by Gregg Burton
We ran to the corner of 44th street and Fifth Avenue. I slowed down and pulled Nicole by the arm so she could do the same. Walking at a normal pace to Grand Central Station, Nicole kept looking back.
“Don’t look back,” I told her. “Just keep walking. Take a few deep breaths and start smiling.”
Nicole had fear in her eyes. “Do you think he’s dead?”
“No, he’ll be fine. He’s going to have a major headache when he wakes up, but he’ll be just fine.”
“What about the police? Do you think he will call the police?”
“No, that’s not likely. Don’t worry. Everything will be just fine.”
However, everything wasn’t okay. I didn’t have time to get his surveillance tape, which meant he had my pretty little face on disk. It was time to take a road trip. I had never been to Virginia before, so I decided to take this misfortune as an opportunity to visit the mocking bird state. But, now I had baggage. Because I let that little girl talk me into letting her come to the shop with me, she could be in real danger. I couldn’t allow that.
“Do you have any relatives outside of New York?”
She shook her head.
“What about a close friend of the family?”
Again, another head shake.
Damn!
Malik met us at the entrance of Grand Central Station. “Hey, baby, who is this?”
I tried to speak, but before I could, Nicole nervously said, “Hi, I’m Nicole.”
“Hi, Nicole, it’s nice to meet you. Linda, can I speak to you for a minute in private?”
“Sure. Nicole, stay right here. I’ll be back.”
“Okay. Sure,” said Nicole.
Malik waited for me a couple feet away from the entrance. When I approached him, he asked, “What went wrong, and who is that?”
“She told you her name. Malik, we really don’t have time for this. We need to get out of town.”
“Linda, what are you talking about?”
“I’ll explain everything to you later, but we really need to get out of here.”
“What about her?”
“She’s coming with us.”
Malik noticed my tense body language. The way I kept looking over his shoulder as we talked. I was smiling at bystanders because that’s what we’re supposed to do. But, I was nervous as hell, and we needed to get off the street.
“Let’s go,” he said, gently tapping me on the shoulder. “We can talk about this later.”
We walked by a newspaper stand and I saw a face I haven’t seen in six months. I picked up a paper and saw my old friend Simon standing next to his father’s casket. With a quick glance I saw that his father had had a heartache and died in his office. Before I put the paper back down I was also able to read that Simon the third was taking over the family Business.
I tapped Malik on the shoulder, “Did you read this?”
“Yeah, I was going to tell you about that, but let’s get out of here right now.”
When we got to Nicole, he said, “Welcome to the family, I guess.”
We walked into Grand Central with the few flawless stones and a new member to our little family.
Malik and I took Nicole to Virginia Beach where we taught her everything we knew, from pickpocketing to role-playing. Things a true grifter needed to survive. A lot of it she didn’t pick up, but we tried all the same. Not everyone is built to do this kind of work. With the right development, one could come damn close. That’s Nicole. Not a true grifter, not like Malik and I, but she came damn close.