8 Megan did not feel prepared. The first time that she had taken Sam on an airplane had been in October, when he was 13 months old, to visit her family in Montreal and to drop in on the memorial gathering for Daniel. Sam had been frightened at first by the roar of the jet engines at takeoff, but quickly calmed down, and by the time the plane landed an hour later he was such a seasoned flier that on the return flight, after four days, he roared along with the engines amid giggles of delight. The flight to New York was not much longer, but this time Sam began crying even before takeoff, and continued to cry intermittently all the way until landing. Megan and Betty passed him from one lap to the other, and Betty tried her best to amuse and distract him, but it would work only for a few minutes at a time. “What can be wrong with him?” Megan wondered to Betty. “Maybe he’s just tired,” Betty suggested. “Maybe,” Megan agreed reluctantly. He was calm, though uncharacteristically quiet, during the taxi ride from LaGuardia to lower Manhattan. They got to the hotel just in time for Sam’s nap – Megan had chosen the flight with that in mind – and he fell asleep immediately. Perhaps he had been very tired after all. Megan stayed in the room while Betty, who had never been in New York, went out for a walk. In the taxi she had mentioned again her feelings of guilt and regret over never having visited Daniel during his nine years in New York, and just before leaving the hotel she said that she would like to visit what she knew of Daniel’s haunts in the city, the Columbia campus for sure, and maybe even the bar where he spent his last evening. “Tom Radnovich can tell you where that is,’ Megan said, “but it probably isn’t the kind of place where you should go alone.” “Maybe he can take me there,” Betty said, laughing. The screen told him that the call was from Megan Kenner. Lindsey and Brian were happily running with their kites, and Tom sat down on a park bench from which he could watch them. “Hi, Megan,” he said. “Are you in New York?” “Yes,” she said, “I’m in the hotel with Sam. He’s asleep. He had a rough flight for some reason, but I think he’ll be okay.” “So what time would you like me to pick you up?” “What did you have in mind?” “Well, the usual first date – dinner, drinks, maybe some dancing... But I don’t know if that’s going to work within your time frame.” “I don’t think dinner would work, since I always have dinner with Sam. I usually share my dinner with him. But drinks and dancing sounds lovely. I can probably let Betty put him to sleep, so I should be ready by eight.” “Should we meet in the lobby?” “No, come up to the room, so you can meet Betty, and maybe even say hi to Sam. I hope he’ll be friendlier this time. We’re in room...” “You don’t have to tell me.” Tom laughed. “I’ll just show them my badge at the desk.” Megan also laughed. “I wonder what they’ll think of me,” she said, “with the police coming to see me.” As she stepped out of the small lobby that was decorated in an East Asian style, with Buddha heads and orchids, Betty discovered that the hotel was right on the edge of Chinatown. The fact that it was “downtown” did not mean, as it would in Montreal or Toronto, that it was in the center of the city. Here, as she had discovered by looking at the map that she had found in the airline magazine, it meant that it was at the lowest end of Manhattan, where the Hudson River and the East River flow into Upper New York Bay. Except that the East River isn’t really a river but a strait. Walking westward along East Broadway, she was enveloped by the aromas of Chinese cooking. It was a familiar sensation, since Montreal’s Chinatown was barely a kilometer from her apartment house in the Plateau, and she and Paul ate Chinese quite often. She wondered if Sam had been exposed to East Asian food. He would probably like it, she thought. It was child-friendly, with everything cut up into bite-size pieces. Chopsticks were another matter, but she had noticed that Chinese kids, or at least Chinese-Canadian ones, generally used forks. Suddenly the street curved and she came to a complicated intersection. Straight ahead of her rose the patina-covered steeple of an old church, reminiscent of some of the neighborhood churches in Montreal. Turning to her right as she was crossing the wide street she saw the Empire State Building looming in the distance. It was probably some five kilometers away, but still looked imposing. Maybe she would go up there. Maybe with Sam, while Megan was doing her business in Surrogate Court. After she had crossed to a street that for some reason was called Chatham Square – there was no evidence of a square anywhere in sight – she looked ahead to see two scarily identical rectangular monoliths rising even higher than the Empire State Building, and they were closer too. So these are the Twin Towers, she said to herself. Suddenly she felt a strange jiggling in the pocket of her jeans. It took her a good two seconds to discard the possibility of a gerbil and to recognize the vibration of her cell phone. She pulled it out of her pocket and saw that the call was from Paul. “Hi, sweetheart, I was just going to call you,” she lied. “How are you doing?” She turned right onto the relatively less traveled Mott Street to escape the traffic noise. “I miss you like crazy.” Paul spoke fast and sounded impatient. “When are you coming home?” “Soon,” Betty said. “Back to Toronto on Tuesday, and then another day or two.” “Why bother going back to Toronto? Why don’t you just fly back to Montreal?” “Why? Well, for one thing, I left my thesis at Megan’s. And...” “That’s okay,” Paul laughed, “I don’t need another reason.” As she passed the church she found out that it was called the Church of the Transfiguration, that it dated from 1815, and that masses were read in English, Mandarin and Cantonese. She turned into a street called Mosco that ran alongside the church. Why isn’t there a simple verb in English, she wondered, that translates longer? Une rue qui longe l’église? The street turned out to be only one short block long – the length of the church – and it ended when it met Mulberry Street. She remembered the book titled And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street from which, with Daniel’s help, she had learned to read English. Another memory of Daniel that had lain buried! Across the street lay a verdant park. She turned right on Mulberry Street and discovered that she was in what must have been the very heart of Chinatown. After a few blocks she came to a very wide street called Canal, crossed it, and suddenly found herself amid signs for Italian cafés, ristoranti, bakeries and pizzerias. This must be Little Italy, she thought, and though it did not resemble any place in Italy that she had actually visited, the memory of Italy, even if a negative one, caused another pang: she and Paul had been in Italy when her mother called her about Daniel’s death. She didn’t want any more of that memory, and turned back, crossing Canal Street once more until she came to the south end of Mulberry Street. She noticed that at that end of the park (which she discovered was called Columbus Park) there was a playground with brightly colored equipment and hordes of kids playing on it. And she had an idea. At the corner of Mulberry and Worth she asked a middle-aged woman with gray hair and a pleasant youthful face, walking her dog, if she could tell her how to get to Chambers Street. “Chambers? Sure. I’ll tell you a shortcut. Just cross the street and walk between these two buildings”– she pointed at two neoclassical limestone structures that were probably courthouses – “and when you come to the next street cross that too, and keep walking on a sort of driveway till you see a big tall building with an arch in the middle. I work there. You walk through the arch, and you’re on Chambers Street.” “What building is that?” “It’s the Municipal Building, which is where the New York city administration is.” “You mean, like the city hall?” “No. The City Hall is further down on Chambers, about half a block. That’s where the mayor and the city council sit, not administrators like me.” The dog, a corgi, was straining at its leash. “I gotta go. Have a nice day, young lady!” Betty walked through the arch as directed and saw that she was indeed at the meeting of Chambers and Centre Streets. She continued west on Chambers and quickly noticed that Number 31, the location of the court where Megan was to appear the next morning, was just a few doors down. The walk from the park had taken her barely five minutes. City Hall, across the street, was a building in French Renaissance style, also in limestone, with a park surrounding it. The next street she came to was Broadway. From the corner she could once again see the Twin Towers looming above other skyscrapers. She turned left on Broadway and walked for another few blocks till she found a lovely church, in Georgian style, reminding her of Saint Martin-in-the-Fields in London. It turned out to be Saint Paul’s Chapel, the oldest church in New York, in continuous use since 1766. It was open to visitors, but she had no desire to enter. She reversed her steps and, after two blocks, found the entrance to a subway station. Then she had another idea. She went down the stairs and waited in line to ask the clerk at the token window, a heavyset black woman, if she could get to Columbia University from there. “Sure, honey. Just take either the two or the three uptown to ninety-six, then take the one local to one-sixteen, and then you’re right there. You need some tokens?” “Yes, sure, give me two please.” Betty began to open her purse when she suddenly remembered something. “Oh, I’m sorry, I’ve got only Canadian money on me.” There was a snicker from someone in the line behind her, but the short, bespectacled young black man who was her immediate follower said, in what seemed to be an African accent, “Don’t worry about it,” and, addressing the clerk, “I will pay for them. Two tokens for the lady and a twenty-dollar MetroCard for me, please.” “Oh, thank you very much,” Betty said. “That’s very kind of you.” “Don’t mention it,” the man said. “Enjoy your stay in New York.” It can’t be jet lag, Megan thought, since they hadn’t changed time zones. But Sam did not seem inclined to follow his usual two-hour nap routine. He woke up about half an hour after falling asleep and sounded as though he had trouble breathing. Please don’t get sick on me, honey, she begged him silently as she rocked him in her lap. He gave no sign of a fever... She remembered a line from one of her movies: a doctor saying, “No sign of a fever this morning, but she was pretty hot in bed last night.” Her movies: that seemed so long ago now. Two and a half years, but it could have been a century. May Green, by now, was a different person from her. When she watched one of her videos, the actress that she saw there might have been anyone. May Green, Kathy Harris, Laurie Lyon – figures on a screen. Memories of the filming were, of course, another matter. They were in her flesh, but by this time only skin-deep. Did Tom Radnovich expect a porn routine on their date? She could do it if that was what he wanted, but she hoped that he wouldn’t. If, in fact, there would be a date with Tom Radnovich. For she had not overcome her ambivalence yet. And if Sam could plausibly be described as ill, she would have the perfect excuse for backing out. Her head felt like a revolving door, with thoughts coming through one after another, only to return after each cycle. But during one breathing space between thoughts she noticed that Sam was asleep again. She put him down on his cot and began to do stretching exercises on the thick carpet. Selima Begović walked into the station at precisely four o’clock. Tom Radnovich wondered if her punctuality was related to her husband’s trade: he was a watchmaker. Unlike her previous appearances, she was not wearing a headscarf. Her hair was black, flecked with gray. To Tom she looked like the quintessential Balkan matriarch. Orsini ushered her into the interview room and had her sit at the table between him and Tom, with Tracy Schiller facing her. Tracy was a blonde with a good figure in blouse and slacks. “Recite nam nešto o Lejli,” Tom began. Tell us about Lejla. She began her narration about her daughter, with Tom taking stenographic notes. After five minutes he asked her to stop. “It began one day in Sarajevo,” he said, turning to face Orsini and Schiller, “when she was thirteen, and she was walking home from school with a group of girls, when they were accosted by a gang of Serbs around twenty, who were acting as the neighborhood Serb militia. They forced the girls into an alley and began to rape them. There was exactly one guy for each girl, so it must have been planned. Except that the guy who took Lejla was someone that she knew from the neighborhood and that she had...” – he thought for a moment about how to translate zaludjena – “had a crush on, so she didn’t resist, and in fact enjoyed it. Her only worry was about getting pregnant, which she didn’t. She told her older sister Nedjma about it...” “Is that the sister who was in the Miss Sarajevo contest?” Tracy Schiller asked. She seemed to know the file well. “Yes, Miss Sarajevo,” Selima said in a bitter tone. “Their mother overheard them talking, but decided not to say anything to anyone, since she had also been a little wild and crazy when she was young.” “Crazy girl,” Selima said, pointing at herself and rolling her eyes. With no prompting she resumed her account until Tom signaled her to stop. “But then Lejla started borrowing Nedjma’s sexy clothes...” “Sexy,” Selima confirmed, pantomiming a tight-fitting, low-cut outfit. “... and sneaking out to see the Serb, or maybe other boys. That’s when Mr. Begović decided to stop it by making the family into observant Muslims. Nedjma didn’t like the idea and moved out to live with her boyfriend, and the oldest son was already out of the house, but the twins liked the idea and began to think of themselves as Mujahedin, though the actual Mujahedin in Bosnia were Arabs. But they recruited young local men, and the two Begović boys joined them. They went from Sarajevo to Travnik, where they got Arabic lessons, military training, uniforms and weapons. Their father was furious, because he thought that the whole thing was manipulation by Croatia, as an excuse for them to invade Bosnia too.” “That’s what I heard too,” Tracy Schiller said. Just then a clerk brought in a couple of sheets of paper, one of which looked like a fax cover sheet, and handed them to Orsini. The detective glanced at them, his face giving a sudden indication of concern, and put them aside on the desk. Tom went on with the translation. “He had friends high up in the Bosnian army, and he got the boys sent back to Sarajevo, but they resented it. So now he had all five kids who were out of his control. That’s when he decided to get out of Bosnia, and used some connections to get refugee visas to come to New York, where he has a cousin, with the three underage kids.” Once again Selima seemed to know that the translation of her tale thus far was complete, and talked some more. “At first things were okay,” Tom recited from his notes, “because Lejla was a studious, well-behaved girl while she was learning English, and no one knew about her past. But once she spoke English fluently she started hanging out with boys again, and her brothers became militant again. Lejla would wear a headscarf when she was at home, or at school when her brothers were still in high school and so could see her, but otherwise she took it off, especially when she was seeing boys. The brothers knew it, and started talking about an honor killing. When Mr. Begović heard that, he blew up at them, saying that Bosnians don’t do that sort of thing, and from then on they spoke with each other in Arabic. They grew beards and started to hang Arabic posters on the walls of their room. They also began to go away for long time periods, neither to school nor to work nor to the mosque, and Mrs. Begović became suspicious. There was a friend of Lejla’s named Alida, who occasionally came to the house when the brothers weren’t there, and Mrs. Begović would chat with her because they spoke the same language. She asked Alida if, when she had some free time, she would be willing to follow the young men to see where they were going, since they didn’t know her, and Alida agreed. She followed them on the subway all the way to Brooklyn, and then to a building with Arabic writing on the walls, where about fifteen or twenty other young men with beards were waiting outside the door. Then an older man came, opened the door and the young men followed him inside. Then she took the subway back and told Mrs. Begović about it. So Mrs. Begović believes that the attack on Lejla had something to do with that Muslim group.” “Why hasn’t she told us about this before?” Tracy Schiller asked. Tom translated, and Selima replied. “Because,” Tom said, “as long as there was a chance that Lejla would live, she didn’t want any trouble. She thinks that these people are dangerous, that they’re terrorists. Including her sons.” “Teroristi,” Selima confirmed. “Does she know,” Orsini asked, “where in Brooklyn the guys went to?” Tom translated the question, and Selima shook her head. “The reason I’m asking is that the four subway goes right from where the Begovićes live to Atlantic Avenue, where the blind sheikh’s mosque is. We’ll have to question Alida. Does she know where Alida lives?” Selima seemed to understand, and shook her head. “What’s her last name?” Orsini went on. Selima hesitated. “Prezime,” Tom said. “Lovrin,” Selima answered. “Where does... did Lejla know her from?” “College,” Selima said immediately. “So,” Orsini said, “tomorrow we’ll have to go to the BCC registrar and ask them about Alida Lovrin. What about the arraignment?” he asked Tracy Schiller. “Right now there’s too much reasonable doubt, so we’ll have to drop the charges against the Murovas, with the possibility of refiling if the information changes.” “But we’ll have to talk to them,” Orsini said. “I just got a fax from the hospital. The post-mortem on Lejla showed that she had syphilis.” “Lejla? Sifilis?” Selima cried out, incredulous, and burst into tears after Tom nodded. She was grieving at last, he thought. “There were no symptoms yet, because she was so young, but anyone who might have had unprotected sex with her has to be informed. And that includes both Omar and Safet. And Silvana DiMaggio.” “I would guess,” Tom offered, “that Safet, being married and experienced, took precautions. But Omar seems naïve.” Selima was still crying. Tom asked her is there was anything else she wanted, and she shook her had. He asked her if she wanted to be driven home. She shook her head again. “Walk to home,” she said. Tom walked her to the door and they shook hands before she left the station. “Wow,” Tracy Schiller said, “we have a whole new case. I want to stay on it. I’ll try to get my boss to get the Kings County DA to let us investigate that group as a Bronx case. Who knows what’s behind it!” “Since I don’t know Arabic,” Tom said, “you probably won’t need me anymore. The Begović brothers speak perfectly good English, and I suppose Alida does too.” “You must have other cases to get back to,” Tracy said. “Do I ever,” Tom said. “But it’s been great working with you,” he said to Orsini. “Likewise,” Orsini said. “And I’m looking forward to working with you in the future,” Tom said to Tracy Schiller. “Pete tells that you’re part Albanian.” “Yes, a quarter, from my father’s mother.” “Do you know the language?” “No, my grandmother was actually brought up in Germany and didn’t speak it herself. But I’m thinking of learning it.” “So am I,” Tom said, though the idea hadn’t occurred to him until that moment. But it might well prove useful in his work. Besides, it might be fun taking a class with the bright, attractive Tracy Schiller. Only five years out NYU Law, but pretty knowledgeable about the world. “If you know of a place, let me know.” “I will,” Tracy said as she reached her hand out to him. “Take care, Detective Radnovich.” “You too, ADA Schiller.” He looked at his watch and found that there would be time for a workout before going home to get ready for his date with Megan Kenner. “You had quite an outing,” Megan said when Betty came into the room, carrying the thick pile of paper called the Sunday New York Times under her arm. She had bought it just before returning to the hotel so that she would have something to do once Sam was asleep. Sam was walking in circles around the room, holding something – Betty wasn’t sure what it was – from which he took an occasional bite. “He’s having his dinner,” Megan said with a laugh. “I can’t get him to sit.” She was sitting on the sofa, dressed as though ready to go out, in black pants and a low-cut lavender top, but still in slippers, though a pair of black high-heeled shoes was standing at attention on the floor next to her. Betty put the paper on the coffee table and sat beside her. “I walked and walked and walked,” she said as she removed her sturdy walking shoes and then her socks. The carpet felt good against her bare feet. “I also took the subway to Columbia. I was so stupid, I didn’t have any American money! But a kind gentleman bought me two tokens.” “A woman who looks like you will always find kind gentlemen,” Megan said with a chuckle. “I’ve found my share, and I’m not even in your league.” “What are you talking about? You’re gorgeous!” “I’m pretty enough – I mean, enough to get what I want using my looks – and I can make myself look gorgeous when I need to, but you just are. Anyway, what happened then?” “I took the subway to Columbia, and on Broadway I found an ATM and got me some greenbacks. The campus was practically empty, but it was interesting seeing the place where Daniel spent five years. What’s Sam eating, by the way?” She realized that she was talking incoherently. “I’m babbling! I must have low blood sugar!” “There’s pizza in the microwave,” Megan said. “I had it delivered. Authentic New York pizza, by the way, not Domino’s or Pizza Hut.” “Is that what Sam’s having?” “Yeah.” “Is the pizza good?” Betty asked Sam. “Pizza good,” Sam said. “Okay, then I’ll have some.” She got up and pulled a large slice, already on its own paper plate, out of the microwave oven. She began eating it even before getting back to the sofa. “Wow, what a thick crust!” she said between bites. “There’s wine and beer, too,” Megan said. “Which do you want?” she asked on her way to the minibar. “A little glass of wine would be nice.” Megan brought two glasses of red wine to the coffee table, and each woman took a sip before both of them burst into laughter. “Cheers!” Megan said. “To a hot date!” Betty said. “I’m not sure about that,” Megan said. “Sam hasn’t been quite right.” “Are you calling it off?” “Playing it by ear. If I don’t feel up to it, would you like to go? You said that you wanted him to take you that bar in the Bronx...” “But I didn’t mean tonight! This is my night for babysitting my favorite nephew!” Sam was just walking past her, and she set her slice of pizza on the paper plate and pulled him into her lap. He didn’t resist, but didn’t produce the happy giggle that she had heard in Toronto. “It’s you and me tonight, Sammy boy, right?” Sam said nothing, but squirmed out of Betty’s lap and into Megan’s. “Mommy,” he then said. “See what I mean?” Megan said. Betty finished her pizza and wine. She got up and went to the bathroom to brush her teeth and freshen up, in case she actually did go out with Tom Radnovich. She had not brought any clothes for going out, but then this wouldn’t actually be a date. A date! Betty Wilner, a married woman, monogamous for eight years, had actually thought in terms of going on a date, even if the terms were negative! No, she reflected while looking at herself in the bathroom mirror, she wasn’t really thinking of herself, but of Tom. If he is out with a woman for an evening, whatever the circumstances, the woman should look decent. And she would look decent enough in her casual clothes, she decided, if she put on the medium-heel wedge sandals that she had brought just because she enjoyed wearing them. She went back into the room and sat on the sofa again. This time Sam, on his own, moved into her lap. “’Tie Betty’s pretty,” he said. Maybe there’s hope for Megan’s date, she thought as she hugged Sam and planted a big kiss on his cheek.