“No. Yes.” Nomi shifts on her feet, impatient. “Kind of. Look, I don’t have time to—”
“I’ll come with you.” He’s already pulling on his boots.
“What? No, you don’t need to—”
“Yeah, I do. Lamonte doesn’t play nice, remember?”
“Do you think I’m an idiot?” She gives him a hard stare, her urge to move tightly reined and vibrating beneath her skin. “I’ve been doing this job for two years. I take precautions, okay?”
She opens the side of her jacket. The matte black object tucked into the holster under her armpit is a gun, Simon realizes.Interesting.
It still doesn’t sway him. Yesterday’s glimpse into Nomi’s world has intrigued him, and his desire for answers to his personal quest is like a persistent itch. He grabs his trench coat, which holds keys, cash, cigarettes. “Where are you going on the train?”
“What? Flatbush, I’m going to Flatbush. But—”
“That’s, what, an hour away? We can talk on the train, then I can jump another train back home while you go about your business.” He pulls the door closed behind himself.
“You’re crazy,” she blurts.
“A little, probably,” he admits. “Come on, you’ll miss your window.”
She throws up her hands, but she’s either given up or run out of time.
Downstairs and out on the street, she walks fast enough that he’d be struggling to keep up if he wasn’t nearly a foot taller with a longer stride. They’ve already crossed Greenwich Street, heading for Hudson. Nomi dodges a teenage white girl with a dog on a string lead, ignores the crosswalk sign and strides straight across the Hudson intersection like she’s bulletproof.
Simon hauls after her. “Where are we getting on the subway?”
“West Fourteenth and Eighth Avenue—keep up.” For a while, the pace is brisk, and he knows she’s still annoyed. But after cutting past an art space near the corner of Gansevoort and turning left near Jackson Square, Nomi’s lope settles down.
Behind them, Eighth Avenue is afternoon-quiet, enjoying the lull before it revs back up again with its small army of red delivery trucks and white-coated meat workers pushing hand trolleys. Ahead, both the Greco-Roman pomp of the New York County National Bank and the wedding cake tiers of the Bankers Trust Company high-rise seemvaguely insulted to be sharing space with pizza shops, delicatessens, liquor stores, peep show signs. The Port Authority Building looms in the distance.
But they’re not going that far up; Nomi clatters down the subway stairs, and Simon follows behind, saying goodbye to the sun.
They buy their tokens and get to the platform about ten seconds before the next train arrives. The carriage isn’t too packed, but it has that subway smell of urine, old body odor, and hot steel. Graffiti is everywhere, and the nearest seats glisten with fresh spray paint; Simon chooses to stand.
Nomi holds the pole beside him. Her posture seems more relaxed now they’re locomoting, but her face is hard to read.
“What?”
“I’m wondering if you’re still mad,” he says.
“I just don’t need a bodyguard, okay?”
“Fine. No bodyguarding. It’s only ...” He lets his gaze float as he thinks of a way to explain why he’s gate-crashed her afternoon activities. “I’ve been trying to figure this out on my own for a long time, so I’m ready to get started. Call me overeager.”
“Overeager, huh?” Her stance softens as the train bumps along.
He shrugs. Farther along the carriage, a guy in a business suit smokes a cigarette; now Simon kind of wants one.
“Okay, I’ll buy that.” Nomi seems resigned, if not entirely content. “You’re still the weirdest client ever.”
That almost makes him smile. “You should’ve seen me when I first regained consciousness.”
But it’s not really funny. He remembers that time as a transcendental whirl with no discernible pattern: He’d wake up to morning light, wake up again at night, wake up crying, wake up mid-conversation. He could never remember blacking out. His tongue had been dry and fat in his mouth, and he’d been barely lucid, his mind a bouncing roulette ball. He’d asked Flores a million questions—Where am I? How did I get here? Who are you? What is happening?—but could never retain the answers.
“What’s it like, having no memory?” Nomi is examining his face.
It’s the most awful thing you can imagine.Simon doesn’t want to say that, doesn’t want to scare her. He keeps his expression neutral. “I don’t know what it’s like any other way, so I can’t really tell you.”
