Chapter 2 Nobody Parks Like That for a Maybe

Running in wet work shoes is a special kind of stupid. I learned that about four seconds after the headlights came on, when the car doors opened across the street and I realized I'd been standing there like a deer admiring the road. Two men got out. One was wide, a refrigerator in a wool coat. The other was thin and quick, with a phone pressed to his ear. Neither of them hurried, and that was what scared me. People who are sure they'll catch you don't need to hurry. "Miss Cole!" the thin one called, almost friendly. "Hey. Miss Cole, hold on a second." Of course they knew my name. I'd just said it to three hundred people. I ran. Left at the corner, because I'd counted the corner. Forty-three steps from the service door, then a left, then the bakery alley. I'd walked this block every Tuesday for eight months, carrying Marta's grocery list to the fish market, and I knew it the way you know a floor you've scrubbed on your hands and knees. Which storm drain was loose. Which door stuck. Which streetlight flickered like it couldn't make up its mind. My shoes slapped the wet pavement. Rain ran down the back of my collar, and my uniform clung to me like a second, colder skin. Behind me came a heavy set of footsteps, then a lighter pair, easy and patient. My lungs started to burn, and my brain did the thing it always does, which is arithmetic. The car was already there. That was what I couldn't get past. It had been sitting across from the service door with its lights off before Dante said a word about the street or the river or the morning. Nobody parks like that for a maybe. Somebody had decided what to do with me before the Don opened his mouth. I didn't like where that thought led, so I picked the answer that fit what I'd planned to feel for six years. Dante had put on a show for three hundred people and sent his dogs out the back. Of course he had. It was easier to hate one man than to start wondering about two. The bakery alley smelled like yeast and bleach. A boy in a white apron stood under the awning smoking, and when I tore past him he said, "Hey-" and then, because he was nineteen and wise in the ways of people running from things, "Never mind." I hurdled a stack of flour sacks, skidded through a puddle, caught myself on a dumpster, and kept going. The fish market was dark. Past the loading dock, the ice crates were stacked as high as my chest, and between two of them there was a gap just wide enough for a girl who'd skipped dinner for most of the year. I wedged myself in with my knees against my chin and pressed my hand over my mouth. The footsteps slowed. My heartbeat sounded like a fist on a door. I counted to stay inside my body. One. Two. Three. Four. And underneath the numbers, uninvited, I saw Dante Moretti's hands at the gala, shaking just slightly as he called my father a thief. I'd told myself it was rage. I told myself that again now. A pair of shoes stopped so close to my crate that I could have tied the laces. The thin man. I smelled his cologne, something sweet and expensive that didn't belong in a fish market, and I heard him murmur into the phone. "No, she's on foot. No." A pause. "I know what he said. He said morning." Another pause, and when he spoke again his voice was flat and careful. "Rossi says tonight." Silence. Then: "Understood." He hung up. The shoes turned and walked away, and a moment later the second man's heavier tread joined them. I heard the wide one say, "Check the laundromat. She's soaked. She'll want somewhere warm." Which was, annoyingly, correct. I stayed in the crates until my legs went numb. Rossi. Lucian Rossi, with the silver hair and the glass of champagne he never drank. The kind old man who'd rested a hand on Dante's shoulder like a father at a graduation. He said morning. Rossi says tonight. I filed it where I file everything, in a drawer at the back of my head marked LATER. It didn't mean anything yet. A man who'd raised Dante could be forgiven for finishing a job early, I told myself. A loyal man would see his boss go soft and clean up the mess before anyone had to feel guilty about it. I almost believed that. When the footsteps were gone, I crawled out, shaking so hard my teeth clicked. I had thirty-one dollars in my shoe, no coat, no phone, and nobody in this city who knew my real name except the people trying to kill me. The only light on the block was a sign at the far end, buzzing in the rain. SUNRISE WASH & FOLD. OPEN 24 HOURS. They'd check it. They'd said so. But the windows were fogged and yellow and warm, and somewhere inside a dryer was going round and round, and I wanted to be a sock in it so badly I could taste it. I took the long way, through the back lot, and pushed through the staff door, because I'd learned that every business has one and it's never locked. The laundromat was nearly empty. A TV bolted to the wall played a game show on mute. Rows of washers, a vending machine, the smell of detergent and warm lint. At the far end, an old woman sat at the folding counter with a stack of sheets and an unlit cigarette in the corner of her mouth. Silver bun. Cardigan the color of weak tea. She looked up when I came in, took in the soaked uniform, the bare neck, the shaking, and said nothing at all. I scanned the room. Twelve washers. One cabinet in the corner with a broken latch, labeled SUPPLIES. "Please," I whispered. She tilted her head toward the cabinet. Then she went back to folding. I climbed in. It smelled like bleach and old cardboard. I pulled my knees up, and through the crack in the door I watched the old woman snap a sheet in the air as if she'd spent the whole night waiting for something to do with her hands. The bell over the front door rang. Boots. Two sets. One heavy, one light. "Evening, ma'am," said a friendly voice I'd just heard in the dark. "We're looking for a girl."