Patrice didn’t wait for an answer, just opened his browser.
“He’ll get a boat for tomorrow night,” Apollo said. “Promised to drive me out on the river and drop me off if we can find the right island. There are only nine in the East River, and I’ve already spent two months on one of them. So that leaves eight.”
“But why is this guy helping you?” Dana asked, leaning against Patrice’s shoulder. “What does it matter to him?”
The space heater’s coiled rods glowed so brightly now, they almost looked red.
“That’s why I wanted to come to Patrice before I went. Maybe Wheeler’s sympathetic. Maybe he’s out of his mind. Maybe he’s planning to shoot me and dump my body in the water.”
“Maybe all three,” Dana said.
“But it doesn’t matter. If she’s alive, I want to find her.” He held up his hand and brushed the red string with his thumb again. “I want to find her.”
“And you’ll bring her to the police?” Dana asked.
“No,” Apollo said. “That’s not what I’ll do.”
Patrice flashed a look at Apollo, then turned back, clicked on the email.
“This looks like camera footage from off the street,” Patrice said. “Like NYPD surveillance shit. CCTV type of stuff. This dude’s friends did some serious digging.”
Patrice clicked play. He expanded the box until it filled about a quarter of the screen. The same screen played on all three monitors. Patrice, Dana, and Apollo crowded close to each other and watched.
APOLLO WATCHED A ghost on Patrice Green’s computer screen. Three months since he’d last seen her alive, and now here she was.
The ghost of Emma Valentine walked freely down some Manhattan avenue. Hard to say exactly where, much farther downtown than Washington Heights, in the valley of skyscrapers, close to Wall Street. She moved amid the foot traffic. If people saw her, they didn’t act like it. They moved around her as if she was a cloud of bad atmosphere. Apollo could see people actually turning away as she moved by them. Looking anywhere but at her. People pulled out their phones rather than putting their eyes on her. Was this purposeful or just some natural allergy to Emma’s haunted presence? In this way she walked unseen.
She wore a long winter jacket that came all the way down to her ankles. It really looked as though she glided down the sidewalks, across the streets.
Was it the same day that she’d killed Brian?
When one camera lost her, another kicked in, from a new angle, farther down the block. This wasn’t a continuous shot but a series of them, cut together by William Wheeler and his hundred friends. At times Emma had just left the shot, at times she hadn’t quite entered. This gave the feeling that Apollo was stalking after her now. Like she might be walking this route, in downtown New York City, right this minute. Only the time stamp in the corner of the screen reminded him this was old news.
The skyscrapers fell away as Emma approached open water. Now Apollo knew where she was. South Street Seaport. She walked to Pier 16, location of the New York Water Taxi. The location of their last date night as a happy couple. Apollo had been the one to take her there. Was this how she’d known where to find it, and how late at night it still ran? He felt punched in the throat. This was how she had escaped Manhattan Island? For the cost of an access pass? Thirty dollars to disappear.
But where would she even get the money? When she slammed a hammer into the side of his face, she hadn’t seemed in the right mind to remember her wallet.
Emma waited on the pier. A mass of others, tourists, kids in their twenties, crowded the line for the next trip. And from out of the crowd appeared one woman. This woman walked up to Emma directly and put her arms around her, though Emma remained stiff in the embrace. When the water taxi arrived, the woman let go of Emma and led her to the end of the long line. They waited patiently until they reached the taxi. The woman flashed two passes, and then the pair climbed on board.
Apollo watched in awed humiliation as the water taxi pulled away from the pier.
Of course, he’d recognized the woman who helped Emma escape. He’d just been with her in Chinatown. That morning he’d given her a check for ten thousand dollars.
Patrice and Dana recognized Kim, too. Neither one of them would look at Apollo—they only dropped their heads.
Meanwhile Apollo took out his phone. He texted William.
I need that boat.
I want your help.
BRIAN WEST WAS at the front door. Apollo heard him knocking from the living room. Apollo walked to the door, and the knocking only grew louder. He reached his hand in the air and turned all three locks of the apartment door. A man stood in the hallway. It wasn’t Brian West yet. This man’s face looked blue. He had no nose or mouth, only eyes. He pushed his way inside. The man knelt down in front of Apollo and pulled off his blue skin. Underneath it was his daddy’s face. Apollo smiled and hugged Brian West. Brian West held his son tight. Brian West shut the door and locked it. Brian West walked through the apartment calling Lillian Kagwa’s name. Brian West went into the bathroom and turned on the shower. Hot water ran in the tub. Apollo sat with his father on the couch in the living room and together they watched TV. The Smurfs.
On the television, an old man in a long black cloak cackled in his laboratory; a maroon cat perched on a tabletop snickered along. What were their names again? Gargamel and Azrael. They wanted to destroy the Smurfs.
The hot water ran in the bathroom for so long that steam filled the room. Soon the steam crept down the hallway. A fog filled the living room.
On the television the Smurfs sang together. They didn’t see Gargamel and Azrael were hiding in the woods waiting to pounce.
Brian West stood and picked Apollo up. He held the boy tightly. He said, “You’re coming with me.”
He walked into the mist.