“Will she be all right?” Sofia Rosa falls back into Spanish when she’s anxious.
Simon replies in kind. “She’ll be fine.” But he’s worried about the loss of consciousness, however momentary. “Did she throw up?”
“Not yet.” Sofia Rosa recovers her English. “You want coffee? I need coffee.”
“Go make coffee,” Simon suggests before turning back to Nomi. “You’re going to have a hell of a hangover. I’m concerned about concussion because you passed out. But right now, I think you need stitches on this cut.”
“That’s a bummer,” Nomi replies, voice hoarse. “Because I can’t go to the hospital.”
Simon thinks for a moment. This presents a certain level of difficulty. The cut is too long and badly positioned to use surgical glue. “I can stitch this. I’ve stitched plenty of wounds before. But it’ll really hurt—faces and hands are the worst places to get sewn up. A local anesthetic would be best.”
“That’s too bad, I guess,” she says wearily.
He’s sutured wounds in conditions worse than the ones in this apartment. He turns to Sofia Rosa, switches language. “Auntie, we may have to fix this ourselves. Is that okay?”
“Eh.” His landlady isn’t thrilled about it. But sometimes people need things they can’t get through official channels, which is why she keeps an empty room up on the third floor. She ties on her apron, fishes for a cigarette in the pocket, puts a small saucepan filled with water on the stove. “I don’t mind if you do it, but I don’t want to watch. Do you need special medical things?”
Sunday afternoon, there’s unlikely to be a drugstore open in the area with the necessary supplies. Fortunately, that’s something he’s accustomed to. He won’t have a needle driver, which will be awkward; the rest he can probably cobble together.
“I need a stiff needle, strong thread, boiling water. A pair of metal scissors. Some clean cloth ...”
“Are you talking in Spanish so I won’t get nervous?” Nomi interrupts.
Simon ignores her. “Neosporin and Band-Aids. And if you have a metal thimble, that would be good.”
“I have those things.” Sofia Rosa adds ingredients to the saucepan: dark-brown sugar, ground coffee, a cinnamon stick.
“Is there more boiled water? And dish towels?” Simon waits as his landlady sets her cigarette in an ashtray, ferries those items to the small end table on his right. Then he has a brainwave. “Auntie, does anyone here on the first floor have numbing cream? Like for bedsores or leg ulcers?”
Sofia Rosa brightens. “Mr. Harvey across the hallway has cream for ulcers. He will be home from church by now. As soon as this coffee is boiling, I’ll go talk with him.”
“What’s going on?” Nomi’s voice still has a punch-drunk slur. She seems bewildered by the Spanish.
Simon dampens and wrings out a new dishcloth, uses the same mild voice that he’d use for any bewildered patient in the village. “OnceSofia Rosa has made coffee, she’s going to put together everything we’ll need to stitch your head. How do you feel?”
“You asked me that already.” Her carnivore eyes blink, soften. “You said there was a guy. I didn’t believe you.”
“Forget about it.” He wipes carefully at her cheek, the side of her jaw. The blood on her face is fresh and easy to remove. “How did he get you?”
“He had a jacket and an envelope and a clipboard, like a courier.” She seems mildly astonished that she fell for it. “You tried to warn me. You asked me how I feel? I feel like an idiot.” She flops a hand toward the damp cloth. “Gimme that, I’ve gotta wipe my other eye.”
“Let her drink this.” Sofia Rosa sets a glass of warm water on the end table, switches to English. “No-mee? We will get the things for your head, yes?”
“Thank you.” Nomi carefully dabs the inside corners of both eyes. “And thanks for helping me.”
Sofia Rosa makes a “fffssshhh” sound that indicates these are the things neighbors do for one another, stubs out her cigarette. “Simon, I go talk with Mr. Harvey, okay?”
“Thank you, Auntie.” As his landlady leaves the apartment, Simon turns back and watches Nomi sip the warm water. Her hand isn’t shaking too much. He feels some sort of way—he’s not sure what—mostly unsettled. “Look, I didn’t mean to follow you. I saw you as I was coming home from work. The courier guy was already tracking you, I just ... tried to keep up with him.”
Nomi can’t really squint at him, but she’s giving it a try. “Have you tailed anyone before?”
“I don’t know,” Simon admits.
But he was good at it. More than good: It felt natural, comfortable. One of those fully formed skills, rising up unbidden. His reactions and movements were so smooth, following the courier: He knew how to keep his distance, double back, slide into doorways, tracking the man in the flat cap.
Even as he performed the actions, he found it all deeply unnerving. How does he know how to do this stuff? And he’s still thinking of slicing up the courier like he’d bone out a beef shoulder.Concentrate.
Nomi sets down the glass, more worried about the courier himself. “So the guy saw what I was doing in Hell’s Kitchen before he jumped me?”
