“For what?”
The receptionist said, “Frank.”
Frank the Guard shook his head. “Perhaps it’s time you left, uh”—small eye roll—“WW.”
“Can I leave him a message?” Wilde asked.
“Who?”
“PB.”
They both stared at him.
“You realize,” the receptionist said, “we can neither confirm nor deny who lives in this building.”
He tried to read their faces. Something odd was up.
“So can I leave a note or not?”
Wilde was not sure what he would write. The simple answer was to explain that he was the WW from the DNA website and put one of the untraceable phone numbers. But did he want to do that? Did he want to put himself on the radar like that? Now that he thought about it, what was he doing here? He didn’t know PB. He wasn’t responsible for him. Wilde had spent his entire life just fine not knowing all the answers to the mystery of who he was.
What was he doing here?
“Of course,” the receptionist said and fetched a pen and paper. “May I see an ID please.”
He had one under the alias of Jonathan Carlson, but that would just lead to questions about WW and his being a cousin, and really, what was the point? Did he want to kill a perfectly good alias for this?
He did not.
“I’ll try his cell later,” Wilde said.
“Yeah,” Frank said, “you do that.”
Wilde headed west on Central Park South. Some might think he would be uncomfortable on the streets of Manhattan, the so-called Boy from the Woods, but it was actually the opposite. He loved New York City. He loved the streets, the sounds, the lights, the life. Was that a contradiction? Perhaps. Or perhaps it was the change that won him over. Perhaps, in the same way you can’t have an up without a down or a dark without a light, you couldn’t appreciate the rural without the urban. Perhaps it was because this city, crowded and massive as it might be, left you alone, let you stroll and observe in solitude while surrounded by throngs.
Perhaps Wilde needed to shut down the philosophizing and grab a cup of coffee and a chocolate croissant at the Maison Kayser on Columbus Circle.
He stopped at an ATM on the way and picked up his daily max of eight hundred dollars. He had a plan of sorts: Wait for one of the employees, like the security guard or the receptionist, to get off work and bribe them for information on the occupant of the apartment. Did he think it would work? He did not. The guard seemed more likely to go for the bribe than the receptionist, but that could be sexism talking.
He crossed to the park side of the street and set up near the stone wall where he could keep a view for exiting employees. He drank his coffee. It was fantastic. He took a bite out of the chocolate croissant and wondered why he didn’t leave the woods more often. He wondered what PB had wanted, what had made PB so desperate, what had led a man who lives in this gleaming tower to reach out to a total stranger, even if that stranger shared some DNA.
Wilde had been standing there for an hour when his phone rang.
It was Laila.
He picked up. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
There was silence.
“Matthew is gone for the night,” she said.
“I know.”
“Wilde?”
“Yes, Laila?”
“When you’re done with whatever you’re doing, come over.”
He didn’t have to be told twice.
*
When they were spent, Wilde fell into the deepest of sleeps. He woke a little before six a.m. Laila slept next to him. He watched her for a few moments, then he rolled onto his back, put his hands behind his head, stared at the ceiling. Laila liked luxuriant white bedsheets with an infinite thread count. The expense seemed obscene, but there were times, like right now, when Wilde got it.
Laila rolled and rested her hand on his chest. They were both naked.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey.”
Laila moved in closer. He pulled her tight.
“So,” she said, “Costa Rica.”
“What about it?”
“It didn’t work out?”
“It worked out,” Wilde said. “It just didn’t last.”
Wilde loved her. Laila loved him. They’d tried to be more domestic in the beginning. It hadn’t worked. That was his fault. Some blamed the ghost of David—that had been there initially, sure—or fear of commitment. It wasn’t that. Not really. Wilde wasn’t built for what most would consider a normal relationship. Laila needed more. The cycle went like this: Laila would start a new relationship with some guy. Wilde would leave her be and wish the relationship well. He wanted her happy. But the relationship would eventually peter out, not because Laila held some kind of candle for Wilde but because she still couldn’t get over the death of her soulmate David. All other relationships came up short. So Laila would break up with the guy and then she’d get lonely, and there, alone in the woods waiting, was safe, convenient, can’t-commit Wilde.