A juggler maneuvers two large coins in an infinity pattern.
Upright: flexibility, adaptability, flux, resourcefulness, perseverance
Reversed: disorganization, disarray, rigidity
Kiyoko curses, seeing Stella’s bloody belt tied on the wrought iron fence at their meetup spot at 52 East Second Street. She takes five deep, cleansing breaths and makes a new plan.
Locker.
Home.
Book.
Escape.
Her eyes burn with tired. Her cut hand throbs. Her makeup is smeared. Her feet are dirty and she still wears her thin undergarments.
Also, she carries the stolen, cursed Hope Diamond in a cloth knapsack.
LOCKER.
She is over three miles away from the most obvious public lockers at Grand Central Station. Plus, that’s likely being watched. No, a different kind of locker is in order. So she walks backtowardthe Potter Building.
(That’s called chutzpah, Friend.)
While the crowd still grumbles and rumbles across from the scene of the crime, while the police presence grows with clanging bells and sizzling spotlights, Kiyoko slips into the post office building, literally right behind this crowd.
Like all post offices, the part of the building that houses the PO boxes is open twenty-four hours. Kiyoko first slips into the washroom. For hours, she waits. She pays herself with her part of the haul, tying her portion in a stolen silk scarf. Slowly she hears the crowd outside the post office thin. Sunlight begins to peek in the front windows.
At last, someone enters who looks trustworthy: A young mother and her son.
Kiyoko knows she is dirty, barefoot, bloodstained, so she approaches the mother gently. Kiyoko explains what she needs, and though there is a language barrier, the young mother eventually understands, agrees.
That mother leaves the domed post office with her pieces of mail and a new ruby brooch to pawn.
And Kiyoko whispers to the locked-tight PO box, “Just get here before the postmaster, Stella. Everything is ruined if he gets here first.”
HOME.
Kiyoko’s home is many blocks away. She supposes that were she simply bloody and dirty she could take the subway, but she is bloody and dirty and guilty. She assumes that by now, the actual NYPD is looking for her and the others.
(But primarily for her.)
Her sister and father are still asleep. Kiyoko quietly cleans herself up and leaves behind three items, each with a short note: an engraved pocket watch (For Papa), a diamond-and-sapphire bracelet (Sell Me), and a locket containing a photo of Alva Belmont, one of the New York City socialites at the party (Keep Me). That last bauble is her “just in case”—an insurance policy. One never knows when leverage might be needed.
She considers adding another note, something along the lines of “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” but this isn’t the first time Kiyoko has needed to lie low for a while. They’ll figure it out. She blows them each a kiss, and she disappears as quietly as smoke.
BOOK.
Kiyoko must wait. She hopes that Laura is one of the staff members who is on the opening shift and that she uses the side door on Forty-Second Street.
She is and she does.
Kiyoko approaches Laura with a key and asks her to place it in a very specific book. Laura quickly agrees. Kiyoko offers her a shimmering bracelet as thanks. Laura shakes her head, but Kiyoko insists.
The braid of the bracelet is silver, gold, and rose gold and it looks stunning on Laura’s thin wrist. Kiyoko breathes deeply and suppresses the sudden urge to kiss the curve of this woman’s hand, her palm, her neck, her everywhere.
Kiyoko walks away. Turns once. Laura is still watching her. She waves at Kiyoko, and when she lifts her hand, the bracelet glitters on her lovely wrist.
