A shrug from Bela. “Whatever business your father was up to, it should be handled by an adult.”
I thumb through it, but it’s just an old paperback, the cover battered and cracked, pages yellowing. Inside the front cover is a name and a 718 phone number scrawled in blue ink. “Do you know who Peter Kagan is?”
“The owner of the book, maybe. Before your father.” He wanders back to the cart, pours himself another drink.
I stare at the book. “Can I take this with me?”
“As I said, I do not think it was meant for you.” He downs the contents of his glass in one swallow. “Well, wonderful talk tonight, but Bela must go to bed. Do me a favor, Red Shoes?”
I stare at him. “Yes?”
“When you leave, make sure the door locks behind you.”
*
I pause on the landing in front of my apartment, but don’t go in. Instead, I sit on the stairs leading down to the third floor and pull the copy of 1984 from the pocket of my army jacket. It’s just a ragged paperback, dog-eared from a thousand readings, printing faded. I thumb through it again, more carefully this time, but there are no notes in the margins and nothing highlighted. Only on the last page, the blank one at the very end, do I find anything at all. There, someone wrote in pencil, 12/14/95. A date, and not one I recognize.
The only things making this book unique are that date, the name, and the phone number. I turn to the inside cover and look at the name again. The handwriting itself is just block letters written in blue ink, unique to no one. Then I look more closely, and this time I see it. It’s not the handwriting itself I notice, but how fresh and deep and so very elegant the blue ink is. Oh, Dad. You really did like the pen.
I can’t help but smile sadly at the idea of it. For a few moments, I scour my brain for the name Peter Kagan, but he’s no one I’ve ever heard my dad mention. I pull out my phone and dial the 718 number written beneath the name.
The line rings once, twice, then a male voice answers: “Eleventh Street Diner.”
I hesitate and hear the sounds of mariachi music on a radio and busy kitchen in the background. “Hello,” I say. “Is—is Peter Kagan there?”
“Peter who?” the guy says.
“Peter Kagan,” I say slowly.
“Never heard of him. Wrong number.”
“Wait,” I say on impulse, “where are you located?”
He gives an intersection in Queens, and I hang up.
If the number belonged to someone named Peter Kagan, it doesn’t anymore. I tap my phone to my lips. Unless it never belonged to Peter Kagan. Unless the two pieces of information, the name and the phone number, are only meant to look like they belong together. I look at the clock on my phone. 11:20. Not late. Not that late. Then I stand, balancing on the edge of the landing.
Down the steps I run, three at a time.
*
The 6 train downtown to Grand Central, then change to the 7 headed to Queens. It takes me all of twenty minutes to get from my apartment to the Court Square stop, where the map says I should get off.
I climb down the elevated platform stairs to the street and make my way toward the address of the Eleventh Street Diner only a few blocks away.
Amid the mostly low-slung garages and industrial shops closed for the day, the diner is easy to spot. It has a bright awning and seems to be the only sign of life nearby. Inside it’s warm and the air smells of frying grease.
“Coffee,” I tell the guy working the counter. “To go. Light and sweet.” He wipes his hands on his apron and pours a cup, loading it with cream and lots of sugar. I take a seat at one of the four booths and stare out the only window.
As far as I can tell, there’s nothing around that would be of interest. But my dad had chosen this place for a reason. It occurs to me that maybe this clue wasn’t meant to remind him of the location, but to make it discoverable for someone else, maybe even from this very vantage point.
I let my mind explore for a while, walk down the street in front of the diner, past a closed-up taxi garage, a closed import-export shop, a self-storage warehouse, a shop selling used industrial equipment.
My eyes drag back across the block to the self-storage warehouse. A place where one keeps things they don’t have room for—or don’t want—in their home. But you need a key to get in. A key to open the lock. I pull out the book and turn to the last page: 12/14/95. It isn’t a date, it’s a combination.
The bell over the door tinkles softly as I walk out into the cold and toward the warehouse. Though the building is mostly dark, there’s a light on in a little office at the front. I climb the steps and enter.
A rail-thin man in a tank top with tattoos from his fingers to his shoulders sets down a magazine and looks up from behind the desk. “Help you?”
“Do you—do you have a storage unit for William Bloom?” I ask.
The man’s chair squeaks as he swivels to a computer and slowly types in the name. “Nothing for William Bloom,” he says.
“All right,” I say. “Thank you.” I turn to leave and place my hand on the door handle. But of course my dad wouldn’t have used his real name, not for something secret. And now, with what I know to be his occupation, a fake driver’s license or even a passport, something just good enough so that he could sign a lease on a storage unit, wouldn’t be too hard to come by.
“Try Peter Kagan,” I say.
“What?”
“Peter Kagan.”
More slow clicking of the keyboard. “Last name Kagan, first name Peter, unit 213,” he says.
My stomach jumps. “Do you think I could—you know, take a look?” I say. “I’m his daughter. I have the key.”
“Leaseholders only, and Peter Kagan’s the only name I got.”
I pull a twenty-dollar bill from my pocket but keep it below the counter and out of sight. I’ve never bribed anyone before, but I know there’s a way you have to do it, a way of handing over the money so that you can pretend the bribe isn’t a bribe.
“Maybe there’s—maybe there’s some sort of fee I could pay,” I say quietly. It’s the line I heard my dad use once with a traffic cop in Moscow. I fold the twenty in half and hold it up for him to see.
The man stands and braces his arms on the counter. “Out!”
*
I cross the street but make it only a few steps in the direction of the train before stopping. The answer, or at least my best shot at an answer, sits in unit 213 in the building at my back. So why am I walking toward the train? If this is a kind of war—and it is—can a night clerk be all it takes to defeat me?
That fear you have, here, in your belly. It’s just a feeling. Only that.