“Dad mentioned you not long before he passed. He said that you were a fine girl. I think he liked you better than me.” Mickey laughed weakly. “I think you reminded him of his little brother.”
He meant Daddy.
“I know … I know that things are strange right now, but it would mean a lot to everyone if you came to the service.”
I told him I would try and then I hung up the phone. Mickey did not sound as if he had just arranged for the murder of my brother. Then again, I did not sound like a girl who could slice off someone’s hand with a machete either.
But I had been that kind of girl, and if the situation called for it, I knew I could be again.
XIII
I ENGAGE IN RECREATIONAL CHOCOLATIERING; RECEIVE TWO NOTES AND A PACKAGE
MR. KIPLING WAS MY DATE to the tracker-removal party at the East Ninety-Third Street police station. The police station had sentimental associations for me, as it was the same place I’d been detained after I’d been arrested for poisoning Gable Arsley. As for the tracker? Though it wasn’t supposed to be painful coming out, it was. The officer said I should go to a doctor to have it checked out in case it was infected. “These little buggers are supposed to be thrown away, but,” he apologized, “occasionally we do use them twice. Budget cuts, you know.”
As I was leaving, another police officer handed me a note:
Congratulations on your release. Please come see me at Rikers. I have information for you.
Fondly,
Your Cousin
I assumed it was Jacks, though—let’s face facts—I probably had more than one cousin in prison.
Outside, the snow had melted, and the day felt positively tropical for the end of February in New York.
“So, now what?” Mr. Kipling asked me.
The prior evening, I had lain awake in my bed, thinking of the things I needed to do once I was free. The list was so long that I had to get up to write it on my slate:
1. Find a boarding school for Natty.
2. Find a school for me.
3. Find out who killed my brother and Imogen.
4. Avenge my brother’s death.
5. Figure out how to get my brother’s ashes from Japan.
6. Figure out what to do with my life post–high school (should I ever manage to graduate, that is).
7. Call Granja Mañana to see how Theo is doing (not from a traceable line, of course).
8. Get a haircut.
9. Go through Imogen’s things.
10. Buy birthday present for Win (Saturday market?).
But I didn’t want to do any of that just then. “Mr. Kipling,” I said, “would it be all right with you if we walked around for a while?”
We went the long way, going west to Fifth, which took us past Little Egypt. Little Egypt looked as decrepit as ever. “When I was a kid,” Mr. Kipling said, “I thought this was the coolest place in the world. I loved the mummies.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Everyone and everything went broke. And no one thought the mummies were worth saving, I guess.” Mr. Kipling paused. “And now it’s this idiotic nightclub.”
I knew it well.
In front of Little Egypt, I could already detect that there were more black market products being hawked out in the open than when Charles Delacroix had been acting as district attorney. I walked past a chocolate dealer. You wouldn’t have known chocolate was being sold, as there was no product in sight. The table was covered with a dark blue velvet cloth and approximately one hundred matryoshka dolls sat atop it. Everyone knew what matryoshka dolls meant. I walked over to the table. Mr. Kipling asked me if I was sure I wanted to do that. “What if someone is watching?”
We’d paid off Bertha Sinclair so I thought I was pretty much in the clear.
“You have Balanchine Special Dark?” I asked the vendor.
The vendor nodded. He reached under the table and produced a single bar. I could tell from the wrapper that it wasn’t real. The colors were off, and the paper had an unappetizing, gritty matte finish. It was probably some cheap, 1 percent cacao chocolate in a counterfeit Balanchine wrapper. I bought the bar anyway. Ridiculously, the vendor wanted ten dollars for this knockoff.
“Are you serious?” I asked. A bar of Balanchine Special Dark was usually three or four dollars, tops.
“Supply’s been scarce,” the vendor replied.
“You and I both know this isn’t even Balanchine,” I said.
“What are you? Some kind of expert? Take it or leave it.”
I put the money on the table. Despite the cost, I was curious to see what was being sold in my father’s name.
Mr. Kipling stood a bit away from me while I was making this transaction. He didn’t want to be disbarred, I suppose.
I slipped the chocolate into my bag, and then Mr. Kipling walked me back to my apartment.
“Should we talk about schools?” Mr. Kipling asked.
What was there to talk about? “Homeschooling seems like the only option at this point. I’ll study at home and try to get my GED before summer.”
“And after that? College?”
I looked at Mr. Kipling. “I think we both know that I am no longer college material.”
“That isn’t true!” He argued with me for a while, and I ignored him. “Anya, your father wanted you to go to college.”
If he’d lived, that might have been an option. “And Natty will,” I replied.
“But you? What will you do instead?”
In the short term, I needed to find out who had killed Leo and ordered the hits on the rest of my family. As for long-term goals? It had begun to seem pointless for me to make any. “Mr. Kipling, I’m booked up,” I said lightly. “I’ve got my uncle’s funeral to attend, a cousin to visit in prison, and Win’s birthday party is next Saturday. The only thing I wonder is how I ever had time for school at all.”
Our walk had come to an end, and Mr. Kipling was giving me an annoyingly tragic face. “Okay, my dear, I’ll arrange to hire you a tutor.”
Just outside the front door of the apartment, someone had placed a medium-size box and an envelope. I carried both inside and set them on the kitchen counter. The envelope had no postmark, but envelopes were unlikely to contain explosives, so I opened that first.
It was a note:
Dear Anya,
Perhaps you remember me? My name is Sylvio Freeman. Syl. I had opportunity to meet you last fall when you interviewed at my school. I am aware that you are now back in the city, and for the moment at least, appear to have put your legal difficulties behind you. I had hoped you might speak at a Cacao Now meeting about your experiences. If this suits you, please come—
I tossed the note aside without bothering to finish reading it. I turned to the box. The postmark indicated Japan, and the return address was the Ono Sweets Company, which, of course, meant Yuji Ono. The box was surprisingly heavy. I debated whether to open it. There could be a bomb inside. And yet I doubted that if Yuji Ono wanted to finish me off, he would send a package with his own return address on it.
I retrieved my machete from my bedroom and sliced open the box. Inside was a gallon-size plastic bag filled with dust, and a small white card.
Leo.
Dear Anya,
I am sorry I am not able to come to New York to deliver this myself. I am detained by both business troubles and poor health. I am also sorry about the way we left things. The timing was very poor. Someday, I hope I will be able to better explain my behavior. So you know, I did have opportunity to view Leo’s body before cremation, but there was very little left of it. I do believe it was him. The corpse of his girlfriend, Noriko, was recognizable, and Leo has not been seen in Japan since.