I roll from beneath the covers and head to the bathroom. Last night’s vomiting has left me dehydrated. There’s barely anything to evacuate. Still, I go through the motions: toilet, shower, brush teeth, dress. The acts feel superfluous. My husband might have killed a man. What does it matter if my breath smells?
Yet what else is there to do besides go about my day? I can’t sit around waiting for officers to arrest my husband. And there’s still a chance that David didn’t do anything at all and this is all in my head.
In the light of day, my murder theory seems less plausible. David and Nick were getting hate mail after that big judgment. Perhaps David took my gun because he feared that whomever had hurt his law partner was coming for him next. Maybe he hadn’t asked me for it because he hadn’t wanted me to worry. For all I know, my gun is in his desk drawer.
The thought that David might be innocent barely comforts me. Alone in the apartment, with only my imagination for company, I can invent too many reasons for my husband to have wanted his business partner dead. I can devise too many ways for him to have done it.
So go out, Beth admonishes me. A woman of action, she would not stay here like a polite chess player, waiting for her opponent to make the next move. She would meet someone. Do something. But what?
The bar. Again, the suggestion comes in Beth’s voice. When her husband stood her up, I sent her to a local pub. But I think the idea is about more than my story or drowning my sorrows. Given Sergeant Perez’s brief description, Nick had likely gone to the bar where he’d taken Christine before his disappearance. An upset woman had asked about him. Maybe that woman was involved. Maybe, if I figure out who she is, I can give the cops—and myself—another suspect besides my husband.
I don’t know the name of the place. Christine hadn’t remembered it, and Sergeant Perez had probably withheld it deliberately. Still, it’s possible to find out anything on the Internet with a few scant details. I open my laptop and search for a list of descriptive phrases that I remember from Christine’s story: “Brooklyn.” “Marie Antoinette.” “Speakeasy.” “French.” Within seconds, Google returns a customer review page for Le Bonhomme. There are photos. Red leather banquettes line one wall. Massive mirrors with ornate frames coated in gold leaf are posted above each table. This must be the place. The web page has a phone number and hours: 4:00 PM until 4:00 AM.
No one will answer if I call now. I resolve to head into Brooklyn for an early dinner and close my browser. My manuscript lies behind it. I see the cursor flashing beside the period of the last sentence. Obsessing over my husband’s possible guilt isn’t helping anyone. Time for me to write.
*
I work all day, stopping only to slurp up a bowl of watery instant oatmeal and refill my coffee mug. By three o’clock, I have been staring at the computer screen for so long that my vision is blurred. The objects in my apartment have a hazy quality, as though plopped onto a green screen. I save the latest version of my novel and e-mail myself a copy. If I want to get to the bar before it gets crowded, I need to leave soon.
I bump into my ottoman en route to my closet, forgetting that the layout of my bedroom is tighter than the one in Tyler’s imaginary studio. Nothing that I own is trendy enough for any place that Nick would have frequented. I settle on a pair of last season’s skinny jeans, sans this season’s factory scuffing around the knees, and a white V-neck blouse. My go-to black heels would help dress up the outfit. Unfortunately, I haven’t put them in their usual place and don’t trust myself to recall where I left them. Instead, I grab a pair of black sneakers. The woman in my full-length mirror seems as though she doesn’t care. Strangely enough, this makes me look hip.
I bring my laptop with me for the long subway ride. There are four stops between my apartment and Fifty-Ninth Street. There, I will switch trains to head into Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
The trip will give me another hour to work. Editing also has the added bonus of keeping anyone from talking to me. Tourists seeking someone to take their hundredth picture or strange men wanting to know if a clearly vacant seat is “taken” won’t bother asking a woman with her head behind a computer screen. Too much is happening for me to navigate polite conversation.
*
I emerge above ground in an area that looks like the bastard child of Manhattan’s Chelsea and the Bronx. Brownstone-lined streets intersect avenues of bodegas selling ethnic cuisines. In the distance, a glass skyscraper nears completion beside what I am pretty sure is a row of abandoned factories. Most strikingly, there’s graffiti. As I approach the waterfront, brick facades are splashed with blue-and-white bubble letters. Illegible scripts shout garbled messages on shuttered doors. The scrawled writing is more sad than threatening—a last FU from the struggling artists being pushed out of any neighborhood within five miles of the city. The Nicks of the world have arrived. No doubt the spray paint will soon be sandblasted, perhaps replaced by the high-priced art of a Banksy rip-off, though only if the developer decides that “edginess” drives up prices.
I walk down the street listed on the website until I see a gilded door, curved like the entrance to a castle and slapped on the brick face of one of the abandoned-looking factories. There isn’t any sign, and the door doesn’t have a knob or a handle. This must be the place.
I rap my knuckles against the fancy entrance, more annoyed with the gimmick than thrilled by the faux secrecy. The door retreats with the screech of rusted metal, probably for effect. A shirtless man in a gold bowtie, like a male version of a Playboy bunny, peers around me. When he doesn’t see anyone, he welcomes me to Le Bonhomme.
Christine has a knack for descriptions. The place does resemble a French queen’s chambers, only with booths instead of beds. More accurately, it seems to be fashioned after the sitting room where courtesans entertained before heading to more private quarters. It smells like a heavy male cologne, something with absinthe and rosemary.
The hour is too early for the after-work crowd. Only one of the several booths hosts patrons. Two men. Perhaps a couple. Their presence alone, sitting across from one another, does not make this a gay bar. The bartender’s work attire of a silken red scarf and tight black pants, however, strongly hints in that direction. The man could bench press me. Another clue.
I take a seat on a red velvet stool and request a tequila gimlet. It’s the only mixed drink I can come up with while still struggling to digest the decor. The bartender looks at me like I am in the wrong place and hands me a menu. All the cocktails are special to the restaurant, he explains. He doesn’t do plain old tequila and lime.
I point to the first one. It has an accent over the vowel and raspberry listed in the description. It doesn’t matter. I’m not drinking so much as I am trying to create a financial transaction involving information. If I am tipping this guy, he might be more forthcoming.
As the mixologist starts taking bottles from the back bar, I slide my phone from my purse and scroll to the picture of Nick and David. “I am sorry to bother you, but I am hoping that you may have some information on a friend of mine.” Surprisingly, my voice doesn’t sound all squeaky. The stress of the past few days has forced me to get over some of my social anxiety.
The bartender squints as though I might be a crazed stalker or badly cast bounty hunter. He doesn’t say anything.
I place the phone on the bar. “His name is Nick Landau. The man on the right.”
The bartender pours raspberry vodka into a shaker with one hand and red raspberry juice in with the other. He glances at the screen.
“He’s my husband’s best friend and law partner. He disappeared about a month ago. His name has been in the paper. Apparently, he was last seen here.”
The bartender keeps looking at the image. His lips remain shut. He adds another liquor to the shaker before vibrating it above his shoulder like an odd instrument.