Джеффри Дивер: Ninth and Nowhere

He tried to think if a police officer had ever been shot in Nowhere.

Three years ago, Arthur believed. The cop had lived but he’d be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

He now headed for the Larkin Street Bridge.

He’d spend some time there.

And after that, Ninth Street, in the heart of Nowhere. Fromm recalled there used to be a great breakfast spot there, an old-fashioned diner. He hoped it was still there. That was one thing about walking a beat. You got to know the best places to eat.

She lay in bed, on her back, thinking of Michael.

Picturing him.

He was a handsome man — looking a bit like a younger version of the actor Harrison Ford, thick, dark hair, a solid face, broad shoulders. He was her age — midthirties — and in good shape; he, like she, enjoyed running and working out. He did some kind of martial arts but one of the unusual ones. Not karate or tae kwon do.

Michael wore stodgy suits and his shirts had too much starch in them. They were like the dry marker boards Lanie used when she was brainstorming with the copywriters at her ad agency. Brilliant white and almost shiny. She’d teased him about it.

Lanie Stone, though, didn’t always think this much about Michael’s appearance. She thought more about his kindness. His eyes, which radiated confidence and care. And his nature: calm.

Important, during this time in her life, which was very, very un-calm.

A snore from beside her. She eased away from the warm, heavy body of her husband. Henry had rolled onto his back during the night. Hence the guttural snort.

She climbed from bed and walked silently over the thick carpet, comforting under her bare feet. And white as... white as the shirts that Michael wore.

Stop that.

Lanie slipped into the bathroom and pulled off the T-shirt she slept in, the cotton panties. In the mirror, she performed a fast examination of her profile. A pinch of the belly. A half inch more than she would have liked. But she wasn’t too hard on herself, not at the moment. She indulged in a sweet now and then. Why shouldn’t she? This was, hands down, the hardest time of her life.

No. No tears.

She had someone to save her.

Michael would save her.

Into the shower, the hottest water she could stand. Then she toweled off, dressed in a robe and blow-dried her short hair. She’d cut it recently. Michael said she should, and she had. Henry had blinked when she’d returned from the salon. “Oh. Short.” She didn’t know whether he liked it or not. “Why’d you do that?”

She said only that she wanted a new look.

“Good. It’s nice.”

Which made Lanie feel particularly guilty. She almost told him about Michael right then and there. But no.

As she dressed in a blue silk blouse and a navy-blue skirt and jacket, she wondered what today would bring.

She’d told her secretary that she wouldn’t be in today, she had a doctor’s appointment — which was a good lie because you could always be a bit vague when it came to medicine, as if you didn’t want to go into personal details. Something private. Something down there.

As for Henry, she hadn’t told him she’d be away. But he never stopped into the agency and he rarely called during the day. He was a busy man himself, doing IT security, working long stretches to keep the computers of major corporations hack free. If he did happen to call and Rose told him she was at the doctor, he’d probably bluster that he’d forgotten, so as not to be embarrassed. And because his brilliant mind was always churning, he might very well believe that Lanie had told him.

A glance at her phone. Her stomach did a flip.

Ms. Stone, the holiday ad proof will be ready at 8:30.

Which really said something else altogether. It was a message via code she and Michael had laughingly come up with. It meant they would meet at the Holiday Inn on Tenth Street at the designated time.

She texted back.

Thank you, sir. I’ll look forward to reviewing.

She did her makeup, just a bit of blush, pale-brown shadow, pink lipstick. A waft of perfume, not much today, never very much. She used the fragrance solely for herself; the perfume triggered memories of a time before all the un-calm.

She looked at herself in the mirror.

You’re really going through with this?

And nearly lost it. Tears started to well. Some sorrow, some guilt.

But mostly fear.

This was so fucking risky. She stood on the precipice of disaster, the very edge. The smallest of incidents could tip her over. A coincidence, being spotted in the street where she should not be. A roving reporter catching her on video in the background. Being hit by a car crossing the street. Police, phone calls, questions.

Disaster...

But, breathing deeply, she got herself under control.

She started out the bedroom door. She had to leave now. Her husband’s alarm was to buzz in three minutes.

Lanie looked at his sleeping form.

“I’m sorry,” she mouthed. Then the cloud lifted.

She stepped to the front hall, pulled on her camel-colored wool overcoat. She locked the door behind her and hurried to the bus stop, looking forward to picking up a muffin and a latte.

But mostly looking forward to seeing Michael.

Carlos stood at his kitchen window, overlooking the pleasant side of Carlyle Street.

Over there, the houses were beautiful brownstones, built a hundred years ago when attention was paid to detail. The structure directly opposite him was crowned with a scrolly façade inlaid with a mosaic of a fox. People living in those apartments, the rich folk, had to look at the scuffed yellow siding and aluminum frame of Carlos’s building. Poor souls.

The five-foot-six Carlos Sanchez was wearing what he usually did: jeans and a shiny jacket in a sports team’s colors. This was his trademark look. Today it was the Chicago Bulls, red and black. This was his favorite jacket (the first pro game he’d ever seen was the Bulls).

His favorite and, he hoped, lucky jacket.

Lucky enough to keep him out of jail.

As he looked out the window into the somber, gritty morning, he was gripping his mobile, on which he’d dialed nine numbers. The phone waited patiently.

Finally, he tapped the tenth and final number, “4,” and then “Call.”

The man answered on the third ring. “Yes?”

Carlos identified himself. “So. Can we meet? You said we could meet?”

Silence.

Please.

“I’ve got a nine o’clock.”

A nine o’clock? Oh, appointment, he must’ve meant. This man ran in a whole different world than Carlos, who was a foreman at an industrial plant on the waterfront. But did that mean he wanted to meet, or he was backing out?

“Should I—?”

“Be at my place at eight thirty. After that, I’m gone.”

“That’ll work fine. I’m going to my daughter’s dance recital at school at—”

Click.

He turned from the window.

Carlos stared at the TV. The CNN story, he noted, was about a child, a boy of about five, who’d wandered away from an older brother on their way to school. The mother was working. The boy was lost in a jobsite where a mall was being constructed. They thought he might be trapped somewhere or had fallen into a foundation pit. Carlos shut the set off.

He thought, naturally, of Luna. Twelve. Presently on the bus to her middle school, nervous about her recital but excited too.

He walked into the bedroom and sat on the bed, staring at the brown paper bag. The sack was identical to the one Luna had taken from him and slipped in her backpack twenty minutes ago. Hers contained a turkey-and-cheddar sandwich, a baggie filled with tiny carrots and a Little Debbie coffee cake.

This bag contained something very different.