communist motherfuckers.”
“ Koreans eat dogs,” said Karen.
“Do not,” said Yong Sun.
“With garlic,” said Yumiko.
Yong Sun stood up. “With that attitude, I think it’s your turn to do the credit-card batch.”
“I did the fucking credit-card batch Friday,” said Yumiko. “It’s your turn.”
Yong Sun shook her head. “I’m the manager. And I’m busy.”
“Doing what?” asked Yumiko.
“Putting more garlic in this damn coffee,” said Yong Sun, walking out the door.
“Kiss my ass!” Yumiko yelled after her.
“In your dreams, bitch,” echoed Yong Sun’s voice back up the hall.
The phone rang, lighting up line two.
I pounced on it, beating Karen by a nanosecond. “Good morning, this is the Catalog, how may I help you?”
When line three lit up, Karen slapped the button down so fast the phone didn’t have time to chirp, much less ring.
She smugly flipped off Yumiko, then pointed her still-extended middle finger toward the credit-card terminal.
Yumiko pursed her lips to make a wet kissy noise, then slapped her unrepentant size-zero butt.
Cate called around ten, saying we had the all clear from Skwarecki to go back inside Prospect.
“I’m out of here at noon,” I said. “When are you meeting your Quakers?”
“One o’clock, so your timing’s perfect.”
“Cool.”
“You’re sure you want to do this, Madeline?”
“Course I’m sure. I’ve been thinking about it all week.”
“Me too,” she said. “And I’m so glad you’re coming.”
We said good-bye and I clicked open another line, dialing Dean in New Jersey. He’d started working for Christoph Monday morning, the pair of them commuting back and forth across the George Washington Bridge in Christoph’s Jeep.
The secretary put me through to Dean’s extension, and I said, “How’s it goin’, ya goddamn genius?” when he picked up.
“Decent,” he said. “Nice day out here.”
I looked out the window at the Catalog’s air shaft. “I wouldn’t know—thanks for the heads-up.”
“You going back to the cemetery?” he asked.
“Cate just called. I figured I’d grab a sandwich or something and jump on the subway.”
“What time’ll you get home?”
“Way sooner than last week.”
“Famous last words,” he said.
“Really and truly. Even if we find anything, Skwarecki’s said she’s coming to us, you know?”
“Just be careful, Bunny. Get a ride to the subway if you guys stay later than four, all right?”
“Scout’s honor,” I said. “Pinkie swear.”
“Hey, you talked to Nutty Buddy?”
“Astrid? Not since they called to hire you. Why?”
I heard him exhale. “Probably nothing.”
Dean had spent enough time with my pals to have pretty decent girly-radar. Plus he had two sisters.
“What flavor of probably nothing?” I asked.
“She’s been out here to the office a couple of times—”
“They are newlyweds. I’m sure the novelty will wear off. No
offense—”
“Bunny, I mean she’s driven out here a couple of times a day since Monday. She’s got Christoph’s other Jeep.”
I had a hard time picturing Astrid voluntarily venturing out to New Jersey pretty much ever, even under heavy sedation.
“Okay. That is kind of weird,” I said.
“She seems shaky. Like she could use a friend.”
“Astrid’s got a bazillion friends.”
“Yeah,” he said, “but how many of them aren’t assholes?”
“Good point,” I said.
We were both quiet for a second.
“Look, Bunny?” said Dean. “There’s something else.”
“Tell me.”
“She hasn’t taken off that black jacket she had on the other night. She just wanders around the office with the hood up. In sunglasses.”
“Shit,” I said.
“Just give her a call sometime.”
“I will.”
“I should get back to it,” said Dean.
“Cool. Catch you après-graveyard.”
“You bet.”
I was just about to hang up but instead said, “Hey, Dean?”
“Yeah?”
“If Astrid does come out there again, try and get her to fucking eat something, okay? Bitch needs a cheeseburger.”
I put down the phone and Yumiko blew a plume of Marlboro smoke across my desk. “You going back there, after you already found that dead kid?”
“Yeah,” I said. “We’re going to try and help figure out who it was.”
“Fucking white people,” she said, stubbing out her smoke in a brimming ashtray. “All of you— crazy.”
I shrugged.
So many cities, all mashed into each other on one tiny island.
On the train to Queens I pondered Dean’s concern for Astrid and started thinking back to what she was like as I’d first known her.
There was one Sunday night in particular when I was sitting in the Ford Smoker bumming Marlboro Lights off Joan Appelbaum.
Whenever I’d had cash enough to buy my own, I walked down to the Dobbs Ferry Grand Union and purchased something off-puttingly bizarre like Philip Morris Commanders. These tasted like burnt sneakers marinated in Guinness, but since that meant only the truly desperate cadged them off me, each pack lasted twice as long.
That no classmate ever begrudged