he hasn’t called since then and I, and I wanted to find out what’s happened.”

“Did he ask you for a deposit?”

“No.”

Good.

“I talked to him yesterday,” I said. “He seemed to be deeply ensconced in the job.”

“Did he say anything about Fortune?”

“Not directly. He just said that he was on the job.”

“That’s something, I guess,” Ms. Downburton said.

“Let me ask you a question,” I said.

“Yes?”

“How often do you and Fortune see each other?”

“After every burglary Jones gives him three days off. That’s when we have the time.”

“So Fortune is still burgling?”

“Yes. I told Twill that.”

“Has he, I mean Fortune, asked you for more money or jewels?”

“No.”

“Well,” I said. “That’s some story. Like I said, I’ve been out of town but still Twill works for me. And I don’t like the idea of you out there with no protection while my son stirs up the hornets.”

I looked at my watch. It was 7:15.

“Come on downstairs with me, Ms. Downburton. I have an appointment but maybe we can talk to Twill before I have to be there.”

“You know how to reach him?”

“Come on. We’ll give it a try.”

At the curb, in a no-parking zone in front of the Tesla Building, sat a black sedan; coincidentally a Tesla. An almost nondescript white man somewhere in his forties stood by the passenger-side door. This man wore a cheap medium-green suit with a white dress shirt buttoned to the throat but sporting no tie. His hair was dark brown and just this side of unruly. He was neither tall nor short, and slight of build.

“Leonid,” the man said in a voice that was more an insinuation of resonance than an actual tone.

Hush owned the limo company. He bought the business not long after he gave up his lifelong calling: murder for pay.

“What’s the boss doing on the job?” I asked.

“I got my regulars,” he said. Liza Downburton came up beside me just then. Hush eyed her with an expression that maybe only I and his wife could read. “I also wanted to ask you a question. Maybe get some advice.”

“No problem,” I said. “I was going to call you anyway. This is Miss Liza Downburton, one of Twill’s private clients.”

Hush nodded at the young woman.

“Can you drive us down toward the Village?” I asked the driver.

“Not the restaurant?”

“All in good time.”

He opened the back door to the fancy electric car and I gestured for Liza to scoot in. I followed her and Hush went to his driver’s post.

As we tooled down Fifth Avenue I brought out a phone and entered a code for a very special number.

Within the last year Bug had made new and improved multichip phones for my use. I could turn off any of the numbers but there was one that my son, Mardi, Zephyra, and I kept on for emergencies. Twill’s emergency number was the one I called.

Three rings in he answered, “What’s the problem, Pop?”

The last word reminded me that I had found my father and lost him again.

“I’m in a limo with Hush driving and Liza Downburton sitting next to me.”

“That’s funny,” Twill said. “I’m in a green borough cab headed for Liza’s apartment.”

“You have anything to share with her, or me?”

“Did she tell you everything?” my favorite son asked.

“I have the basics.”

“I was gonna tell ya, Pop. It’s just I had to figure out what was goin’ on first.”