Chapter Ten
Rather than hold his arm as they make their way out of the first floor of the tenement, Nomi holds the couch, the door, the wall.
Simon finds this amusing. It reminds him of a saying they have in Piedras Negras about a stubborn person: that they can see the storm clouds coming but refuse to kneel and pray for God’s protection.
Nomi is exactly like that. She sees the storm but refuses to kneel. Much as Simon knows the aphorism is supposed to be cautionary, there’s something gutsy about her attitude.
They get out the narrow door and down the steps, into the late afternoon on Gansevoort Street. After the cool gloom of Sofia Rosa’s apartment, the sidewalk seems to radiate the day’s heat. Now there’s no furniture to use as support, Nomi’s forced to lean on him as they walk.
“Where are we going?” Simon asks.
“One block, to Hector’s Café.” The bruises around her eye and the gory stitches on her eyebrow pop like neon in the sunlight. Her cheeks are developing a chalky green color. She presses her lips together.
“Nausea?”
“Yes.” Grimly determined, she concentrates on her steps. They skirt someone’s pushbike, chained up to a street-sign pole. “Talk to me. Distract me.”
“We don’t have to do this now—”
“Shut up. Yes, we do. Are you gonna talk to me or not?”
He relents, steadies his bracing arm against her weight. “Okay, you said Solange Jackson is seeing an exclusive client for Eric Lamonte. Is that what got her daughter kidnapped?”
“Yes.” Nomi swallows, firms her knees. They’re almost at Perrotta’s deli grocery.
“Solange starts spending all her time with this guy. When she asks for more money, Malcolm says yes. Placating, right? Then she tells him the situation is making her uncomfortable—the guy is off his face on drugs all the time, Lamonte keeps loading him up—plus the secrecy around it is weird, and she’s losing time with her daughter.
Next thing, she goes home and Brittany’s gone. ”
“Who’s the client?”
“I’ve got a name—Jeremy. I’m trying to find out more. I know he’s young, white, and an addict. Solange sees him at an apartment here in the village on Perry Street, and she thinks Lamonte is paying the rent on it.”
“That seems like a strange arrangement to have with a client.”
“No kidding.” Passing the grocery, closing on the corner with Washington Street, Nomi straightens her shoulders. “Okay. Okay, I got this.”
This whole expedition is ridiculous. But they’ve come this far, and Simon feels compelled to be encouraging. “You’re doing great.”
“Yeah, I’m a fucking hero. We turn right here. What’s the deal with your clothes?”
“What’s wrong with my clothes?” Simon can’t believe she’s critiquing his outfit when her white shirt is crusted with bloodstains. Other pedestrians stare as they pass by.
“When I saw you in Hell’s Kitchen, I hardly recognized you. Is that what you wear to work? They let you dress like a bum at Gennaro’s?”
“I’m not dressed like a bum. Everybody dresses like this. I fit in.”
“You fit in, right.” She winces as they cross Washington and take the curb. “Wonderful. Simon Noone, human chameleon. Just up here, on the left.”
They’re under a chicken processing plant’s portico, but it’s not blocking the glare of the sun lowering in the west. The pylons of the High Line vibrate from the ambient rumble of traffic. A red delivery truck rolls around the corner up ahead; then Nomi is shaking him off.
“Let me walk alone. You can lurk behind me, but this guy won’t cooperate if I look like I can’t stand by myself.”
It’s a bad idea, but Simon lets her go.
She lists, steadies, spits onto the sidewalk. Now she’s got it. “Okay, listen, I’m going to talk to a low-level drug dealer called Leo Farina. He was a friend of Ricki’s. I’ll be faking him out, so just—I don’t know—try not to look surprised at stuff I say.”
Pinching her own cheeks for color, she takes the last ten paces to Hector’s Café unaided. Simon follows close enough behind that if she drops, he can grab her.
The café is a redbrick box under the elevated rail line, plainer than dirt, but the inside is shaded and cool. Brown linoleum that looks unchanged since the sixties, red stools fixed in place at the counter, tables with granite-look tops and padded metal chairs.
Four men are clustered around one table, having pushed aside coffee cups and plates of egg scraps and sausage fat.
They’re having postprandial cigarettes and tiny glasses of some clear spirit.
Simon finds it easier now to recognize when people are speaking Italian, and that’s what these guys are speaking.
“You can tell me what they’re whispering behind my back,” Nomi mutters.
“And help you stay upright.”
“See? You’re multifunctional, like a Swiss Army knife.” She steps forward with the appearance of confidence, her voice gaining normal volume. “Hey, Leo? You got a minute?”
One of the men at the table—black trousers, gold satin shirt, brown tinted sunglasses—looks over and does a double take. “Harriet? What the fuck happened to you?”
“Bumped into a door,” Nomi deadpans. “Can we talk?”
The other men chortle. One of them grins. “You gonna say the magic words, princess?”
Simon straightens involuntarily to his full height.
He keeps his tone jovial. “‘If you laugh at her again, I will shove that steak knife in your eye’—how’s that for magic words?”
“Don’t oversell it,” Nomi murmurs to him, before looking back at the men around the table, who have suddenly become much quieter. “Leo, just get the fuck over here, okay?”
Leo extricates himself and slouches closer, pushing his sunglasses up into his hair. Nomi directs him outside to a spot near a trash can on the corner, under the riveted beams of the overhead rail line. Simon shadows her, his arms crossed, watching and curious.
“Okay, I’m here. What’s your problem?” Leo pulls a cigarette out from behind one ear, lights it with a gold Zippo, eyes tracking warily between Nomi and Simon. “Who’s your friend?”
“Gee, I don’t know—my personal valet?” Nomi’s lip curls as she points at her injured eyebrow. “Look at my face, Leo. Who the fuck do you think he is? I’m walking around my own goddamn neighborhood with security because of your last conversation with Ricki Cevolatti.”
She said this would be a fake-out, and now she’s playing it to the hilt; Simon makes an effort to follow her lead and appear more coldly menacing. Apparently, it works, because Leo glances over, then takes a step back.
“Whoa. What?” Flustered, Leo squints, his cheeks reddening. “What are you talking about? I didn’t have no conversation with Ricki—”
“Do you think I’m stupid, Leo?” Nomi steps into his space, fronting the guy in a way he seems unused to. “Do I look like a stupid person to you? Everyone knows you and Ricki cut from the same source. So what the fuck did you say?”
Leo’s full lower lip drops. “Nothing! Last time I saw Ricki was, like, Thursday last week, and your name didn’t come up!”
“So what were you two chewing the fat about on Thursday?” Hands on hips, she somehow looks more cop-like.
“Nothing, I swear! We were just having some drinks with Janice—”
“Janice?”
“Yeah, Janice.” Leo swallows. “She’s Ricki’s main girl. He says, come over to Janice’s place after her shift for some drinks and stuff, so I go.”
“This Janice, she’s got auburn hair?”
“Nah—Janice D’Addario, with the brown hair.”
Nomi frowns, which Simon is sure must hurt. But the way she’s manipulating Leo into spilling his guts is both fascinating and masterful.
“Right,” Nomi says. “So there you are, having drinks and snorting blow with Ricki and Janice, and my name comes up—”
“No!” Leo’s obviously a guy who works hard to maintain a cool image, but right now, his defensive twitchiness is just making him look petulant.
“No, I told you, no way. We didn’t talk about you or nothing, we just talked work.
You know how it is—Ricki’s moaning about how he’s getting the same amount of gear, but his boss expects him to stretch it.
He’s got some special delivery that’s eating into his cut. ”
Nomi sucks her teeth and glowers. Considering the state she’s in, it’s a remarkable performance. But it’s working on Leo; his bottom lip is wet, and his eyes keep lowering to his shoes.
“So if it wasn’t you and Ricki talking, then why’ve I got a fucking black eye?” Nomi sighs heavily. “I’m getting it from all sides here, Leo—my old PD boss is breathing down my neck, and now I’m dodging Ricki’s boss’s pals . . . I’m feeling a little like the meat in the sandwich, you know?”
Leo raises his right hand like a Boy Scout. “I swear on my mother’s life, Nomi, your name didn’t come up.”
“All right. Then I gotta ask around some more.” She rubs her mouth, scanning the street, then steps in and grasps his shoulder, squeezes. “Look, Leo, we can keep this local—my name stays off your lips, then I don’t need to drop your name to anyone at Tenth Precinct, okay?”
“Absolutely, sure.” This chumminess is apparently more Leo’s style. His stiff posture relaxes, and he nods compulsively. “I’d appreciate that, Nomi, I really would.”
She lets her hand drop. “Okay, done.”
“So we’re cool?” He glances between Simon and Nomi again, his eagerness to have this conversation over giving his features a shiny cast.
“We’re cool.” Nomi snorts, shooing with her hand like he’s a naughty kid. “Now go on, go back and finish your drink. Have one for me.”
Leo grins, happy to be let off the hook. “You’re solid, Harriet.”
She rolls her eyes. “Get the fuck outta here. Take it easy, Leo.”
As Leo moves back to open the door into Hector’s Café, Nomi walks off without looking at Simon. He has to fall in beside her as she crosses the road and stomps down Washington, hands fisted.
Simon glances at her: Her lips are fish-meat white. He keeps his voice lowered. “Are you okay?”
“Don’t talk to me. Keep walking.” They’re nearly at the corner with Gansevoort. She blows out air. “Has he gone back inside Hector’s?”
Simon glances back. “Yes.”
“Good.”