She took Noone’s case because it’s intriguing.He’sintriguing; his injury is real, and there’s something pure about it: He just wants to know who he is. There’s no “people being awful to one another” aspect to it, which describes a lot of the cases she’s taken on over the last two years. Half the time, her typical clients don’t really want to know the outcome of her investigation; it’s usually a worst-case scenario, because people don’t hire a backstreet private investigator when the situation is a happy one, so she’s always put into the position of feeling like a carrion crow who delivers terrible news.
But Noonewantsthese answers; Nomi could see it. It’s eating him up, not knowing. To him, she’s not a black-winged bearer of bad tidings, but someone who will provide him with valuable insight.
And he helped her with the Italian. For a moment, it took her back to her experiences of collegiality while working with a team on a case. It had felt good to sit next to someone, both of you collaborating to dig up information. She used to like working with others—in the NYPD, it was only that she couldn’t stomach dealing with the people she was supposed to be on a team with. This was different. Better.
Nomi checks her watch: A little over an hour before she needs to walk to the Riverview. She’s antsy—that familiar restlessness under her skin—but she can control herself until she gets home later. She’s getting better at this.
She makes a small dinner: omelet with lots of butter, sauerkraut on the side, a handful of tortilla chips. She showers and changes into fresh jeans and a sleeveless Cramps shirt, plus an oversize black leather jacket. Eyeliner, silver earrings, a studded leather cuff, and she’s ready to go.
Through the door, downstairs, out in the street—the district is starting to come alive again in the early dark of night: There are more people on Gansevoort now than there were at midday. Nomi heads toward Washington, nods to a girl on a fire escape farther along, nodsto a man behind the wheel of a truck near the corner. She’s glad for her boots on the cobblestones; most of the hookers around here wear stilettos, and she’s always worried about their ankles.
Hands shoved deep into her jacket pockets, she crosses the street and follows the road toward Horatio, watching for headlights, taillights. There are a lot of folks cruising in cars, some on business. Back in the day, she would’ve dreaded a street-beat detail in the Meatpacking District—too many variables, too many loose units, too much risk. But those same aspects help her now, covering her tracks, disguising her passage. She can stay low to the ground here, which is how she likes it.
The tall pylons of the elevated train overpass are solid blocks of concrete and steel, like walking around under a jetty, as if Pier 51 has spawned a dry-land version of itself here under the streetlamps. Nomi stays out of the really dark pools of shadow. Up ahead, the Riverview’s red brick ramparts, genteelly dilapidated. The building has been a local institution since 1908, as much a part of the district as the blood in the streets.
The plan is to get inside, check in with Enrique, watch the show. Between dances and people watching, she can catch up with at least three contacts who might have some information on Lamonte’s known associates.
A small crowd is wandering around or toward the hotel on Jane Street, lured by the sound of a pulsing club beat. Nomi does a quick scan, ducks up the steps and between the grand columns at the hotel’s entrance. In the lobby, the music is louder, and people are gathering, chatting, laughing. It feels like a party. The black-felt-covered ballroom door opens occasionally, letting out the soaring vocals of the Communards and an exciting flash of sparkling glitter before closing again.
A little entry queue has formed behind a tall Black drag performer in booty shorts and kitten heels, who’s getting change from the cashier. Once they walk off, the line moves forward, and eventually Nomi steps up to the grille.
“Hey, Cherie, how you doing?”
“All good, just don’t ask me for change.” Cherie, currently chewing gum, is twenty-three years old, from Hoboken, and lives at the Riverview as well as working here. “Hey, Nomi, when you gonna learn how to dress, huh? That Cramps shirt ...”
Nomi grins. “Shut up and give me a ticket. Is Enrique around? He said he’d put my name on the door, but I can pay if he hasn’t arrived yet.”
“Nah, you’re good, he put you on the list. Hold up, let me stamp you.” Cherie administers a pad stamp to the back of Nomi’s left hand. “There you go, honey. Go crazy. Enjoy the show.”
“Thanks.”
And she’s through the felt-covered door. There’s no bouncer, because this is not really a club, in the same way that the Riverview—with so many permanent residents—is not really a hotel. Tonight, the ballroom here is an event space; tomorrow, it could be something else, a market or a sex dungeon or a cinema for a community movie night. Everything is fluid in the Meatpacking District. Nothing is permanent.
Well, some things are permanent. Past the strobes, Nomi takes off her leather jacket for the cloakroom, exposing her tattoos. This is how most people in the West Village know her: by the black ring circling her right bicep, by the flames and thorny vines and roses climbing up her left arm from her wrist, by the two ravens battling across her right shoulder blade, wings feathering the back of her neck. And now, by the—hard-to-make-out—pad stamp of a pair of burning lips on her left hand.
Turning from the cloakroom, she sees Enrique wave nearby; he’s laden down with a makeup case, a garment bag for his outfit, a pair of heels dangling from one finger. “Nomi! Hey, girl! I got your thing.”
She squeezes through to reach him, grinning. “Another thing?”
He scrounges in the back pocket of his parachute pants, holds up a little clear baggie. “Here you go. Marco says he’s sorry the old amethyst one broke, and he hopes you love this new one.”
Nomi takes the baggie, swallows hard: inside, a perfect obsidian arrowhead, no bigger than a Kennedy half dollar, wrapped in silver wire at the base and ready to be suspended from a necklace.
“It’s gorgeous.” She’s dry mouthed. “Marco did a great job.”
“He said he’s got a chain for it, if you want.”
“I don’t need a chain.” She clutches the baggie, tries to keep her hand from shaking as she thanks Enrique, as he air-kisses her cheek and sashays away. Between her fingers, the obsidian’s hardness bites through the plastic. Now, the question of what to do. She should wait; she knows that. But there’s an incessant hum on her body’s entire surface. If she doesn’t do something to calm it, she’ll be distracted all night.
Okay, fine.
She finds Mischa among the crush of people closest to the corner by the door, with the rest of the dealers whose business model involves being accessible. He’s wearing leather pants with a silver velvet shirt, and a Day-Glo headband already dark with perspiration.
He returns her nod. “Hey, what’s happening, sugar?”
“Those pants look too hot,” she notes.
“Ohmigod, Iknow,” Mischa says. “I’m sweating like crazy.”
