to his nose. “This is water, you bastard. Move on, or I’ll break your scrawny neck.”
The disheveled man cursed and started away.
“You okay, miss?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“That’s one of them new scams in town. Tourists are fallin’ for it all day. Watch yourself.”
The people who had paused walked on. He started away. I wanted to shout to him, I don’t know your name! but he was already crossing the street and quickly disappearing in the pedestrian traffic. I looked back to be sure the homeless man was gone and then hurried along, walking now as fast as anyone else in New York. Either become one of them, or tuck your tail between your legs and hurry back to Guildford, I thought.
I was still shaking when I found the supermarket. I went in, located the cleaning things I had wanted and a blueberry muffin. That would be my dinner tonight. All I wanted to do was get back and off the streets.
When I reached the cashier, I took my things out of the cart and watched her ring them up. Then I reached for my purse. I was surprised the clasp was undone. How careless, I thought. I opened it and reached in for my wallet.
It wasn’t there.
I could feel the panic flow down my face and seize my heart. I hadn’t taken it out at the apartment, and of course, I had it with me on the airplane.
“Anything wrong?” the cashier asked. There were people waiting behind me.
“My wallet’s gone,” I said. “I think it was pinched.”
She smiled. “Pinched?”
“That means stolen,” a tall man in a jacket and tie two people back said.
“Oh. Well, you’ve got thirty-two fifty-eight here,” the cashier said indifferently. She might as well have said, Pay up, or get out of the way.
Fortunately for me, I had listened to advice my father had given me when I had gone on my first school trip. “Never keep all your money in the same place, Emma. Split it up so if you lose some or some is stolen, you’ll be all right.”
I had put over three hundred dollars in my wallet, which also had so many other important papers and pictures. I quickly located some of the money I had wrapped in a handkerchief and took out a fifty-dollar bill. Still stunned, I gathered my bags and started out. I was really walking in a daze and couldn’t stop trembling again when I started back to the apartment. My eyes were searching every alleyway and every person walking toward me to be sure I wouldn’t run into the disheveled man again.
“Miss?” I heard coming from right behind me, and stopped. It was the tall gentleman who had explained the meaning of pinched to the supermarket cashier. Getting a closer look at him, I thought he wasn’t much older than I was. Seeing someone this young in a jacket and tie was reassuring because it reminded me of the young men who worked in the bank with my father. For a moment, I imagined it was my father who had followed me to America just so he could protect me. Wishful thinking.
“Yes?”
“Are you all right?” he asked. Then, before I could respond, he asked, “Where do you think you were robbed?”
I looked around. “About here,” I said, and told him what had occurred. “I hadn’t taken out my wallet since I left England last night.”
“Last night?”
“Yes.”
He just stared at me a moment with a grin frozen on his face. He was slim, maybe six feet tall, with interesting eyes. They were charcoal but with a hint of green. I hadn’t noticed in the supermarket, but he had a dark complexion, strong, firm lips, and an almost perfect Roman nose. His hair, swept neatly to the sides and just a trifle below his earlobes, was a café noir shade.
“That’s terrible,” he said. “I mean, terrible that you were taken advantage of just hours after arriving. I’ve heard stories about tourists being scammed. Is this your first visit?”
“Yes, but it’s not a visit. I’m here to begin a career,” I said.
He nodded. “Well, what happened from what you described was you were a victim of a double scam.” He spoke slowly and didn’t sound like he was born in America. I couldn’t figure out his accent, however. “The homeless guy was probably partnered with the man who rode in on a white horse. You were distracted while he ventured into your purse. That’s what teams like that do. One distracts, and the