I open the draft. It’s dated from nine days ago and it’s written to [email protected]. An email from my sister that was never sent. The subject line is Her. The email reads I’m sorry to bother you with this, I know you’re busy with work, but V is driving me batshit crazy. She will not get it. I’m afraid she’ll do something serious to herself. Once she told me her dad has a pistol in his bedside drawer and her mum has enough codeine pills to kill a baseball team. She’s obsessed and I don’t like it xx
V must be Violet Roseberry, KT’s best friend, the woman I’m meeting in just over an hour. But she’s a woman in her early twenties; just how dangerous could she really be? Who did KT think about sending this message to? OPO64. That doesn’t ring any bells. And this person, a he or a she, is busy with work. Why did KT never send the email? I Google OPO64 and I get a bunch of acronyms and technical specifications, and then, on page seventeen of the search results, I find something relevant.
The department of Literature Humanities at Columbia University, New York.
Building OPO.
Room 64.
Professor Eugene Groot.
I take the business card from my pocket and think about forwarding the draft email to Bogart DeLuca. Surely Martinez would be the better choice? But I’d have to admit I hacked my dead sister’s email. Maybe I could say I knew her address. I could tell him I already had the password.
There’s a noise behind my shoulder. I reach for the bat and my door starts to shake on its hinges. Someone’s trying to pick the lock, probing the keyhole with a metal implement. I swallow hard, my heart thumping double-speed, and then I stand up slowly and adopt a defensive stance: one foot forward, knees flexed. I could scream, but a competent attacker would stifle that in a second or less. I raise the Louisville Slugger above my head and the door opens and it’s a little old lady with a hairnet.
‘Oh, God, I’m sorry! Don’t hurt me!’
I lower my bat and say, ‘I thought you were breaking in!’
‘Don’t hit me. Oh, God. Please, lady.’
‘It’s OK.’
‘No, no. I work here. I just checking each room make sure everything OK. I do rounds once every other day. I work here four years.’
‘Everything’s OK,’ I say. ‘Sorry I scared you.’
‘OK, lady.’
She walks away and I vow to improve my security somehow. I need to be protected but I also need to stay legal. One risk is me getting attacked, the other is me getting into trouble with the NYPD. That’s the line I must negotiate.
I pack my small rucksack with the knife and sixty dollars cash and the hornet spray. I lock my door and head outside.
The air is heady with the smell of roasting nuts mixed with petrol fumes. Two men are arguing outside the office building opposite, and a one-legged pigeon is fighting to pull a french fry out of the drainage gulley.
I head over to the food cart on the corner, the guy who helped me find the hardware store.
‘You again. How are you doing, Molly?’
‘You remembered my name.’
He smiles. ‘One day you’re gonna be my new best customer.’
‘What’s yours?’
‘My what?’ He breaks off to serve two cups of bubble tea to a couple. ‘What’s my what?’ he says.
‘Name.’
‘Jimmy.’
‘Your real name.’
‘My name is Mahmud Nadir. You can call me Jimmy. I’m Jimmy.’
‘OK, Jimmy. I read you won an award for your smoothies.’
He holds up some folded cardboard certificates. ‘I got three prizes. Two for hygiene and one for my fruit salad.’
There’s a US flag and a small Afghan flag and a photo of his family behind the counter.
‘Could I have a smoothie?’
‘No problem.’
‘Mango and raspberry, please.’
‘You got it.’
He hands over the smoothie and I hand over five dollars and my backpack.
‘Wait, what is this?’ He backs up and holds his hands up. ‘Whatever it is, I do not want it. No way. No, thank you.’
‘It’s a go-bag,’ I say, smiling.
‘It’s a what bag?’
‘A go-bag, Jimmy.’
‘Where you goin’？’
‘Exactly.’
‘Girl, you speakin’ in riddles.’
‘How long have you been in New York, Jimmy?’
He still won’t take the bag from me. ‘Eighteen years, why?’
‘You know how sometimes things can go wrong. A big storm or a financial crisis. Maybe an explosion or a bus crash or mass shooting, that kind of thing.’