David Duffy - Last to Fold

“Remember when you last saw her?”

He started to reply but stopped all of a sudden and looked beyond me. His face changed, his voice, too. “Who’d you say you are again?”

“Just a guy looking for that girl.”

“Who’s that?”

I followed his line of sight to a man a few doors down, fumbling in his pockets like he was looking for something—or he’d just been caught looking. His white shirt and dark suit could not have stood out more against the street of T-shirts and tank tops.

I turned back to the salesman. “Probably FBI. They’re looking for the girl, too. She’s dating a Russian. Maybe a mobster. They think he might be with her.”

“You got lots of stories, pal. Selling mattresses sucks, but it’s got benefits, and my wife’s sick. I don’t need trouble.”

“There won’t be,” I said, pressing a couple of twenties into his hand. “You were just telling me the best Indian place around. That one, three doors down.”

The first voice came back. “You got that right. Enjoy your lunch. By the way, the girl came ’bout four o’clock yesterday and again this morning. I remember ’cause she’s one of the prettier ones. Saw her go into Slav House, but then I had a customer. Don’t know if she came out.”

He pocketed the money, crushed the cigarette under his heel, and went inside. I walked down the block toward the FBI man. He saw me coming and looked left and right, nowhere to run.

“I’m Turbo,” I said, extending my hand. He pretended to ignore me, studying the display of vacuum cleaners in the window of a housewares store.

“They say you shouldn’t buy anything but Electrolux. Just so you know, I’m going to grab some lunch in that Indian joint down the block. Then I’m meeting a friend, young woman I’m tutoring in Russian history, at the coffee shop. Then, depending on the time, I’ll either go back to the office or head uptown. Tell your boss I’m looking forward to seeing her again.”

He was still trying to ignore me as I walked away.

I got a table in the window and ordered lunch and punched Gina’s number on my cell phone. She answered right away.

“How’d you like another job?”

“Sure. I’m still broke.”

I gave her the address of the coffee shop. “Meet me there in half an hour.”

People came and went in groups of threes and fours from the Slavic Center as I ate. I mopped up the last of the sauce from a pretty good chicken tikka masala with an excellent nan, paid the check, and moved next door. Gina arrived five minutes later and, predictably, turned up her nose as soon as she walked in the door.

“Jesus, Turbo, what’s with this dump? There’s a Starbucks a block away.”

Gina’s a bright kid, smarter than most, but like much of her generation she’s been brainwashed by the Brand. Having grown up in a society where uniformity was imposed from on high—and any manifestation of individuality, no matter how minor, systematically crushed—I’ve never understood why Americans seek out, not to mention happily pay a premium for, sameness. I do my best to avoid chains of any kind. Scowling, she gave me a peck on the cheek and sat down.

“Coffee?”

“Don’t suppose they have cappuccino?”

I signaled the waitress and ordered a black coffee and a cappuccino. She wrote on her pad and left. I smiled at Gina. She didn’t look any happier.

I said, “Remember the girl on Greene Street?”

“Sure.”

“Her name’s Eva. Her boyfriend’s Ratko. Go over to the place across the street, Slav House. There’s a big guard just inside the door. Ask for Eva. Tell him she was supposed to meet you there.”

“Okay. What gives?”

“I’m looking for the girl. She was seen going in there.”

The waitress brought the coffee. Mine was hot and freshly brewed. Hers had a big mound of foamed milk on top. She sipped it carefully.

“Hey, not bad!” She smiled for the first time since she arrived. But she’d be back at Starbucks tomorrow. “Think it’s a drug den?”

“Possible, but more likely a front for something else. They threw me out, but I could’ve used the wrong name. I mean this—don’t go beyond the lobby. See what he says about Eva and beat it. If you’re not back on the street in ten, I’m coming in after you.”

“Got it. Let me finish this first.” I checked the street for the FBI while she sipped her coffee, using a spoon to make sure she got all the foamed milk, but he’d given up.

“Okay, I’m off,” she said.

“Walk around the block, so no one sees you come straight from here. Same thing on the way back.”

“Turbo, you’re paranoid.”

“Humor me.” Where I grew up, paranoia was one way you stayed alive.

She gave me a look that said paranoia was only one of my problems and headed for the door. She turned right and disappeared toward Eighth Street. Almost five minutes passed before I saw her again, on the far sidewalk, approaching Slav House from the north.

When she’d come to the coffee shop, Gina was simply but neatly dressed in a T-shirt and skirt, with her hair tied at the back of her head. Now the T-shirt was askew and hung loosely over her hips, and her hair was a mess. She walked slowly up the block, looking this way and that, unsure of herself and her surroundings. Before I started using college students, I’d hired out-of-work actors, but casting calls kept getting in the way of my assignments. Gina could have taught them a thing or two about conveying vulnerability. She stopped outside Slav House’s door, hesitant. She’d decided to improvise. I cursed silently.

She gathered herself up and went inside.

She took the full ten minutes. While I waited, I entertained myself with thoughts of all the bad things that could happen to her, how they were all my fault, and what I would tell her parents in Toledo. I was checking my watch for the fourth time when she reappeared. She held the door for a moment, then walked toward Eighth Street, tucking her shirt in as she went. I left money on the table and went up the block and across to meet her at the corner. She followed me to a Starbucks at Thirteenth Street.

“And what was wrong with the other place?” she said as I held the door. Sometimes you can’t win.

She had another cappuccino, I had another black coffee, and we sat at a table in the corner. She said, “I’m not sure what they’re up to, but that place is pretty creepy. The girl’s not there, or so they say, but they know her. Don’t like her, either.”

“They?”

“Two guys. The big guard and another guy, short, oily, black hair, mustache, accent from Eastern Europe somewhere. The guard got him when I asked about Eva. He’s in the room with the steel door.”

“What’d they say?”

“I told the guard I was supposed to meet Eva, like you said. He asked, ‘Eva who?’ I said, ‘Eva, friend of Ratko.’ That’s when he got the other guy, who wanted to know how I knew Eva, and I said we were friends. Then he said, ‘You tell that pretty girl she wants to come around here, bring her boyfriend. Otherwise, fuck off and don’t come back. Same goes for you.’ Then he went back to his room and I split.”

“Huh.” Word of Ratko’s demise hadn’t made it to Slav House.

Four young women came into Starbucks and went to the counter. I’d held the Slav House door for two of them. They’d been empty-handed then, I was almost certain, but now all four carried big shoulder bags, and one consulted a BlackBerry while she waited for her coffee. They spoke quietly among themselves. I couldn’t make out what they said.

I took a roll of bills from my pocket and gave Gina five twenties.

“Don’t turn around, but four women are about to walk out of here. I saw two at Slav House. Follow them and call me when you get a fix on what they’re up to. Don’t get too close. They might be looking for tails.”