“I’m not going around playing private eye, Solly.”
“I wasn’t asking for a favor.”
“What? You want to pay me, to do this thing?”
“Absolutely.”
“Solly, I’m not exactly broke. I don’t live big. It could be a real long time before I have to make another move. Anyway, you know I’m not a contract man.”
“You got a car?”
“Where would I get a car?”
“You could’ve rented one, maybe.”
“With what? My credit card?”
“Never mind. I got you a car. You’ll love it. Papered to the max, full-cover insurance and all. Let’s go and get your money.”
“Solly …”
“What?”
“I got to get a place. Some clothes. Set up right, before I do anything. I can’t walk around with a duffel bag stuffed with cash. What’s your damn problem? I held up my end, didn’t I?”
“Sure. Sure, you did, Sugar. You went first; now it’s my turn. And that’s—what?—finding you a place to stay, fixing you up with ID, all that?”
“It always has been,” I said, letting him hear I didn’t like what he was talking about.
“And, like I told you before, things have changed since you been away.”
“I did five fucking years alone. Like I’m supposed to. That didn’t change.”
He nodded his head slowly, like a bunch of thoughts were bouncing around inside. “You’re right, kid. Come on. Let’s take that ride.”
I followed him through the back exit. We walked down a cement hall. At least it looked like cement—the only light was Solly’s flash, and he just sprayed it around a little. I guess he did that for me—no way Solly needed it after all these years.
We came to another door. When I followed Solly through it, I saw he had a lot of choices from there: take the stairs to his right, walk straight out the front door, or open another door.
He played the flash over that other door. “This one, it only opens from the inside. It’s about a foot or so drop from there. Not so much, but you could break your ankle, you’re not expecting it.”
The old man jumped down. I followed him. The door closed itself behind us. Solly lit it up for a second—it looked like part of the wall. I knew he wasn’t bragging, just showing me he still had things under control.
The alley wasn’t even wide enough to get a car through, so it was pretty clean. No Dumpsters, so no homeless guys camped out waiting for a refill. And no rats to fight them for the kind of garbage you can eat.
At the end of the alley, there was this high chain-link gate. It wouldn’t keep anyone out if they wanted to climb, but who does that just to go dice-rolling on a blanket?
Not a good shortcut, either.
Solly opened the lock with a key he had. He pointed a finger at the place where the wall ended, just inside the gate. I looked where he was pointing. I couldn’t see anything for a few seconds. Then there was a long, thin flash of light. When it went away, I could see what Solly meant: slivers of mirror glass up there, set at an angle. If you looked at the left one, you could see what was coming up the sidewalk on the right. Same for the other side.
“You watch this one,” he said.
When we each had a “clear,” I went out first. I walked to my right. Not fast, but not so slow you’d notice. Solly caught up to me before we got to the corner.
We just walked along, side by side. It probably looked like we both knew where we were going, but only Solly did.
A few blocks from Solly’s dump, there was this classy-looking high-rise, all glass and chrome. That’s how this city is. There’s no such thing as neighborhoods, like you have in Brooklyn or Queens. In Manhattan, you could have ten-million-dollar houses on one block and crumbling old slums on the next. It’s split up so tight that they’ve even got special names for every few blocks.
I don’t think any of that crap really sticks. Guys who came up in Hell’s Kitchen would be, I don’t know, proud of it, I guess. There was this Irish guy I used to know, Ken. “Catch me telling folks I was born in fucking ‘Clinton,’ ” I heard him say one time.
On the rich blocks, there wouldn’t be any alleys—the buildings are stacked together so tight not even light could shine through. But on the other blocks, they have backyards. Little ones, sure. And