It was all coalescing now. It felt like Rabbits was finally coming to life.
But Scarpio was late. It had been almost an hour.
I drank more coffee and stared at the number on Scarpio’s card for another fifteen minutes before I finally decided to call.
A woman’s voice answered after the first ring.
“Hello?”
“Um, hi. I’m looking for…Mr. Scarpio. I think we were supposed to have a meeting this morning.”
“You think you were supposed to have a meeting?”
“He told me to meet him here for breakfast.”
“How did you get this number?”
“Mr. Scarpio gave it to me last night.”
There was a long pause.
“Where are you?”
“I’m at the diner.”
“What fucking diner?”
I gave her the address.
“Stay put.” She hung up.
I had no idea if she was going to get him to call, show up, or maybe reschedule. I was hungry, but I didn’t want to be halfway through a plate of runny eggs when Alan Scarpio showed up, so I didn’t order anything.
* * *
—
“What’s your name?” the woman asked, as she slid gracefully into the booth.
She was about thirty-five, Asian, subtle highlights through shiny black wavy hair. Everything she was wearing looked expensive. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she was an FBI agent or a salesperson at Tiffany & Co. She smiled slightly, and I could tell immediately that her smile didn’t mean what most of us mean when we smile.
The diner wasn’t packed, but more than half a dozen booths were full of people. How the hell did this woman know I was the person who’d called about Scarpio?
“My name is K,” I replied.
“K. Is that short for something?”
“Yes.”
After realizing she wasn’t getting anything more, she leaned forward and crossed her hands on the table. “Where is he?”
“Scarpio?”
“Who the fuck else?”
“I don’t know.”
I wasn’t sure when, but at some point during the conversation or interrogation, I’d begun tapping my fingers on the table: the third and final set from the 1991 Wimbledon final between Steffi Graf and Gabriela Sabatini. It was a classic, cementing Graf’s legacy at Wimbledon. Graf was serving on my left, Sabatini on my right. Steffi was down one game in the second set. Princess Diana was in the crowd. It was a beautiful day.
There was something about the way this woman looked at me, like she could see straight through my eyes and into my mind. My pulse was racing. I did my best to concentrate on taking slow, deep breaths.
“You met him here last night?”
“Yes. Well, we met at the arcade, then came over here for pie.”
She nodded, processing this information.
“Is Mr. Scarpio going to be joining us?” I asked.
“What happened after you had pie?”
“I didn’t have pie. Mr. Scarpio had pie.”
She just stared, waiting for me to answer her question.
Salesperson at Tiffany’s was definitely off the table. This woman was something else entirely. I continued to tap out the points of the Wimbledon match. Steffi Graf was serving at five-all in the third set.
“Mr. Scarpio met me at the arcade across the street. We came over here for a while, and then I walked him to his car.”
She considered this for a second or two. “Did he play any games?”
“What do you mean?”
“At the arcade. Did he play any of the games?”
“Um…yeah. I mean, I know he played Robotron.”
“Robotron: 2084?”
“Yes.”
She pulled out a worn old orange Moleskine notebook and a black roller-tip pen and wrote something down.
“I’m sorry, who are you?” I asked.
She looked at me like I imagined an overworked clandestine government agent might look just as they were about to switch interrogation tactics from asking questions to beating the shit out of their subject with a phone book. “I work with Mr. Scarpio.”
“That’s it?”
“What else?” she asked, ignoring my question.
“I’m sorry?”
“What else happened?”
It felt like the temperature in the room suddenly dropped by ten degrees, and the lights dimmed, just a little.
I considered telling her about the call Scarpio had received just before he’d abruptly ended our time together in the diner, but there was something about this woman that felt incredibly dangerous. I suddenly wanted this interview to be over.