The Thieves of Manhattan - By Adam Langer Page 0,74

beans had served as my pillows. But this time, Joseph had already prepared for my stay. There was a tall lamp, a desk, and a cot with space heaters on either side of it. In the refrigerator were day-old pastries and cartons of juice—take as much as you want, Joseph said. No one would think to look for me here; the only person who might consider it was Faye, but she was already gone, and he said that she would probably never imagine that he would go out of his way to help me.

I still vowed that I would not trust Joseph, but moments after he galumphed up the steps—to fix me a cup of coffee, he said—the cot and pillow looked so inviting that I thought I’d just rest my head for a minute. The next thing I knew, half a day must have passed because I could hear the coffee shop in full swing—the steamer, footsteps, cash register, front door opening, closing. I considered getting up but closed my eyes again, and when I opened them, it seemed like evening—Joseph, wearily gossiping with customers, less rush to their voices. I closed my eyes again, and when I opened them, I heard dishes being washed, Joseph singing along with the radio, locking the front door; he must have been closing for the night. When I awoke again, Joseph was coming downstairs, carrying fresh towels, soap, a toothbrush, and toothpaste.

“Trust me yet?” he asked.

Trusting Joseph went directly counter to my lousy instincts, which was why I tried to keep doing it. I gave him tasks—asked him to stop by my apartment, bring me clothes and my mail, and when he’d done that, I asked him to bring my laptop and printer. When he had done that, too—in a pissy, world-weary mood perhaps, but when he had done it nonetheless—I developed a plan: stay here in Joseph’s basement and write down everything that had happened to me. I sensed that writing the truth could protect me. Stay as long as you want, Joseph said; he liked having a person down here—maybe I would keep away the mice.

The mail Joseph brought to me offered hints of the life I could have been enjoying if I hadn’t been here at Morningside Coffee with Joseph playing Man Friday to my Robinson Crusoe. There was a check from Geoff Olden’s office, a pair of letters from editors at other publishing houses, asking if I’d consider providing a blurb for this or that debut memoir. There was a copy of Poets and Writers magazine with my picture on the cover, and a final expiration notice from Writer’s Digest, a publication I felt I no longer needed to read.

Still, I stayed in the basement eating café food—wraps, smoothies, old pastries; I drank coffee, tea, and steamed milk. Before the café opened, I would tumble out of my makeshift proust, wash up in the industrial sink, settle down at my laptop, and type everything I could remember, starting from the time that Faye had pointed the Confident Man out to me. And when I was done, I would eat my spinach-and-feta croissant or my tuna wrap, glug my caramel apple cider, print out what I had written, then read it to make sure that everything was accurate and true.

After closing for the night, Joseph would come down and bitch about the day he’d had—the pastry deliverers had been late again; college kids spending their parents’ money still didn’t tip; the new employee he had hired to replace Faye was already giving him guff. Joseph described him as “an arrogant writer type,” some “sullen dumb-ass with hipster glasses,” who was always late and was rude to customers. In fact, Joseph said, the guy reminded him of me, though Jens was already a published author.

“Von Bretzel?” I asked.

“That’s him.” Apparently, Joseph said, Von Bretzel’s debut novel, The Counter Life, hadn’t sold well, his editor had been laid off, and now his agent was having trouble getting a decent frazier for his follow-up, which he was calling Java Man. Von Bretzel needed a job to tide him over—he’d been fired by the Williamsburg Starbucks that he’d written about in his first book. I felt a little bad for Von Bretzel—if I hadn’t stopped writing quiet, small stories about café life, I’d be in just about the same position as the one in which he found himself now.

While I worked in the Morningside Coffee basement, I never turned on my phone, didn’t