Never mind that, deep down, I knew it was the best possible scenario.
Because as long as we knew nothing, we were safe. At least, that’s what I wanted to believe. “Safe” had become kind of an ambiguous concept lately. A man had definitely followed us in the park—and it was really only by chance that we’d noticed. Someone might be watching us at all times. If so, our visits to Napoletti and Rikers might not have advertised our interest in Michael Sorenson and, through him, Marianne. But they also might. If whoever was keeping an eye on us had extensive enough resources to track us down in New York City, they probably had enough background information to figure out what we were doing.
In which case, it wouldn’t matter much either way if we followed the next lead.
That’s what I told myself, anyway.
■ ■ ■
The shuttle dropped us off in Harlem where it had picked us up, not quite as full on the way back but full enough to make private conversation impossible. We spent part of the time figuring out our route to the address listed for Pegasus Destinations, the rest thinking our own thoughts. After we got off the bus, Peter was hungry and stopped to get a bagel to eat on the way. I didn’t think I wanted food, but as soon as I walked into the shop and smelled fresh toasted bread, I got one as well. We waited until we got off the subway at East 14th Street and 1st Avenue before we pulled them out of the bag, still slightly warm and oozing with cream cheese.
The address was near the East Village, in the neighborhood called Alphabet City, about a fifteen-minute walk from the subway stop. We cut south through Tomkins Square Park and found the street easily, just off Avenue B, a few blocks north of Houston. It seemed to be mostly residential, with monotonously severe brick apartments marching down one sight of the street and a mixture of apartments and a few businesses on the other.
Not quite halfway down was a tall, narrow building of four stories, older than those around it. The ground floor space looked like it had been commercial at one time, with an unlit “Open” sign in one of the windows, rather the worse for wear, but no other signs or indications that a business operated here. Colorful graffiti covered the base of the walls, the closed metal door and one of the ground-floor windows.
We stood at the bottom of the short stoop and looked at it.
“It’s definitely the address listed,” Peter said, without me having to ask.
“They don’t seem to be open,” I said lightly. Just as with our visits to the Newark warehouse and to Mike, I’d known there was little chance we’d find anything of value.
And I was disappointed, all the same.
Chances were, Marianne hadn’t meant anything with her postcard. Maybe it was just a way to mess with the people at the loft. Or a private joke she shared with her roommates that Mike never knew or forgot about. We couldn’t depend on his memory to hold onto something like that. And she might have been working for any one of hundreds of travel agencies around here. The fact that Mike had thought the postcard was from South America could be a clue, but it also could have been something she picked up at work, or part of the joke we didn’t know.
We were amateurs at this investigation thing. Even with Peter’s instincts, which struck me as being unusually strong, and my knowledge of Marianne, we’d only managed to get ourselves here.
An empty and dilapidated building.
A true dead end.
“Should we knock or something?” Peter asked me.
“I don’t see the point,” I said depressingly. “I doubt anybody’s in there.”
As soon as the word “there” left my mouth, we heard a muffled grating sound from the building. The door—the very door we’d just been discussing—swung open, revealing a dark space beyond. A woman stepped into the doorway, a large purse hanging off one shoulder, obviously on her way out. She came two steps before she saw us, then stood frozen on the stoop, one hand on the open door.
We stared at each other.
“Marianne,” I said.
“Oh, shit,” she said, and turned quickly around.
Chapter 12
I only had time to feel a kind of sickened shock—both at seeing her and at her reaction—before I felt Peter tug at my elbow.
“She wants us to follow her,” he said in my ear, and I noticed that Marianne, rather than disappearing back into the building, was standing in the doorway beckoning urgently. We hurried inside after her, and she closed and locked the door with a rush, shutting the three of us into musty darkness. Dim light filtered down from an upper story, showing us the stairwell leading up.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she hissed, starting up the stairs. We followed.
“Looking for you,” I said, my mind still unable to fully take in what was happening.
“Of all the idiotic…” I heard her mutter as she led us up.
We continued all the way to the third floor, where she unlocked and opened a door at the back of the hallway. It was a dingy little room, bare of furniture except a camping-style cot made up with sheets and a blanket and pillow, a desk, a chair and, incongruously, a mini-fridge. One corner held a rack of clothes, dark lumps of shoes below. The only source of light was the single dusty window, the daylight diffused through a yellow shade. Marianne closed and locked the door behind us, then crossed over and switched on a low desk lamp, throwing her heavy bag down on the floor.
“How’d you find me?” she demanded, turning to glare at us.
“Michael Sorenson,” Peter said, after it was clear I wasn’t capable of answering. “He remembered the postcard you sent. And the fact that Lola knew you worked at a travel agency. This address is listed for Pegasus Destinations.”
“Great. Just fantastic. And who the fuck are you?”
I woke up.
“This is Peter—Owen. He’s my—he’s been helping me.”
She eyed us, then abruptly sat down in the chair and lit a cigarette. No wonder the room smelled so stale and sticky.
Marianne didn’t smoke. But this woman was Marianne—a tired, pale, thin Marianne with the same drawn, worried look she’d worn in my apartment a few weeks ago. Her long sweep of dark brown hair, her sparkling brown eyes, her features too sharply defined to be beautiful, but so vivacious you didn’t really notice, all as familiar to me as my own. And she was undoubtedly smoking.
“Sit,” she said, waving at the cot. We sat. “You’re telling me that toxic joke actually remembered the postcard I sent when I left? What rock did you find him under, anyway?”
“Rikers,” Peter said briefly.
“Hmph. I should’ve guessed.” She smoked furiously for a moment while we waited. I took in her clothes: tailored jeans, white shirt, high boots, light khaki jacket. She looked elegant and fashionable. An elegant, fashionable stranger who smoked. “What else did he say?”
“He remembered about the man who came to see you—an older man in a suit—right before you left. Not his name, just what he said about your time being up, something like that.”
“Mm. How’d you track down Mike?”
“Richard Napoletti—his landlord in Newark.”
“Damn. If I wasn’t so irritated, I’d be impressed,” she said, and then laughed suddenly—and there she was, the Marianne I’d known all my life. “Did you even go to Uncle Joe’s?” she asked me, sounding less angry.
“I did—just like you told me. That’s where I met Peter.”
“Ah. And the two of you decided to come hustling across the continent to—what, look for me?”
“Find answers,” Peter told her. “It was that or wait indefinitely until you made contact. Lola chose not to wait.”
“Your idea?” she asked.
“My suggestion,” he admitted. “It didn’t seem likely that you’d be showing up to relieve her mind anytime soon.”
“No,” she agreed. “But at least she’d be safe. Well, safer…” she stubbed out the cigarette on a plate overflowing with butts, her movements jerky. “How long have you been in New York?”
/>
“Since Monday,” Peter said.
“Someone followed us in the park on Monday night,” I added, finding my voice.
“Oh? Fantastic. So you’re back on the grid, then.” She glared at me, and I tried not to feel guilty. “They must know you’re in town. Let’s just hope that’s all they know.”
“’They’ being…?” Peter asked, before I could. My brain was still moving on the slow side, trying to take it all in.
“Look, we can’t talk here. I’ve got to go—but I’ll meet you later tonight. Bar Sixty-Five at nine, OK? At Thirty Rock. Ask for Jojo’s table.”
“Wait,” I said, my panic building as she stood up and started for the door. “You haven’t explained anything.”
“I will—tonight. As much as I can. Hurry up, Lo. I’m already late.”
Without any further conversation, she herded us back down the stairs and out the front door, shutting and locking it firmly behind us—Marianne still inside. Peter kept walking calmly along the way we’d come, his hand keeping a firm clasp on mine.
“She must have used a back door,” he said, as we turned the corner and Marianne didn’t appear.
“I’ve never seen her smoke before,” I said irrelevantly.
“She seemed… on edge,” he said.
“You think?” I asked wryly, the shock finally wearing off. “I can’t believe we found her.”
“Sheer luck, I think.”
“No—you have really good instincts about stuff like this.”
He laughed, shaking his head.
“My ex used to say the same thing. I always figured out the mystery before she did. It drove her crazy.”
“See? And she’s a trained detective.”
“What I want to know is, why did Marianne send the postcard with a clue on it if she didn’t want to be found?”
“Maybe she didn’t expect anyone to figure it out. Who knows? It was a while ago. Maybe things have changed since then.”
“I get the feeling you’re right, and a lot has changed. Well, we’ll either know more tonight or we won’t. After all this, I could really use a drink and something more substantial to eat. How does an early dinner in Soho sound?”
“Perfect,” I said. “Lead the way.”
■ ■ ■
Bar SixtyFive wasn’t the kind of place you expected to go for a clandestine meeting, which is probably what made it ideal for anyone planning one. It was far too swanky, an expensive fusion of power suits and enthusiastic tourists. We’d looked on its website and saw that it had a recommended dress code of “cocktail chic,” which sounded a lot like something you’d hear in LA. I didn’t have any fancy outfits with me, but settled for a semi-casual black shirt that could almost be dressy, my darkest jeans and black boots versus sneakers. Peter pulled a polo shirt out of his bag, slightly wrinkled, but when it was tucked into his khakis he looked quite nice.
Neither of us looked particularly cocktail or chic, whatever that meant, but at least we had made an effort and weren’t wearing sneakers.
A pretty girl with lots of makeup greeted us with supercilious politeness, hearing our request for “Jojo’s table” almost as if she didn’t believe we’d said it, and then directing one of the lower beings to guide us through the elegant, crowded room. Outside on the balcony, tables were lined up along a glass barrier overlooking the city. At the end of the row was an empty table for four with a “Reserved” sign on it, set slightly apart from those around it in the corner of the balcony. Our host led us to this premium spot, waited while we sat, handed us heavy menus and disappeared.
We settled ourselves and looked around. I couldn’t help feeling self-conscious, but nobody was paying much attention to us. Everyone was too busy looking at the view, eating, drinking or talking to the people they sat with.
Before we had a chance to more than glance at our menus, Marianne appeared and sat down, dumping her bag on the chair beside her and asking an attentive waiter to get us three gin and tonics. She wore the same outfit as earlier, and looked even more tired.
“Hi,” I said.
She studied me, then her faced warmed into a smile.
“It’s good to see you, Lo,” she said. “It shouldn’t be, but it is.”
“You come here a lot?” Peter asked, gesturing toward the table.
“Frequently,” she said. “It’s the perfect place to bring potential—clients. They eat it up. I thought it’d be better to meet somewhere I go often, though at this point I don’t know that it makes much difference. The damage has been done, now we have to figure out how to get you back out of sight.”
The drinks came with a speed that proved Marianne’s value as a customer.
“Hope you like gin. Well, cheers.”
We clinked glasses and drank. Then we waited. Marianne met our stares then looked away, out over the city.
“How’d you meet, anyway?” she asked after a moment.
“You get to ask questions?” I protested, feeling the old childish heat of perceived unfairness rise up under my skin—but it quickly evaporated under Marianne’s calm, discontented gaze. I gave in. “We met on the beach near Uncle Joe’s. Peter and his sister own a bar not far away, and we met again the same night. That was kind of…” I made a vague circling gesture with my hand “…kind of it.” How to explain the mysterious, intense connection we’d felt from the beginning, without sounding corny or crazy? It wasn’t possible.
“Interesting. All those years of fruitless dating, and you just run into each other one day, poof.” I didn’t especially relish the “all those years” comment, making it sound like decades, but let it go. “So, Peter, you own a bar? What’s it called?”
“The Hideout. Our drinks are cheaper, but we can’t offer this quality of booze. Or the view.”
“Mm. Well, you seem OK. Trustworthy—I’ve learned to read people fast and you give off a trustworthy vibe. Not that I really have a choice.” We didn’t say anything, and after another long sip of her drink—emptying her glass—she nodded. “All right. I’ll explain. I won’t tell you everything, but you deserve the truth. I just don’t… The problem is where we go from here.”
“Just start—we’ll get to that later,” I urged, failing to hide my impatience. Marianne acknowledged it with a wry look, signaled the watchful waiter for another round, and then began to speak.
“I was young when I first realized that my parents weren’t—quite kosher. Those times I stayed with them I saw all these little signs that added up to something that I didn’t like. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was, but it was there. Stuff like… Always paying in cash—big fat bundles of it. Changing plans mid-trip, going to Guatemala when our flights were booked for Greece. Never having a settled place to live, even though it seemed like they could afford it. All that money without any obvious source for it. I assumed it was investments, or family money. I didn’t ask. The truth is I didn’t really want to know.
“They claimed to be dedicated activists—working to expand human rights and eradicate human suffering across the globe. That’s their favorite line. Not bad, is it? The great humanitarians, striving to end poverty and homelessness and educate the children. The thing is, there weren’t ever construction plans to approve, or a house to build, or a remote village to visit. You’d think they’d use their kid mingling with villagers for PR or something, but there was no PR, no press. They mostly stayed at high-end hotels or resorts, disappearing for hours at a time for ‘meetings.’ They didn’t talk about work in front of me, and barely talked to me either. I spent most days alone reading or watching TV in hotel rooms, or wandering around by myself. Sometimes they’d pay a housekeeper to watch me.”
“As I got older I stayed with them less and less—and noticed more when I did. Your parents were so natural and… kind, Lo. So normal. Mine were cold. Cold—and exacting. Nothing was good enough. Either that or they ignored me, which was worse, in a way. I never talked about it to anyone. I figured I’d just lost the genetic lottery
and looked forward to making my own living one day so I wouldn’t have to accept their help. After I started college, they mostly left me alone, though they’d show up once a year or so and take me out to dinner, like they were testing me or something. That’s what it felt like—they didn’t ask direct questions, but it always felt like a job interview with some real asshole employers. It only happened a few times, so I’d just—pretend that nothing was wrong and keep focusing on the future. I wanted to be a journalist more than anything. I pushed and worked and eventually got accepted to the graduate program. I was over the moon—remember, Lo? This was going to be It.”
The waiter appeared with three more gin and tonics. I hadn’t even realized I’d finished mine. They were extremely well made, going down far too easily. After he exchanged the new drinks for empty glasses and moved away, Marianne went on with her story.
“Halfway through my first year in New York they showed up. Mom and Dad. They took me out to drinks—not here, but the same kind of vibe—and told me it was time for me to join the family business. They’d invested in my education, and now I owed them… everything.”
A short silence fell. Marianne drank.
“This business…?” Peter prompted gently.
“Yeah. Hell.” She took a deep breath. “OK. So they’re con artists. Grifters. World-class grifters, but grifters all the same. They usually operate in countries that have fewer restrictions and more bribable officials—South America, Central America, Asia, Africa. They pretend to set up causes—they sell these ambitious but viable schemes for bringing potable water to a village, or establishing schools—shelters—health centers. Aid to Syrian refugees, malaria vaccines for children, new homes for earthquake victims in Haiti. They target business investors as well as rich donors, selling them on the ‘profit of public opinion’ if they’re seen to be backing the little people. It’s all fake, of course. They disappear and the money goes into financing the next scheme and into their pockets—except for the cut they give to the people who help them do it. Like me.”
Spiders in a Dark Web Page 15