by Bapsy Jain
The man sitting next to Lucky had been watching her since she entered the train station. Although Lucky had spotted him right away, she’d initially dismissed him as harmless. But when she boarded the train, so did he, and when she took a seat, he stood nearby until he could sit down next to her. He wore a red-and-white checkered shirt, jeans, and a cowboy hat. Cowboy boots, too, but they were pretty near worn-out, scuffed to an asphalt gray color. A pack of Marlboros stuck out of his shirt pocket. She tried to ignore him, but when he saw her glance, he elbowed her and said, “Better hold on to that with both hands. Goddamn thieves have been on the hunt lately. They hop on at a station, snatch your computer, and hop off just as the doors close. Peel it out like that.” He snapped his fingers. When Lucky did not respond, the man continued, “Happened yesterday morning. Saw it myself. Young lady just like you. Student, I think. Sittin’ there with a laptop and the next thing you know, BIM! BAM! GONE! Just like that. Didn’t get a good look at the fella. Just a set of gray sweats out the door and down the platform. Too much crime these days, if you ask me. You can’t feel safe nowhere no more. Not even in your own house. You just can’t tell who’s on the prowl these days.”
A tiny gray-haired woman seated opposite them nodded and said, “Somebody ought to do something. I saw it, too; yes, it was a young lady. Got off sobbing, poor thing.”
“Ought to make an example of ’em,” the man said. “Hang thieves along the tracks as a warning to others. Everywhere you go, locks and cops, locks and cops. I got two deadbolts on a steel door at home, and still, the thieves break in.”
“What do you suppose he’ll do with the computer?” the woman asked.
“Sell it!” the man said, “Or trade it for dope.” He laughed a long, loud, deep, obnoxious belly laugh that ended in a smoker’s hacking cough.
Lucky sighed. Her sore muscle still burned, and she was starting to remember her mantra ‘be great’ again. Sean’s babysitter, Maria, had been late that morning, her yoga class had been a fiasco, and when she’d practiced her presentation last night, she’d completely blanked and skipped an entire section. Now it was show time, and the train was slow and hot and crowded, and this cowboy wouldn’t leave her alone. What was next? He’d ask her for a date? She looked down at her laptop.
The cartoons were gone, replaced by an advertisement for a popular candy. Animated fruit chews pounded apples and oranges and bananas in a game of basketball. The exhausted natural fruits were no match for the faster, taller, and more athletic super-fruits. Blonde, blue-eyed children ran across a lush green lawn toward a picnic table where a smiling blonde woman offered them a plate of candy while a tall, handsome, clean-cut man looked on benevolently. Lucky looked away. Everybody knew the punch line: “Super Moms Choose Super Chews!”
What junk, Lucky thought. She didn’t know if it was her Indian upbringing, but to her Super Chews tasted like sugar and chemicals. Lucky was pretty sure that what grew naturally was always better than an artificial product, and although she was trying to impress this upon Sean, it was only creating friction between them. Kids don’t want what’s good for them, she thought.
Now that she’d stopped focusing on her work, a million thoughts raced through her head: Would Maria remember to take the clothes out of the washer and put them in the dryer? Did Sean take his nap that afternoon? He gets so cranky at night when he doesn’t…should I have worn something more feminine than this damn pant suit? Men are so intimidated by women who look professional. Is my blouse going to be sweat-stained? Maybe I should have worn that silk dress after all. Through the din, her old friend Shanti’s words came back to Lucky as clear as if the old woman was sitting beside her: “Don’t forget to breathe. Remember, we’re human beings, not human doings. And not breathing is bad for your health.” I’ll be okay! No, Lucky thought. As Shanti would say, you have to be great.
“I hear you,” Lucky said. “I’m breathing.” She took a deep breath and rolled her head counterclockwise, trying to relax the tension in her neck. And then she saw the cowboy staring at her like she was crazy.
She needed a vacation. Amay had been trying to pry her away from work for a month to take a long weekend in Maine. He’d had his heart set on the Fourth of July—even had a room at a pricey county inn in Bar Harbor—but Lucky had turned him down. “Too much riding on this presentation,” she’d said.
“What do they do with those things they steal?” the old lady persisted, in a gruff, hoarse voice, jolting Lucky back to the present.
“Sell ‘em. Trade ‘em. It’s a joke these days. Cops everywhere and none of ‘em doing a thing. Wouldn’t surprise me if they were in on the deal. Hang a few—that’ll put an end to it. If they could just catch ‘em.”
“Catching thieves is easy,” Lucky said, and then she closed her eyes and bit her lip. Why did I have to open my big mouth?
The man stiffened and glared at her. “Sure, if you know where to look.”
Lucky shrugged and then began stabbing at her keyboard. “The problem isn’t catching them. Thieves get caught all the time. But what do you do when you’ve got them? If you can’t reform them, then in a few months, or years, they’re back out on the street stealing again.”
The man’s expression turned sour. “Reform doesn’t work, ‘cause crime pays. Ask me, if they killed repeat offenders, we’d be better off. Save taxpayers’ money.”
Lucky’s phone rang. Amay. She ignored it. In five minutes, he’ll text me an invitation to dinner. She turned back to the cowboy. “Isn’t that a little harsh?”
“What’s harsh is all of us working night and day while them thieves get three hot meals a day and a cot if they get caught. Cops get these small fry while the big bosses get off scot-free. I tell ya, if you’ve got to steal, dream big and steal big. It’s the safe bet. Take my kid brother,” he said, “used to be a car salesman. Had a place in Miami. Lost his leg in a wreck. Hit a semi head-on driving drunk on New Year’s Eve. No insurance. Couldn’t work. Lost his job. Wife left him. Comes to me to lend him a hand. What’s a brother to do? I tell him to take his disability and let the government pay him for a change, but the wife gets after me about it. “He’s your flesh and blood,” she says. “You can’t just toss him out like trash.” “Oh yes I can,” I say, but she keeps after me—you know how women are—so after a while I say, “Okay.” I got a few bucks in the bank. He says he wants to go into contracting with me so I help him out with some gear, give him the easy jobs, even buy him a truck. And you know what he does? Goes out and bids the jobs dirt cheap—gets a bunch of money from people for deposits, only he never does the work. He splits for parts unknown with the dough. I hadda do all the work—and for nothing. Bunch of lousy, f----d-up bids I couldn’t have made a dime on even if they’d been done right to begin with—and minus the deposit money my brother stole. I lost everything: tools, truck, license. All of it. My own goddamn brother.”
The old woman said, “People aren’t what they used to be. This is my stop.” She got up, clutching her handbag tightly.
The cowboy shuffled his feet and watched her.
Lucky looked closely at the cowboy; the tense mouth, a spattering of small white scars on the left side of his face. The way his eyes darted around the train, the way he watched when anyone got on or off, something about him was familiar. And then it hit Lucky. This guy’s an ex–con.
“You used to be a welder,” Lucky said.
“I’ve struck an arc or two,” he replied. “How’d you know?”
“The burns.”
He looked at her, puzzled.
“The scars. On your face.”
He touched his cheek.
“You worked in a shop somewhere. Then you hurt your left eye and had to give it up. You’re not blind, but your eye is shot. Now you do a little mechanic work on the side, or a little construction, when you can get it. I can tell by the grease under your nails and rubbed into your palms. I’m guessing you work under the table. You’re not the kind of citizen who pays taxes. Yo
u’re smart, all right, but lazy. You’ll take the easy money. Fencing stolen goods sounds about right. And I hope you’re not casing my laptop.”
Veins bulged in the cowboy’s neck. He jumped to his feet as the train lurched, and he stumbled and grabbed the overhead strap.
“I am only guessing,” Lucky said. “And it’s none of my business so long as you leave me alone.”
The old woman backed away toward the door.
The cowboy narrowed his eyes.
“I’m not a cop,” Lucky said. “But I am in Corrections. I teach in prison, so I can spot a con a mile away. But some of my best friends are inmates.”
The man kept staring at her. “Really?”
Lucky nodded while studying his face. He looked so out of place in New York. In her experience, people looked out of place for three reasons. Either they were out of place, they wanted to attract attention to themselves, or they wanted to divert attention away from something else. Nothing else seemed unusual about the commute, though.
The cowboy said, “So you’re good at spotting jailbirds?”
“Yes,” Lucky said. “I am.”
“And what do you do when you see them?”
“Nothing,” Lucky said. “Or, maybe that depends. It depends on if some action is called for. Sometimes, I say something to try to help them—point them in the right direction. If they’re up to no good, I might say something to let them know I’m on to them. Once in a while—a very long while—I might let the cops know. But only if I think there’s something bad about to go down. Mostly, I try to help people. I mean, criminals are people, too. Sick or challenged, but still people. It’s not for us to judge.”
“Help, eh.”
“That’s what I said.”
The man scratched his chin. “So you got connections?”
Lucky nodded.
“Prove it.”
“Prove it? Why? I don’t owe you anything.”
“What I meant was, maybe you could help me.”
Lucky bit her lip. Here it comes, she thought. “And what can I do to help you?”
“Can you find my brother?”
“Your brother? The one who ripped you off?” Lucky leaned back on the bench and looked at the man. “Sure. Why not?”
The man grunted. “Right here,” he asked. “Just like that?” The train was grinding to a stop. The old woman did not get off but crept back close to Lucky.
“Maybe. If you have a little information about him.”
“Information like…”
“A name. An ID. A job. A former address. I can’t find people without something to go on.”
The man looked around the car, then nodded. “Finch,” he said. “Mike. Used to work for Finch Car and Truck. Had a house down in Miami. That enough?”
Lucky sighed, then clicked on an icon on the desktop of her laptop, and paused while the program loaded. “Age?” she asked.
“Fifty-two.”
“Birthday?”
“February 18th.”
“That makes you Jim, right?”
A shadow crossed the cowboy’s face. He nodded.
Lucky punched at the screen, then turned the computer for Jim to see the photo.
“That’s amazing,” the cowboy said. “How’d you find him?”
Lucky shrugged. “A little intuition, a little help from the Web. You’d be surprised at how much information is out there these days if you know where to look.”
“So, where is he?”
Lucky looked at the laptop and read quietly. “You’ll not see him again,” she said.
The cowboy’s face brightened.
“But whoever Mike Finch is, he’s not your brother. And I know you’re not Jim.”
The cowboy grinned. “You didn’t think I’d give you my real name, did ya?”
“No,” Lucky said, “I didn’t.” She looked at the cowboy. “But how’s this for finding people? It will take a couple of minutes.”
Lucky turned her screen away from the prying eyes of the cowboy and after a few minutes, exclaimed, “Ah ha, your name is Gordon Bolton and you’re from Ashbury Park, but guess what? You’ve been living in Jamaica for a while now—at least four months. You got a parking ticket there in April. And there’s a warrant out for you. Something about a liquor store and a little thing at a camera shop. Looks like somebody got hurt in that one, but like I said, don’t worry. I’m not interested in you.”
Without taking his eyes off Lucky, Bolton stood up and edged backward toward the door. The train slowed and he jumped off at the next platform.
They were in Manhattan proper now. Lucky looked at the old woman. “Wasn’t that your stop back there?”
“Oh,” she replied, “I’m in no hurry. The train goes both ways. I got time to kill, you know. This is much more interesting than mall walking. Did you really find his brother?”
“Mike Finch wasn’t his brother,” Lucky said. “But I did find a Mike Finch.”
“But how did you know he would never see him again?”
“Mike Finch died two years ago in a car accident. I don’t know why Bolton was looking for him. Maybe Finch owed him some money. Who knows? Whatever it was, I’m guessing it wasn’t good.”
The old woman nodded. Her eyes were glassy. “It’s going to be hot today,” she said.
Lucky looked down at the text message she had just sent the transit police—the one with the name and picture and the time and the stop where Bolton got off. “Yes,” she said. “And it’s going to get hotter.”
Her phone buzzed. A text message.
Amay. Dinner? he asked.
Chapter 2
The government building that housed Lucky’s other office was a clunky 1970s brick punch card of a building in lower Manhattan. To get there, Lucky had to cross an awkward, five-way intersection, where one wedge contained a bit of a lawn and a large, drooping pin oak surrounded by a low, cast iron fence of indeterminate age. It was a sight better suited to a Gothic cemetery or an Edgar Alan Poe poem than to a bit of green in downtown Manhattan. Eyeing the complicated path she’d have to take, Lucky decided not to attempt it on an empty stomach and detoured to a cafe at the end of the block to purchase mocha and a croissant. The café had a trendy New York way about it—the sign, for one thing, was like an old-fashioned eye chart, so that it read:
Inside, the baristas and wait staff wore white lab coats, and a TV set was playing Alfred Hitchcock movies—currently, Vertigo. The staff, if they were paying attention, added their screams to the movie at the appropriate moments. Fortunately, they weren’t paying attention. When she’d first started working in this area, Lucky had been surprised that Cafe Vision did any business at all. Then she’d discovered that they made a great mocha, with a choice of a dozen different gourmet chocolates from around the world and topped with whipped cream from an organic dairy in Vermont, and decided some things were worth braving Alfred Hitchcock for.
When Lucky emerged, she saw that in the time it had taken her to buy her mocha, a crowd of protestors had occupied the sidewalk and blocked the street in front of the office building. A cacophony of signs proclaimed that they were PETA activists. The signs bore images of animals in cages, animals in various stages of vivisection, and stacks of carcasses—stomach-turning stuff. The protestors seemed to be mostly young student-types in college tee shirts, but with a smattering of housewives, artists, aging hippies, and priests. Some handed out tracts to passers-by, while others gathered around a guitar player and sang. Someone had splashed buckets of what looked like blood all over the steps leading into the office. Lucky wondered why the heck PETA activists would be picketing a state office and why they had to pick today, of all days. But there they were.
In this age of bombings and mayhem and Occupy Wall Street, the NYPD was not taking any chances. A cop on horseback was standing by, and a line of squad cars was arriving with reinforcements to block off both ends of the street and to direct traffic around the event. Traffic had already backed up out of sig
ht in both directions, and the drivers seemed to be getting unruly. Of course, we are in New York. When aren’t drivers unruly here?
As Lucky zig-zagged through the crowd, one protestor in particular caught her eye: a youngish-looking man of indeterminate age with short, flax-colored hair and piercing gray eyes. He was startlingly attractive—handsome face, square jaw, not a spare pound on his lean frame. He could have been a movie star, and Lucky couldn’t help but notice that he sat quite still in Lotus Pose, cross-legged on the concrete, hands resting palms-down on his knees, entirely unmoved by the noise and heat and confusion around him. Despite his European features, he wore the red saffron robe of a Buddhist monk. Lucky was sure as she passed that the man’s eyes followed her. For a moment, she involuntarily stopped as she passed him.
Then she turned, looked at him in the eye, and asked, “What’s the fuss all about?”
He shrugged his shoulders. She felt awkward and stupid—anybody could see what was going on. They were protesting cruelty to animals. Still, she could not escape the feeling that when they held eye contact a deeper communication had passed between them.
As she turned to go, he said, “You can help or walk away.”
Lucky nearly stumbled but quickly recovered and kept going. Once she reached her office, Lucky decided to take care of one last detail from her train ride. Gordon Bolton had been quite the shady character, so Lucky wanted to track him further—and she had the tools to do so. The program was called Bloodhound, and it had been developed by the state with help from Homeland Security to keep track of parolees, sex offenders, and men and women on bail awaiting trial. Lucky had been recruited to participate as part of a control group from the Department of Corrections when the software was being tested. She had done well so she had been drafted to continue to work with the implementation team as a tester. With its 1,558-point topological contour facial recognition, Bloodhound was as accurate in identification as a fingerprint. And it was eerie in the way it connected search preferences, personal correspondence, phone and email records, credit card use, and social networking to track people’s habits. The statistics it compiled told Bloodhound where to search, and its success rate was astonishing. It was as close to intuitive as a machine could be. Lucky played only a small, advisory part in Bloodhound’s testing, but she’d still shared in the accolades, and she’d held on to her beta version on her laptop. Nobody had told her to erase it and besides, who knew when it might come in handy?