Chapter Seventeen #2
He agrees to accompany her, purely on the reasoning that going to the Riverview can’t be worse than staying at home on his own.
Out on the sidewalk, the district nightlife has bloomed into full flower.
Nomi greets the two Latine sex workers on the corner as she ushers him into a left turn at Washington and continues explaining her plans for the evening.
“Ricki was delivering drugs to Solange and this Jeremy guy, right? So I’m thinking, who’s become the supplier since Ricki died?
That’s what I’m hoping Mischa or someone else will know. ”
“Presumably Lamonte has more than one gofer,” Simon suggests.
“Or he could be hiring. Either way, someone’s got to be delivering those drugs. Who are they, and where are they picking up their supply?” She stomps along awhile before glancing his way. “Listen—I read your journals.”
“Ah.” Simon tries to make the momentary wobble in his gait seem natural.
“The first one was a little rambling.”
He keeps his voice bland. “That was my first year of recovery, so my brain was very fuzzy.”
Everything was fuzzy. His head hurt constantly.
His eyes hurt. He was in a continuous state of low-level misery and anxiety: losing time, losing faces and names, things swimming back, then disappearing again.
His thoughts and emotions floated in a haze of medication, like they’d been muffled in layers of spiderweb.
“It did have a kind of Hunter S. Thompson vibe.” Nomi glances at him to see if he understands the reference. “It was very stream of consciousness.”
“As in, information streaming in and out of my consciousness in no coherent order.” He can be dry about it, but it’s still stressful to remember.
Nomi waits for a car to pass as they cross Horatio Street. “Things got better your second year. But you still had a few . . . episodes.”
He snorts. “That’s a very diplomatic way of putting it. Do you mean the convulsions, or—”
“You piled all the stuff together in your room and tried to set it on fire.” Nomi ticks things off the list. “You continued to see people and objects that weren’t there.
You tried to strangle a man who came to Flores’s clinic.
Isolated incidents. Most of the time you were normal.
But every now and again, it would be like your electric circuits malfunctioned. ”
“That’s basically what a brain is—a bunch of electric circuits.
And mine were glued back together in some kind of random order.
” A cab goes by with a length of tinsel dangling from the radio antenna.
Simon hates feeling like he’s justifying himself, but he wants to give her some context, although she should know this from the journals.
“Things have leveled out year on year since then. Flores used to say it would take time, and he was right.”
They’re approaching Moore’s Wholesale Meats, and a number of people on Jane Street are wearing fancy outfits, walking toward the hotel. There’s a strong smell of exhaust and also a whiff of pot. The evening temperature is dropping; Simon realizes he forgot to bring a scarf.
Nomi’s dark eyes dart toward him, all the metal in her ears glinting in the night. “But you still don’t really know what your normal state looks like.”
“Sure.” He thinks he should probably just say this without thinking too much about it. “I mean, maybe I’m not malfunctioning. Maybe I was just a really messed-up person in my old life, and now when I get, uh, dysregulated, I’m working as the manufacturer intended.”
Nomi, her black beanie jammed down, doesn’t answer at first. Then she stops in the street and sighs. “Simon, I’ve run your prints.”
That brings him to a dead halt. “What? Wait, where did you get my fingerprints?” It comes to him, then. “The coffee mug.”
“Yeah,” she admits. “The coffee mug from the time you slept in my living room.”
That was days ago, well before the incident at Big Mouth. Has she been holding onto his prints since then, like some kind of insurance policy? He feels ripped off. “We talked about this. I said I wanted to stay under the radar—”
“And you’re still under the radar,” Nomi reassures.
Her breath is warm enough—and tonight’s air is sufficiently cold—to create small clouds when she speaks.
“I told my ex-partner that I found fingerprints at a scene and I’m trying to eliminate scene contamination.
The channels I use, nobody is going to do follow-up checks or pass information along to immigration.
Listen, you want to find out, right? And after Tuesday night . . . I kind of want to find out.”
That stings. He’s stung. He thought things were okay between them. He looks away down the street. “So if my fingerprints get a hit, it means I’m on some police database?”
Hands shoved into her pockets, Nomi gives a short nod. “Yes. It’ll show whether you have an existing criminal record in America, or were arrested and fingerprinted in America prior to being charged with a criminal offense.”
“Will I show up in the system if I’m not a criminal?”
“Well, there’s a couple reasons you might show up, but I guess being a criminal is the main one.” Nomi scuffs at the pavement with the toe of her boot. “If we do get a hit, it’ll probably be a double-edged sword.”
“We’ll have some answers, but we may not like what those answers will be.” It’s a solemn thought.
She tries to keep things positive. “At least you’ll have some certainty. You’ll know who you are. And if your prints hit, and you have a criminal charge in your background, you probably want to know what that is, right?”
He wants to say “That depends,” but the words stick in his throat.
Nomi goes on. “Look, the criminal database is a pretty broad church. Maybe you boosted a car when you were a teenager. Maybe you got busted for shoplifting or something.”
“And if I don’t have a criminal charge? I’m not wild about the idea of my prints being added to the system.” He wonders if she’s forgotten the risks. She’s not the one walking around with fake papers.
“Like I said, your prints won’t be going to immigration. Either way, the best idea would be to not get arrested anytime in the future—which, you know, I’d probably recommend that as a general life strategy anyway.”
“Don’t get arrested, huh?” Simon makes a grimace. “Well, Claude Ameche was checking up on me at Gennaro’s last night, so I can’t make any promises.”
Nomi straightens, alarmed. “Ameche went after you at work?”
“My supervisor gave me a heads-up about it. I guess it was inevitable—Ameche knows who I am, he knows where you live, he’s seen us together.”
They both just hold that in silence for a moment. Yes, it’s Simon’s fuckup that’s brought this judgment down. But maybe Nomi’s lines of investigation were always going to draw fire. Either way, they’re going to have to figure out a solution together.
Nearby, a group of partygoers breaks into laughter. There are weeds on the sidewalk here, sticking up through gaps in the concrete. Up ahead, a six-story apartment building just before the Riverview Hotel.
“Okay, we should talk about that a bit more,” Nomi suggests. “But let’s do this first.”
“Nomi?” Simon looks at her directly. “Will you get the results of the fingerprint search tonight?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” She looks as apprehensive as he does. “As soon as I know, I’ll tell you. Are you still okay to come with me?”
The idea that he might find out who he is tonight gives him a seasick feeling. Simon takes a deep breath. Stop worrying about the man you were. Concentrate on being the man you want to become. This might not be the big deal he’s built it up to be. The search might turn up nothing, right?
“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, of course I’m okay to come with you.”
“Good. Thank you. All right, let’s go.”
Simon’s walked past the Riverview a couple times as he’s explored the village, but he’s never seen the redbrick octagonal tower at night before.
The entry facade is lit up, the columns glowing yellow and pink.
On the sidewalk, near the wrought iron banister at the foot of the grand front stairs, clusters of men gather, walk off, waving or shouting at friends across the street.
A thirtysomething guy in shiny sweatpants, a leopard-spotted shirt, and a Day-Glo headband loiters between a dumpster and a fire hydrant.
“There’s Mischa,” Nomi says. “Hold still here—give me a second.”
She walks over to talk to Day-Glo-headband man.
Simon finds a spot to lean his butt against the railing for the external stairs to the basement, where he can watch passersby and smoke a cigarette.
Nomi and her drug dealer friend make a subtle exchange, make conversation.
There’s the sound of a car horn honking farther up the block.
Music is faint in the background. A few people ascend the stairs to the Riverview lobby.
Mischa strolls off toward West Street, and Nomi wanders back. “Hey, I have to go inside.”
“You didn’t get what you needed?”
“I did, but Mischa said my friend Enrique wants to see me. It’s a film screening, so it won’t be too crazy. Let’s go up.”
At the top of the Riverview stairs, the lobby area has some nice tiling and decorative lamps and balcony railings.
There’s faint whooping and tinkling piano behind a heavy door, but it doesn’t seem like there’s a dance party going on.
To the right of the lobby, a reception desk.
Nomi explains what’s happening to the heavily made-up blond kid behind the counter, who’s snapping gum.
“Enrique’s already changed into Eureka backstage.” The blond receptionist has a strong New Jersey accent. “You just want to dash in and talk?”
“Yeah, I don’t want to stay for the whole movie,” Nomi says.
“Okay, no problem.” But as Nomi and Simon walk for the door, the receptionist waves. “Hold up, honey—you can’t go in. It’s Ladies’ Night.”
Simon raises his eyebrows, points at his chest. “You mean me?”