Page 47 of Nobody's Fool

“You went by the name Anna. We met on the dance floor of the Discoteca Palmeras. You had an apartment nearby.”

I see her hesitate now.

“I checked the dates,” I say. “It would have been about three years after you first”—I can’t find the right word so I settle for—“disappeared.”

In my earphones I hear Polly say, “Driver is talking to ticket taker. Looks like he’s heading inside.”

Shit.

Anna says to me, “I’ve never seen you before.”

“Then why did you come to my class?”

“I can’t stay,” she says. “He’ll be worried.”

“Who?” But there’s no point. I have a business card in my hand, which only has my name and phone number on it. “Take this.”

“What? No.”

“Call me,” I say.

She shakes her head, but she also takes the card. Then she looks at me and says, “You’re not lying? You really knew me?”

Before I can say yes, I hear Polly in my earphone: “The driver is inside now.”

“Your driver,” I say to her. “He’s in the theater.”

“Duck down!” she says in a panic. I do. I drop down to my knees and stay low as I hear that same Gun Guy voice call out, “Hey, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Anna says quickly. “I just… I’m sorry. This theater is just so beautiful, you know.”

“Uh-huh,” he says. Then: “We better go.”

Anna nods. Then, before she disappears up the aisle, she looks down at me and whispers, “Don’t tell anyone you saw me. Please.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Polly calls off the surveillance on the estate in Connecticut. What would be the point? She grabs a downtown C train to her town house in the Village. Marty calls and tells me he has some info from the FBI on the Victoria Belmond kidnapping.

“For one thing,” he says, “it’s never been solved.”

“You have the file?”

“A lot of it.”

“Where is it?”

“My place.”

He gives me the address. I tell him I’m on my way. Golfer Gary offers me a ride uptown, and I accept. Gary drives a high-end Range Rover.

We head north toward the park. I’m sitting in the front passenger seat next to him. I watch his profile. I’m guessing Gary is in his early fifties. He’s got a classic dad-bod beer belly, skinny arms, hunched shoulders. When I was twelve years old, my father taught me a lesson I try to live with every day. We were walking through Washington Square Park on an early-summer Saturday. If you’ve been there, you know that the park is a microcosm of the entire globe jammed into fewer than ten acres. You will see every variety of human in just a few short minutes.

“Hopes and dreams,” my father said with a wide smile, spreading his hands like he was preparing for a hug.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

He bent down so he could look me in the eye. “Good rule of thumb: Whenever you see a person—rich, poor, young, old, tall, short, whatever—remember one thing: That person has hopes and dreams.”

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