“I never found out her third wish,” Apollo said, not really speaking to Kim.
Kim stepped toward him and put her arms around him. “I think you should know,” she started. Her face stayed pressed close to his neck, and the traffic moved on and off the Manhattan Bridge. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” she said, crying openly now.
“But this is how it is.”
They let go of each other. Apollo still held the check between his fingers, and finally Kim nodded and slipped it into her hand. She kissed his cheek once, and he watched her go.
“Goodbye, Valentines,” Apollo whispered.
Apollo stayed there until long after Kim disappeared in the throngs of Canal Street. He turned back to the bridge. He liked the idea of walking it, crossing over water into Brooklyn. He jogged across the road and made it to the pedestrian footpath. He wasn’t on it for two moments before his phone rattled in his pocket. After two more steps, the phone vibrated again. He stopped and looked down at the East River below him. For one moment he considered tossing the phone away, but then he succumbed to a much older technology, hardwired into the human brain: curiosity. He swiped his phone and found one new text message.
Emma Valentine is alive.
I can help you find her.
APOLLO STAYED THERE on the bridge for how long—twenty minutes, maybe more? He stared at the phone as if it would speak. Whose voice would he hear? He stayed there clutching at the phone and waiting while passersby skirted around him, huffing with aggravation because of the space he occupied. People on bikes rang their bells or shouted to let them pass, but Apollo only stared at his phone like a caveman who had just discovered fire. Then another text appeared.
Follow the map.
Just like that, a map opened on Apollo’s screen. A grid appeared, and in a moment the contours of Chinatown were drawn in. A rendering of the Manhattan Bridge that mimicked an architectural plan, and on it a small blue dot that was Apollo’s phone. Now a red blip appeared at the far edge of his screen.
Come to me.
At first Apollo thought the red dot marked a spot in Chinatown, but as his blue dot came closer to the red dot, the map on the phone rearranged the city, nudging the red dot farther north. Not Chinatown but Little Italy, not Little Italy but NoLita. Apollo held on to his phone, a hook reeling him toward the fisherman. He stepped into traffic four different times and received a chorus of horns. He slammed into countless people as he moved on the sidewalks, but if they cursed him, he never noticed. He left NoLita and entered the East Village. He walked west until he reached Washington Square Park. The blue dot and red dot nearly overlapped now.
The Washington Square Arch mirrored the arch at the Manhattan Bridge. But where the first had felt like the gateway to his escape—a chance to cross the waters—the Washington Square Arch only led him farther inland. As soon as he passed through the archway, the map on Apollo’s phone closed. The application shut down, and he hadn’t been the one to close it. Another text message.
I see you.
Apollo wondered if this would turn into torture. A scavenger hunt across all of Manhattan, led by some mastermind who’d reveal himself—or herself—only at the end of the long game. Apollo didn’t have the patience for any bullshit like that.
Just tell me where the fuck you are or I’m leaving, he texted back.
The phone vibrated.
Sorry! I’m by the fountains.
An apologetic mastermind. That was a nice surprise.
WILLIAM WHEELER STOOD by the large old fountain waving his cellphone like a ramp service agent guiding a plane on the runway.
“William?” Apollo said once they were close enough to talk. He’d honestly been expecting it to be Kim, or maybe Patrice. Even Lillian, but not this near-stranger who’d recently paid an enormous sum of money for a book. What if this turned out to be some intricate, perverse way to request a refund? Another flash of showmanship on William’s part.
“Mr. Kagwa,” William said. “Apollo. I’m sorry to see you again like this.”
It was too loud here, and too many people passed through. The mass of bodies bumping Apollo built a kinetic charge inside his body. Strange to be drawn all the way to the West Village by a cryptic message; even stranger to find William fucking Wheeler standing here, and now all these people kept bumping and tussling, and it made Apollo feel like he needed to do something epic and thoughtless. If they didn’t move from this crowded park, Apollo realized he was going to hit William. He grabbed William at the elbow and shoved him through the crowd. He pushed him forward as if the man were a plow.
“Sorry,” William muttered to people. “So sorry. My apologies!”
They crossed Washington Square North and stood by a block of beautifully maintained redbrick row houses that existed in almost direct opposition to the reality of Washington Square Park. Where the park practically seethed with vitality and chaos, the row houses were as ordered as rare books in a private library. Foot traffic fell off, too. Apollo’s temper came under control.
He let go of William’s arm, lifted his phone, and shook it at him. “What the fuck is this?” he asked.
William, for his part, seemed to be out of breath, or maybe just scared. He touched his elbow gingerly.
Apollo stepped closer. “What is with those texts,” he asked, his tone stony.
“I know this has got to be pretty mysterious,” William said. “I didn’t mean to get cloak and dagger about it.”
“Do you really know that Emma is alive?”
William leaned back against the low wrought-iron railing that protected the row houses from the sidewalk. “I do. I swear.”
“Why didn’t you tell me when we talked at the Dunkin’ Donuts? Or on the boat?”
William shook his head. “I didn’t know then. I only just found out. I only just wanted to find out.”
“Why?”
“After meeting you,” he said. “Talking with you. I mean, you go to those group meetings to deal with…what happened to you. That’s hard enough, but then some woman jumps up and starts saying all sorts of crazy stuff to you? It’s not right.”
William spread his arms, hands extended, as if to show he carried no weapons, no malice. “I guess I thought I’d do what I could to help you.”
“The FBI and NYPD couldn’t find her,” Apollo said. The phone in his hand felt as heavy as a brick.
William rose from the fence. He looked up and down the block as if scanning for eavesdroppers. “There was a time when the police were your only resource. If they couldn’t find your wife, then no one could. But that’s not true anymore, Apollo. A hundred people with a hundred computers across the country can cover as much ground. And if those hundred people really care about what happens? They’ll work on it day and night. They won’t stop. And that’s what they did when I told them I wanted to help you.”
“You told other people about all this?”