All the packaging deposited into three separate bins.
I walk into the park and towards the zoo.
I set up in a large area of empty grass.
First things first: I text Martinez from my regular phone. He’ll have access to immigration systems, and if anyone IDs me in the city he’ll wonder why I never told him I stayed in New York. So, I tell him I stayed. That I need another week or so here to help find out what happened to KT. He doesn’t reply.
I text Scott Sbarra from my regular phone and tell him I’m staying on for a week and ask if he wants to meet up one last time before I leave for the UK. To chat about KT and say goodbye. He replies immediately with Sure.
I don’t reply. I’ll force myself to wait a few hours.
I text Violet Roseberry from my regular phone and ask her if she wants to catch a movie or something. I say I’m here for another week and I’d like to see her. She doesn’t reply.
I scroll YouTube but I do not click on any videos, I just want to see who’s uploaded.
Shawn Bagby has uploaded.
Some video about alternate-day fasting, and another about which shirt collar will make you most alpha and therefore the most attractive to women. How does he think up all this nonsense?
I check the research notes on my phone. The important points have been coded using a modified version of the secret language KT and I devised as kids. They also have key dates and letter strings interspersed. I find what I’m looking for. The home address of Professor Eugene Groot.
As I scan the rooftops around Central Park I notice the water towers again. These pose more risk than most people care to think about. First of all there’s the sheer number of them: some estimate up to twenty thousand in New York City. Then there’s the weight. A cubic metre of water weighs a tonne. Some of the water towers I’m looking at, conical things on steel girders, must weigh fifty tonnes. Up there. Just waiting to fall. It’d only take a piece of steel buckling because it wasn’t forged correctly, or a gust of wind during a freak storm. But the real risks are contained within. You see, the water in New York City is gravity-fed. It travels via rivers and aqueducts from upstate, and because it isn’t pumped it can only reach up around six storeys. Hence the water tanks. But water pumped up into tanks, and left sitting there on rooftops, is a recipe for disaster. Wood rots. Metal corrodes. Pigeons find a way in. Mice breed. Rats build their nests, and even homeless people have been found living inside tanks. Each oversize rooftop barrel is a perfect breeding ground for bacteria. There is sediment at the base of each and every one. The responsibility for cleaning and disinfecting the tanks is left up to each building and some are better than others. There are E. coli thriving on most New York City rooftops. And that’s why I only drink bottled water.
Violet replies saying she can meet me tomorrow night.
I hold off replying to Scott even though I want nothing more than to reply to Scott.
And then I turn on my burner phone.
I dial the number from memory.
The phone rings four times.
‘Yes?’
‘It’s me.’
‘And?’
‘I need to meet.’
‘And?’
‘When are you here? When next?’
‘Now.’
‘You’re here now?’
‘And?’
‘We need to talk. Last time.’
‘Air,’ he says.
He means sea. The twin code. Opposites. By sea, he means the Staten Island Ferry. It’s one of our pre-planned meeting places. Top deck, three rows back for him, four rows back for me.
‘Not after that storm. Can’t do it.’
‘Meat,’ he says.
He means fruit. He means the Cherry Hill Fountain, less than a mile from where I’m sitting.
‘Yes,’ I say.
‘Twelve,’ he says.
That means six. Opposite side of the clock.
‘OK.’
He hangs up.
Chapter 27
I have been evicted from my room. Excluded. Thrown out. Expelled.
The YMCA was pretty reasonable about it, really. They didn’t call the police, thank goodness. Once my three Chinese roomies discovered my baseball bat and my hornet spray they asked Reception if they could stay as three and pay extra. Rather than cause a scene, Reception gave me a single room at the same rate I was paying. Said I can keep it until I find something else I can afford.
KT would have had no problems. They’d have all been best friends by now.
But I do get a perk. No private bathroom, nothing that fancy, but now I have a view. No brick wall for me. I can see Central Park from my window. Not a lot of it, the window’s too narrow, but I can see the colours. Being able to see nature from my bedroom is a game-changer. I feel relaxed staring at the auburn trees.