‘You sure?’
‘Yeah. Can you call an Uber or something? Get you home?’
‘I don’t know how to call an Uber.’
‘You wanna cab, then?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘Hold on.’ He steps out on to the street and hails a cab.
I jump inside and thank Jimmy. He waves that away.
We set off.
‘Where you going?’ asks the cab driver.
‘The YMCA on the park, West 63rd Street.’
The driver stops the car and says, ‘No, no way, Jesus, you can walk there, it’s five minutes at the most, just walk there.’
‘I have a bad leg,’ I lie. ‘I’m injured.’
‘You’re not bleeding back there, are you?’ he says. ‘I don’t need blood on my seats. You need a hospital or something?’
‘No. Just take me to the YMCA.’
I unlock the door to my room and take stock of my arsenal. I run to the bathroom, do what I need to do, run back, and use my belt to, in effect, lock the auto-closing hinge that connects my door to the wall. Another trick gleaned from a retired Green Beret on YouTube just before I left for New York.
Now I’m in.
My last night here.
I fall asleep thinking of Scott. How I’m starting to want him more.
The next morning I wake early to pack my belongings. I work on my Shawn Bagby video in two different cafés using my burner tablet. Then I retrieve my bags and walk through the park between the pond and the zoo to reach the Pierre. I arrive at the ornate hotel gates at two minutes to eleven.
My new base.
He walks out to greet me, a zip-up attaché case under his arm.
Were you following me yesterday? I think.
‘Good morning,’ he says, in his LA accent.
‘Morning, Bogart.’
‘It’s Peter,’ he says, gesturing for me to follow him away from the Pierre, back into the park.
‘Wait a minute,’ I say, looking back to the doorman at the hotel. ‘The room. You said . . .’
‘You said,’ he whispers sternly, ‘somewhere safe. You coming or not?’
I follow him across Fifth into the park.
‘Where are we going?’ I ask.
‘Give me your phones.’
‘What?’
‘Phones. All of them.’
I shake my head.
‘OK, then I’m leaving.’
I hand him my burner.
‘The other one too.’
I hand him my iPhone.
He places them inside a black case.
‘What is that?’ I ask.
‘Faraday bag. Now we can talk.’
I know what a Faraday bag is. People place their devices into metal-lined containers to prevent them from being hacked, screened, traced, or damaged in a solar event.
‘Where are we going? I need to know.’
‘There,’ he says, pointing across the park.
‘Where?’
‘The Ritz-Carlton. Your new home for the next ten days, maximum. Junior suite on the eleventh floor. It’s as secure as we can make it. Booked in the name of someone who isn’t alive any more, paid for in cash. You can order as much room service as you like and it’ll be covered.’
‘Really?’
We pass by horse-driven buggies and cross the road. I can’t think of him as Peter Hill. DeLuca is the name stuck in my head. He’s Bogart DeLuca to me.
The doors to the Ritz-Carlton open and the doorman says, ‘Welcome home, ma’am,’ to me.
We travel up in the lift and DeLuca hands me two key cards. ‘I don’t have copies,’ he says. ‘Hotel management will have master keys, but I don’t have any copies. Keep your internal lock on, your chain attached, and always display your Do Not Disturb sign.’
I use the keycard to open the door.
The room is larger than my London apartment. The view is of Central Park and there’s a telescope positioned in the window.
DeLuca sits the attaché case down on the end of the king-size bed.
‘Fifty, as agreed,’ he says.
I open it and the bundles of used notes are stuffed tight into the bag.
‘What now?’ I say.
‘It’s over,’ he says. ‘It’s all over. Is that clear?’
I nod.
And then he leaves.
I lock the door, attach the chain, cover the peephole with gum, and tie my belt around the door lever just like back in the good old YMCA. I take my time unpacking, sipping chilled orange juice from the minibar and playing Sinatra through the in-room music system. This is, by a magnitude of ten, the nicest room I have ever set foot inside. I hang up each of my shirts. I shower in the incredible marble-clad rain shower. I douse myself with luxurious lotions and creams. I relax on the bed in a fluffy robe with white hotel slippers.