He climbs in, shuts the door. “I thought we weren’t taking a cab?”
“Do not sayOne Goddamn Word.”She looks like she wants to kill him.
“Where to, lady?” New York City cab drivers must have to sign some kind of unflappability agreement before they get this job.
“Any-Fucking-Where,” Nomi shouts, before turning to Simon as the cab takes off. “Youabsolute fucking fuckhead. I should push you off the Brooklyn Bridge, I swear to god. I am not even kidding.”
“Nomi—”
She pulls the silver ring from her lip, throws it into the rear passenger footwell. Turns and holds up a declamatory finger, her expression wild. “Whatdid I say to you? What did Isay?Don’t go off script.You fuckingasshole—do you haveany ideawhat you’ve just done?”
Simon still feels light somehow, as if the brutality on the stairs has lifted a weight. “Nomi, come on—Ameche already knows where you live. At least now he knows you’re prepared to fight back.”
“Oh, right—I’m going tofight back. I’m fighting back againstthe fucking Gambino mob. Christ, do you evenhearyourself?” Nomi is a lightning storm, her oil-slick hair swirling in the wind of the cab’s rapid movement down Hudson Street, her eyes black with fury. “I’m just one person! Ameche can bring down so much more firepower, it’s not even a contest—andthis isn’t even about Ameche!” Her voice is raw with accented emotion. She shoves Simon hard in the joint of his shoulder. “How do you not get this? It’snot about Ameche, and it’s not aboutyou, and it’s not aboutme—although Lamonte will be quite happy to escalate things now, so thank you very much for that ...”
Simon recognizes the callback to what she said when they first met, like he’s returned to square one. The idea dampens the quicksilver in his veins.
Nomi closes her eyes, cups them in her palms. “But it’s not aboutany of that. It’s about aseven-year-old kidtrapped in some place she can’t leave, with men who think of her as a commodity—”
She throws up her hands, looks away. Simon realizes she’s crying.
“Nomi.” He straightens, the elation he’s feeling draining away as fast as it arrived. “Nomi, hey ...”
“Goddammit,shut up.” She looks anywhere but at him, sniffing, swiping her eyes roughly with the back of one hand. After a moment, she turns to him again. “Look, I dragged you out tonight while you’re loaded, and that’s on me. But I need you to think about the bigger picture. To think about someone other thanyourself. Because otherwise, what are we? No better than schmucks like Lamonte.”
Simon suddenly realizes in his bones: He has made a mistake. Maybe a bad one. If the expression on Nomi’s face is any measure, maybe very bad. What can he do?
He opens and closes his mouth, reaching for solutions. “I’ll ... I’ll fix it.”
“You can’tfixit,” Nomi says sadly. She looks away, waves toward the glittering city out the cab window. “Look at it out there—you think you can fix it? I was a cop. I tried. The big problems don’t fix.”
He swallows. Doesn’t know what to say.
“If I’ve learned anything the last two years, it’s that you can only fix the stuff around you.” She turns and slaps her palm against his bare chest, something he’d been silently hoping she’d do all night. “Fixin here. Fixthis.”
His heart thumps madly under her hand. “I’m sorry,” he gets out at last.
“You’re sorry. Well, I’m ...” She turns away to face the window once more. “I’m tired. I’m really tired, Simon. And I know you’ve somehow walked into this problem I’m trying to solve, and it’s not even your problem, and you’ve just spent five years in the jungle ...”
The stark truth of it robs his breath. “I don’t even know my real name.”
“I get it. You don’t know your real name. You don’t know the man you were. And listen, I’m not a perfect person. I’m not even a good person. So with that proviso, let me give you some advice, okay?” She’s gazing at the city neon with a profound weariness. “Stop worryingabout the man you were. Concentrate on being the man you want to become.”
There’s a long moment of quiet.
They drive around in the cab for nearly forty minutes, until it feels safe enough to return to Gansevoort Street. A big yellow gibbous moon glows among the sharp silhouettes of the Manhattan skyline.
Silver tracks dry on Nomi’s cheeks, mixing with streaks of black kohl. Simon lights a cigarette and flicks the ash out the window; the embers spin and sparkle in the cab’s slipstream, like the lights of a far-off carousel.
Chapter Sixteen
September 1987, Wednesday
Nomi looks around at the rear courtyard of the bodega, which is gray with damp. Benito has given up on getting his dish towels dry today; instead, a half dozen large plastic food-display tubs are stacked together against the fence, their backs exposed to the rain.
“First of all, what’s the big deal with the rezoning?” Irma is in her blues, her NYPD cap resting on the ugly table. She’s eating her chopped cheese in big bites, a little lettuce and mayo leaking out the side.
Nomi is pacing on the pavers and smoking one of Irma’s Winstons while swigging a soda. She stopped buying cigarettes years ago, when the cherry-red glow of the burning tip began looking too tempting, but sometimes she still needs that nicotine hit. “It’s something to do with monopoly land ownership and the Cabaret Law. I’ll have to do more research. I’m assuming, if Galetti is fighting so hard over it, it’s something that’s preventing him from making money.”
