“I don’t have a choice,” Apollo said. “I can’t outthink this dude every minute.”
Patrice huffed into the mouthpiece. “Yeah. You plan for one thing, and he’ll just switch to another. You want to hear something wild? I came back home and did a complete flush of the computer. Found his fingerprints all over my files. Do you know this dude took back the money he paid us? We can’t even do the right thing with the cash. Cleared it right out of our account. This motherfucker is as good as the Russians.”
“So he knows everything?” Apollo asked.
“No one knows everything,” Patrice said. “But he knows more than we’d like.”
Apollo straightened up, his back tight against the cold wall of the women’s bathroom inside Forest Hills Park.
“Where are you at now?” Patrice asked.
Instinctively, Apollo formed the words—Forest Park—but caught himself. He’d made this call so he could say he’d seen Emma, but that too seemed imprudent now. What was the only way to keep a secret in the modern world? Never type it on a keyboard; never utter it over a phone.
When Apollo didn’t answer Patrice let it go.
“Are you and Dana okay?”
Now Patrice spoke quietly, sounding winded, or wounded. “Dana has to sign in at her job at the start of her shifts,” he said. “Normal procedure. But she got there yesterday, and they told her they had no record of her being employed by them at all. Obviously they know she works there, but right now, officially, according to their records, Dana Green has never worked for them. I mean, this motherfucker wiped her out completely. And for what? Because she’s married to me? Because I’m helping you? They’re treating it like a computer error, but how much damage is this guy going to do? One angry man with a computer—that’s all it takes anymore.”
He sounded pained.
“124 86th Road,” Patrice said.
“What’s that?” Apollo asked.
“That’s about the only piece of help I can offer you. 124 86th Road. That’s in Forest Hills. Can you get out there tonight?”
Apollo leaned forward into a crouch, as if Patrice—or someone else—might suddenly see him there. He decided to play pretend. “Why go out there?” he asked. “What’s in Forest Hills?”
“You remember when that motherfucker took us on his boat? He said he only had one boat signed up for that stupid app of his. I took a look behind the wall and found out who the boat was registered to. Jorgen Knudsen. The address is 124 86th Road. Wheeler probably stole access to the boat just like he stole his wife’s money, but at least if you talk to Knudsen, he might have some kind of clue to finding William.”
“I saw—” Apollo began, but hesitated.
“1-2-4, that’s the house number.” Patrice’s voice played weak and tinny in the air, but it brought him back. “86th Road. Forest Hills. Jorgen Knudsen. Go find that guy. Don’t think about anything else. I’m hanging up now. Just in case. We love you. Good luck.”
OVERCAST MORNING. The snow hadn’t stuck, so the park sagged everywhere, as if a damp blanket had been cast over the land. The limbs of the bare trees hung low, and those that still had leaves hung even lower. Great swaths of grass lay matted. The single concrete road that wormed through the middle of Forest Park had been soaked so dark, it looked freshly laid. Apollo left the bathroom with the suitcase and went to find Emma.
He tried the Carousel and then the George Seuffert, Sr., Bandshell, which looked like the kinds of places someone might hide to protect against the elements. Did Emma need such protection? The woman he’d seen last night seemed to generate her own weather system. Apollo walked until midday but never caught sight of Emma. For all he knew, they were separated by little more than a few dozen trees. When you were inside the thickest parts of the Northern Forest, it was possible to forget you were in one of the most densely populated cities on the planet in the twenty-first century. It could be a hundred years in the past, a thousand or more. Apollo wandered in the wilderness, and who knew what else was in there, too.
Eventually he had to give in and give up, and by noon he’d left the forest and found the sidewalks surrounding the park. Now he and his suitcase made their way toward 86th Road.
Little Norway. Apollo had seen this area only in the dark and learned the name only from the cops who’d stopped him. What did he expect to see now? What he got would’ve been familiar almost anywhere in the borough. One-family homes with aluminum siding walls; midpriced sedans and minivans parked on streets and in driveways; small front lawns behind chain-link fencing and satin window treatments in every room. Little Norway could’ve been Little Ecuador or Little Korea or Little Ghana. The flags might differ, but the stages were the same.
Apollo stopped at the address Patrice gave him. He found a three-story house, one of the largest and oldest on the block. No car in the driveway. The windows were all blocked by yellowing blinds. Apollo brought his suitcase up a small flight of stairs, right to the front door, no bell, so he knocked. No answer, so he kept knocking, but eventually he gave up. When he turned to the street, he saw a neighbor watching him from the house across the way. Man or woman, young or old, he couldn’t say. The window treatments hid the details. How soon before more cops were called? Apollo descended the stairs and wheeled his suitcase down the block. He’d spent half a day in the park looking for Emma; now he’d have to do the same hunting for the person who lived here. If he couldn’t just sit on the steps, he’d make a circuit around the block. How long could it take before Jorgen Knudsen returned?
It turned out to be hours. By the time the old Viking showed up, the sun was going down. Apollo’s knees hurt. He hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since yesterday. As a result, he felt so starved he thought he was hallucinating when that white-haired codger appeared on the block. He carried two large white plastic bags, both heavy with goods. Moving slowly. When he passed under a streetlamp, Apollo could see the man muttering as he walked.
Apollo stopped at the far corner of 86th Road, right in the middle of the street. A woman had to beep three times to get him out of the way. The old man looked up when he heard the car horn, and there stood Apollo Kagwa, but the guy didn’t seem to notice. Instead he resumed that hobbled march until he reached the three-story house, climbed the stairs, unlocked his front door, and went inside.