‘You heard, eh? In the French hotel.’ He makes a gesture dragging his index finger from ear to ear and Violet bends over double at that image.
‘Jimmy . . .’ I say.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘Poor kid.’
‘This is someone who knew him. I mean, I knew him a little, but she knew him pretty well.’
‘I’m really sorry, lady. I apologise. I didn’t know.’
‘It’s all right,’ says Violet, straightening up. ‘Not your fault, man.’
‘I didn’t know,’ he says again. ‘It’s getting like the old days round here. Bad for business, y’know, the marathon and all, busy times, I’m sorry, none of that’s important right now, I’m sorry. Say, Molly, there’s a guy been asking after you, asking if I’d seen you around.’
‘A guy? What guy?’ Bogart DeLuca? Martinez?
‘Man around fifty, maybe fifty-five. Real fit-looking, you know, the athlete type, real lean. Wire-rim glasses. He was asking if I’d seen you go into the hostel.’
‘And what did you tell him, Jimmy?’
‘I told him I didn’t know what he was talking about. I said if he didn’t want to buy a smoothie maybe he could move aside for a real customer. Don’t worry, I didn’t tell him a thing.’
Chapter 44
I’m sitting on my bed in my junior suite reading the Ritz-Carlton Things You Must Do In New York book. I have a Ritz-Carlton pen and a hotel pad. I’m drinking Ritz-Carlton mineral water and I’m wearing a Ritz-Carlton robe.
Apparently I must see twenty different things before I leave this place to return to my normal existence. Nine of the twenty I’ve actually done. That leaves eleven.
I must visit the Met, or the Museum of Modern Arts. Next is Top of the Rock, the viewing gallery of the Rockefeller Center, or the Observatory at One World Trade Center. The views look spectacular.
Brooklyn Bridge, Staten Island Ferry, Statue of Liberty. All tourist hot spots with all the risks that entails: pickpockets, terrorists, muggers. But on the plus side they’re all free.
The Highline. Also free. Coney Island. Again, free. A Broadway show. Very much not free, but they’re close by and if it wasn’t marathon week I’d probably try to get a ticket. The concierge here could help me get great seats but I’d rather not talk to him again because I read in a book they sometimes give tip-offs to law enforcement. Ballet at the Lincoln Center. Same problem.
There are some less obvious options: a speakeasy bar in some Lower East Side basement. Performing Arts in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
The thing is: money.
Money is often, in my experience, the thing.
I have it now for the first time in my life. Even after making a few extravagant purchases there’s still over forty-seven thousand American dollars left. And if it was just me in this world, operating in a vacuum, I’d hit Bloomingdale’s and see a Broadway show and I’d maybe take a helicopter tour up and down the Hudson. No, I wouldn’t go that far. You climb in a helicopter and you may as well be riding a motorbike. Both are statistical death traps.
But Mum and Dad are as good as bankrupt. KT’s insurance policy won’t pay out quickly enough to save them, and even then it wouldn’t cover their debts. They have no business any more, and, even though they managed to pay off some of their creditors through voluntary agreements these past years, they don’t have much goodwill in the community. No outside family to speak of apart from Mum’s sister, and they haven’t had an easy relationship since Grandma died.
So it falls to me. I can’t afford to keep them in our childhood home, but I can afford to help them rent a flat above a fish and chip shop or something. I can help them buy cereal and pasta. Beans and loaves of bread. My dollars, converted through multiple innocuous currency exchange centres in the Midlands – by them, not me – will see them through. I’m all they’ve got now, and they’re all I’ve got. I don’t begrudge them a penny.
Outside my window, down in the park, officials in fluorescent tunics are swarming, making sure the finish line is prepared. Who was the man asking Jimmy about me? Another cop? Or a journalist, maybe? Through the telescope I watch them stack multi-packs of water on, and underneath, fold-up tables. There are hundreds of boxes of space blankets: silver foil wrappers to keep exhausted runners from catching hypothermia. It’s a real risk this time of year after so much exertion. It can kill a fit person stone dead.
What would KT do if this were her last day in New York? Her last ever day in New York? She’d probably spend all the cash, blow through it all. She was always more carefree with her expenses. Maybe she’d buy a pair of calfskin boots from a Fifth Avenue boutique, or dine out with a bunch of friends in the Tavern on the Green. That’s what she’d do; she’d get together with four or five friends and they’d have a long boozy lunch. But I choose sobriety, thank you. I need to be on my guard until I’m safely back at Heathrow. For the next two years I need to live my life, travelling and experiencing things, while also staying on my guard. I need to balance those two things.