6.
The Bait & Switch is hard to miss, since it’s the last place in Red Hook, housed in a small brick building at the end of Van Brunt Street, on the last block before you walk straight into the river. And turns out the butler was more right than he knew. The bar’s sign has a bright neon fishhook, twisted to look like an ampersand, between the words BAIT and SWITCH.
Spot it six blocks away. Bar must be running a private generator to get that much wattage out here.
Ampersand blazing like a flare sent up over an otherwise pitch-black street.
So if Persephone came this way looking for help, this is the place she would have ended up.
Assuming she didn’t know that this is where those men were planning to take her in the first place.
Or that she came this way.
Or that she needed help.
I figure Sherlock and the other cops back there will probably just call it a night. Didn’t seem too concerned with cracking the Case of the Man with the Ampersand Tattoo.
Couple of lowlifes in a van. Not exactly top priority. And no one wants to hang out in Red Hook after dark.
Then again, one of the cops might remember that tattoo, spot this neon sign, and decide to earn a paycheck for once and maybe poke around.
Door of the Bait & Switch jingles as I head inside.
Sparse weeknight crowd. A few dedicated lonelies parked at the bar. One couple fighting at a round-top in the corner, hissing at each other in inside voices. Her: cat’s-eye glasses. Him: at least six whiskeys down. Looks like they made their missed connection after all.
I claim a stool.
Bartender wanders over. No ampersand tattoos. Just anchors on his forearms. Like Popeye.
What can I get you?
I’m looking for a girl.
He smiles.
Aren’t we all?
She would have come in a few hours ago. Might have looked scared. Or maybe not.
He unsmiles. Puts a shot glass down in front of me.
Sorry, but I’m not paid to notice anything here except empty glasses.
Fills the shot glass up with whatever’s on hand. Something amber and alcoholic. Screws the cap back on. Anchors flexing.
But if you’re looking for company, we do have a back room. Plenty of girls back there. Some of them scared-looking. If that’s what you’re into.
I toast him with the shot glass.
No thanks. I’m good.
Well, why don’t I leave you to your drink then? This one’s on the house. Next one you can get somewhere else.
Then he trundles off to tend to the other drunks, like a gardener pruning a row of wilted plants.
As for me, I’m more or less back at the beginning. New York is big and my Persephone could be anywhere.
Needle in a haystack and that’s not even her real name.
So I vow to look in all the usual places, starting with the bottom of this here glass.
I raise the glass. Solemnly promise. I will get to the bottom of this.
Down it.
I know it’s a cliché to be a hard drinker in my profession. But it’s the one part I do really well.
Well, this, and that other part.
It’s just all the stuff in between.
Camps have dried up. Uncle’s dead, thanks to me. And she just left two bodies in a van. Quick and fearless with a blade, I’ll give her that. Technique’s rough, but certainly no shortage of guts. Then again, it’s not too hard to take down two men if you’ve got a decent-sized knife and they don’t.
Just start stabbing.
I motion for another round, then remember I’m on the bartender’s blacklist.
So if I’m a girl, maybe covered in blood, definitely alone in the big city, where do I head next?
Tiffany’s?
If there was still a Tiffany’s.
I guess I could always peek into the bar’s back room. Interview a few of the dominatrices.
Plural of dominatrix. That word I had to look up.
But I’m not really in the mood to interrogate regular people right now, let alone ones wearing full-leather masks.
With zippers for mouths.
I need to get out of Brooklyn.
But I sit a minute more and try to formulate a theory.
On the run from her father, presumably. Did something bad enough that he wants her found but he doesn’t want her back.
If I can figure out what, that might give me a hint where she’s headed.
Not that I’m interested in motives. Just whereabouts.
But my brain’s an empty blackboard. There must be a school for this somewhere. I’ll enroll in the morning.
I finish the dregs of my drink.
Pull my coat from the stool-back.
Needle in a haystack. Never did understand that expression. Fuck searching, just buy another needle—
Bells on the door jingle. Like it’s Christmas.
Bartender calls out to a squat Hispanic, freshly entered.
Hey Luis. You fuck that girl or what?
There’s some amount of dumb luck involved in this undertaking, especially if, like me, you are not a gifted, trail-of-bread-crumbs kind of guy.
Dumb luck.
You just have to accept it and hope it comes when you need it.
Sometimes in the form of a squat Hispanic.
Luis is a livery cabdriver. Livery cab being a fancy way of saying Crown Victoria in need of new shocks. Apparently they still run livery cabs across the bridges, what few souls still make that journey.
Bartender leers while he wipes out a beer stein.
That piece of chicken. Tell me you banged her, Luis.
Luis is quiet.
She had blood on her. On her clothes.
I perk up.
We retire to the corner.
Take the two-top vacated by cat’s-eyes and the whiskey connoisseur. They left earlier. Not together. Another missed connection, I guess.
Two rounds later, Luis tells me he drove this girl all the way to Central Park. Young, maybe eighteen, maybe younger. Approached him while he was outside the bar, finishing a cigarette. He says it was dark and he swears he didn’t notice all the blood on her until they were halfway up the FDR. Caught the shine of it in the rearview in the sweep of a streetlamp. At that point, figured it was safer to just keep driving. Left her at the park’s edge. Told her the trip’s on him.
Did she say where she was going? Back to the camps?
That theory doesn’t sit right with me, but why not cross it off first.
Luis shakes his head.
No. Somewhere else. To Bethlehem.
To Bethlehem?
That’s right. That’s what she said. To Bethlehem.
Buy Luis another round. Settle up with old anchor arms.
That’s not what she said. She said Bethesda. But close enough.
Luis is in no mood to take a second trip back into the city but he drops me off at the F and I settle in for a long slow journey on the rattling train.
The park is long since dark.
The angel of Bethesda watches over a barren fountain, the water finally turned off years ago. One wing stolen, the other half-broken. Her face spray-painted red, as in shame.
A girl in a bundle at the base of the fountain.
I step in.
Hello Persephone.
She looks up. Hooded sweatshirt, frayed denim, Doc Martens. Blond curls matted. Hands balled in pockets. Face tear-damp. Voice steady.
I’ve had a long day, I have a knife, and I’m not looking for trouble.
Pocket moving. Like she’s tightening a grip.
I step closer.
Mind on that blade.
I’m not here to hurt you.
Which is exactly the opposite of true.