She’s about to turn for Greenwich Street when she sees the black metal folding chairs outside Florent, the familiar posture of the guy smoking and reading a newspaper behind gold-framed sunglasses.
Shaking her head, Nomi walks straight over. “Holy shit, you’re here. I knocked at your place, but I figured you’d gone to seeHellraiseror something.”
As she pulls out a chair, Simon folds up his newspaper. “Hello again. What’s a hellraiser?”
“Your cultural gaps are showing again, my friend—I’ll explain it to you later.” He has an espresso demitasse and a small bowl of green grapes on the table beside him. She steals a grape, pops it into her mouth, talks while she chews. “Right now, I got a lead on Janice D’Addario, and I was hoping you might want to come check it out with me. Unless—I don’t know—do you still have a headache?”
“Yes.” He pushes up his sunglasses, blue eyes scrunched against the glare. “But if I stopped all activity whenever I got a headache, I’d never come out of my apartment, so I’ve just taken a bunch of drugs.”
“Fair.”
“You really want me to come along? I seem to remember something you said about us not being partners.”
“I changed my mind.” She shrugs, eats another grape. “You’re growing on me.”
“Like mold.”
“Exactly. Plus, I told Leo yesterday that I’ve hired personal security, which is basically like announcing it to the whole neighborhood.”
“So now you’ve got to keep that up.”
“You got it.”
He snorts, reaches forward and slides down her Wayfarers so he can examine her eyes. “You still have a concussion. How are you so bouncy?”
“Because that’s my secret, Noone—every time I take a hit, I come back stronger.” Nomi pops another grape and grins. “Come on, have you got anything better to do?”
Chapter Twelve
September 1987, Monday
They’ve crossed Greenwich Street, and they’re about to hit Hudson. Nomi examines the building walls on this side, which sport geological layers of tattered advertising posters for shows, clubs, bands, fundraisers—there’s some good gigs coming up. A kid goes by on a bike. Far in the distance, rusted water towers.
Before they left Florent, Nomi scooped the rest of the grapes into her cupped hand. She snacks as they walk. “Okay, I was planning to catch the subway, but given your aversion, and my concussion, we should probably get a cab.”
“Probably, yes.” Noone is wearing more normal clothes: jeans, a dark chambray shirt, his black peacoat, his engineer boots. It’s quite a contrast from his work wear. “Although if I’m pretending to be hired security, I feel like you should be paying me.”
“See? Your sense of humor’s coming back, you must be feeling better.” Traffic is bustling on Hudson Street. As they reach the curb, Nomi finishes the grapes, wipes her hand on her shirt, flings her arm up toward the road. “Hey! Hey, I’m waving here!”
It only takes about three seconds for one of the clunky yellow Checkers to pull up in front of them. Nomi wrenches open the cab’s rear door and pushes Noone inside, clambers in after him. “Talking in Your Sleep,” by The Romantics, is playing on the radio. The cab smellsof old Chinese takeout, and the black vinyl seat is slightly sticky, with a broken spring.
Noone grimaces in distaste. “Delightful.”
That he’s spent five years in Guatemala and is still such a snob is hilarious. “You don’t like the subway, you don’t like cabs ... What’s next, bus phobia?”
“I really need to buy that bicycle. Where are we going?”
“South. But we’ve got to do a Midtown loop first.” Nomi leans toward the driver, a weedy Irish guy with a bulbous nose. “Take a left onto Horatio, then go up Eighth Avenue to West Thirty-Third—the Farley Post Office building. Then we’re going to Hudson Square. And, sir, it is illegal to mess with the meter, just drive how I told you, okay?”
“So you found Janice D’Addario’s address?” Noone asks.
“Yep.” As they pull into traffic, she turns back. “I got in touch with someone I know who works at Chachi’s, this club off Hudson in Greenwich Village. With the connection to Leo Farina and Ricki Cevolatti, I figured Janice was probably on staff there. It was a hunch, but it played out.”
“Nice work.”
“I told you, this is my job. I want to get this fixed. Brittany Jackson has been missing for nearly five days, and it’s bugging the shit out of me.”
Noone cocks his head at her. “You’re pretty committed to this case, aren’t you?”
