‘Well, before we fall into a black hole on the internet trying to find the information we want, we could – and I know this sounds radical – actually go and talk to people.’
‘Who?’
‘I don’t know.’ I shrugged and stood up, throwing my empty coffee cup over his head towards my wastebin, watching him wince because it missed. Oh, winding Stephen up was going to be a whole lotta fun. ‘We’ll find out when we get there.’
I left him to keep delicately sweating in my living room while I grabbed a shower and got dressed. I could feel a bubble of excitement, that kernel of anticipation that meant something was going to happen and that it might be just the answer I needed to get my writer’s block dissolving. Stephen was full of potential – his story, his attitude – it was all fuel beneath the bubbling cauldron of my imagination. I grabbed my hat and bag – packed with my notebook, cell phone and keys – and joined him again.
He’d been scrolling on his phone, a look of intense concentration on his face. He was quite something to see sitting on my little couch, one ankle resting on the knee of his other leg, somehow still managing to look like he was modelling for aVoguespread, in his tan chinos and white polo shirt, whilst surrounded by sequinned cushions and empty boxes of saltines.
‘Wow,’ he said when he looked up.
‘Am I to take that as a compliment?’
‘I’m not allowed to compliment you, am I?’ His mouth ticked up at the corner and he may as well have licked his finger and drawn a tally mark in the air. ‘I was referring to your hat. It’s…large.’
Huh, I knew it was my rule but it was disappointing nonetheless. ‘Yes. Yes, it is. All the better to avoid sunburn, my dear.’
‘Have you tried suntan lotion?’
‘Says the man with an olive skin tone and dark hair.’
‘Maybe a hat with a smaller radius than a tractor wheel then?’
‘If you don’t like my hat, you can just say so.’
‘I don’t like—’
‘But I tell you now, it means I will wear it at any and every opportunity when we’re together.’
He clamped his mouth shut and stood up abruptly. ‘Well, let’s hope we can find this man sharpish then.’
I shooed him out of my apartment, and we began our walk to Little Italy. Sunday morning it was crowded with people going out to brunch as well as all the usual tourists and shoppers. I was fairly impressed that he didn’t need to consult his phone to find the place again. I pulled a bottle of water out of my bag and took a swig. Stephen walked fast; he had that cut-through-the-minions stride typical of Wall Street. Time is money and all that, and he wasn’t slowing down for me in my hat.
When he stopped on Baxter Street, I nudged him, offering him my bottle of water and he shook his head and pointed across the road to an entrance to a parking lot.
‘That. There. Was supposed to be where he lived. Or used to live. Now what?’ His tone was grim but also kind of smug, like he knew it was a dead end.
There were two markets, one either side of the entrance. On the left was a butcher and on the right, a Korean bodega where an old woman was sitting in a white plastic chair, her feet resting on an overturned wooden crate, knitting.
‘Bingo.’ I tugged on his sleeve and pulled him across the road with me. ‘Hi, excuse me.’
‘Yes.’ She continued knitting, looking down at her needles as they moved swiftly, creating a long green shape.
‘Are you related to the people who own this market?’
‘You think I get to sit outside like this because my pretty face encourages custom?’ She looked up at me then, properly, pursing her mouth so wrinkles lined her face.
‘Always a possibility.’ I tried a warm smile.
‘Hmph.’
Stephen shifted beside me, as though he was having to make a concerted effort to stay quiet.
‘Has your family owned it a long time?’
‘Who are you? ICE? We are Americans and we have all the paperwork to prove it.’ She lowered her needles into her lap.
‘Nothing like that, sorry, we should have explained,’ Stephen took over smoothly. ‘We’re looking for someone, a friend of my mother’s, and had an address for this road, but it appears to be a parking lot now.’
