Chapter Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Eight
“Is she traveling?” I asked the woman who’d answered Chevy’s private line.
“No, I told you, she no longer works here,” she said again, through clenched teeth.
“Yes, yes, you did say that—”
“Twice,” the woman snapped, and then I heard a click and a dial tone.
I stared at the phone for a while before dropping it back onto its base.
Something very strange was happening over there in Brooklyn. I couldn’t get a hold of Noah or Chevy. They both lived in the same damn house, yet no one ever answered the phone.
I finally called Noah’s office and his assistant told me that he’d taken a leave of absence.
Yes, something very strange was happening in Brooklyn.
I picked up the phone and buzzed Geneva.
“Yessum, Missus Atkins,” she said with a snicker.
“Stop being so silly,” I chastised her, even though I couldn’t help but smile. “You up for taking a trip with me to Brooklyn tonight?”
There was silence.
“Helllllllllloooo?”
“Brooklyn, why there?”
“Because I can’t reach Noah or Chevy, and I think something is wrong.”
“Aw, Crystal, Brooklyn is so far away,” she whined.
“Stop it. It is not—it’s right over the bridge,” I reminded her.
“Yeah, well, maybe so, but it’s a goddamn world away!”
“Geneva!”
“And the people there are weird.”
“They are not!”
“Yes, they are. People get mugged in Brooklyn. It’s all those damn trees, dirt roads, and farmland!”
“What are we, back in the eighteen hundreds now?”
Geneva laughed.
“So will you come with me?”
“Sure, just let me go home and get my Glock first!”
“I’ll see you after work.” I laughed and put down the phone.
Three hours later, Geneva and I were on the A train headed toward Brooklyn. We’d been to Noah’s house maybe six times since he bought it, and just the thought of that made me feel ashamed.
“It shouldn’t take something like this to get us to Noah’s house,” I said to Geneva as the train streaked through the tunnel.
“Uh-huh,” she mumbled between bites of her Scooter sweet pie.
“I didn’t even know they still made those,” I said as I watched her tongue pick the cake out of the corners of her mouth.
“Yep, they still make them,” she said as she devoured the sweet pie.
“I guess your diet is history, huh?”
Geneva’s face went flat and she turned slanted eyes on me. “No!” she bellowed, and some passengers looked up from their books at us.
“Shh, I just asked a question—you don’t have to get so defensive and loud,” I whispered.
“Whatever,” she mumbled.
I’d hurt her feelings, so I patted her knee and said, “This is kind of like a trip, huh?” It was corny, I know.
“A trip?” Geneva spouted, spraying bits of Scooter Pie in my face. “Sorry,” she uttered as she attempted to wipe away the crumbs she’d just covered me with.
I pushed her hand back, completing the job myself, and said, “Well, it’s like an adventure, you and me on the A train to Brooklyn. It’s exciting!”
Geneva gave me a crooked look. “A train ride to Brooklyn is exciting now? Girl, you’re not getting out as much as I thought you were.” She laughed.
I smirked at her. “I guess what I’m trying to say, Ms.Geneva,” I said from between pursed lips, “is that I’m glad you decided to come with me.”
Geneva eyed me for a moment, and then her face softened. “You know I wouldn’t let you come here alone. We’re girls, and that’s what girls do for each other.”
—
Out on Fulton Street now, we tried hard to get our bearings among the rush hour crowd that had exited the station with us.
“Um, ’scuse me, sir, which way is Stuyvesant Avenue?
” I asked a young, good-looking man with a baseball cap who was walking by.
His head jerked at the word sir , and then a broad smile spread across his face.
He nodded toward the corner and said, “That way, Ma,” before giving me an appreciative look and walking on.
“Ma?” I looked at Geneva for guidance.
“Oh, that’s their word for girl, lady, chick,” she said nonchalantly.
“Oh,” I mumbled and we started in the direction his chin had indicated.
Halfway down Stuyvesant Avenue I realized that I didn’t have the address with me. “Do you know the house number?” I asked Geneva, who gave me a comical look and shrugged her shoulders before saying, “Lost in Brooklyn.”
“Is everything a joke to you?” I asked, frustrated more with myself than with her.
“Just call Noah and ask him,” Geneva muttered as she dug into her pocketbook in search of her pack of cigarettes.
“How many times do I have to tell you that neither one of them has been answering the phone, so what sense would it make to call now?”
“What about the cell phones?”
“They’re not answering those either,” I said, and then I thought about it and said, “Well, Noah’s not answering his and Chevy’s is temporarily disconnected.”
Geneva gave me a blank look, popped the cigarette between her lips, and lit it with her green Bic lighter. “Oh,” she breathed as she cocked off a plume of smoke.
We walked on as I tried hard to remember what Noah’s brownstone looked like, but they all seemed to look the same.
Frustrated, I pulled my cell phone from my purse and dialed Noah’s number. It rang just once and then his outgoing message came on.
“Noah, Geneva and I are in Brooklyn, right on Stuyvesant Avenue, and I can’t remember your house number, so if you’re there, please pick up.”
I waited for the sound of his voice, but all I got was the beeping sound telling me that the machine had finished recording my message and disconnected me.
I turned and looked at Geneva, who dropped her cigarette butt to the ground and stubbed it out with the toe of her beat-up Reebok.
“Back to civilization, then?” she said snidely.
I didn’t even answer her; I just huffed and started back up the street.