Scavenger Hunt

by Dani Lamia

  “Monaco,” says Ed, unexpectedly. We all turn to look at him.

  “That’s true,” I say. “But I mean within Italy.”

  “Genoa,” he continues. “Also San Marino and Bologna.”

  “Jesus,” says Detective Jay. “That’s pretty amazing. Are you some kind of geography savant?”

  “Bologna!” says Alistair. “It’s a reference to Little Bologna. That little restaurant. We used to go there all the time.”

  “And why did we used to go there all the time?”

  “Because it was right below Dad’s old office.”

  Understanding dawns in his eyes.

  “That was the office that he was renting when he and Mom first started dating,” he says. “The one she made him repaint like fifty times because she could never settle on a color she liked.”

  “He always had a perpetual migraine on account of the paint smell,” I say. “Not that he ever dared to complain.”

  “So one of these boxes is in that office?” says Detective Rutledge.

  “Yep,” I say. “Listen, Alistair, you go ahead and tell Gabriella. Wait for her here and then the two of you can walk over to Hell’s Kitchen together. It’s going to take you a while.”

  “Where are you going?” he asks.

  “I want to check up on my daughters,” I say. I look at Ed and Mel, my two new best friends. “I guess you guys are coming with me, huh? Will you be okay, Alistair? Will you be safe alone?”

  “I’ve got my own guys,” says Alistair, gesturing outside where two more security guards are waiting. “And I’m sure Gabriella will have hers.”

  I make a quick phone call to the security agency, letting them know that Olivia has already been attacked once and that we need tighter security around the twins. I call Ben and tell him to meet me at the school, letting him know that there has been an emergency. I call the school and tell them to have Olivia and Jane waiting when I arrive. I call downstairs to one of the accountants and tell them to get ten thousand in cash and put it in a briefcase. When I leave my office, Jay and Rutledge are discussing where they should get lunch.

  It is slightly maddening that Bernard has told Gabriella that I am manipulating everything to put myself in a better position, but I don’t know what to do about it. It’s typical Bernard. He’s always been exceedingly paranoid and cynical, a perverse contradiction to his otherwise extremely analytical mind.

  People who are good at narrowing down the world to sets of critical, quantifiable information are always the same people who crave simple, clear answers to the incomprehensible madness of existence. And there is always someone unscrupulous to provide those answers. Look it up: engineers, dentists, and surgeons are the most likely professions to become terrorists. These people are always happy to have a right answer that makes the squirmy horribleness of uncertainty disappear, even if that right answer is utter bullshit or a self-serving justification for violence or selfishness, like Bernard’s decision that Henley’s death is somehow fake and only meant to help me consolidate my own power. Bernard would have made a great engineer, if he wasn’t such a useless gambling addict.

  Well, fuck Bernard. Maybe he would feel differently if someone in a wolf mask broke the arm of one of his boys.

  I hop on the train and head to Jane and Olivia’s school with Ed and Mel in tow. We make quite a conspicuous threesome. It is easy to tell that they are my security detail. The train is empty at this time of day but they refuse to sit. Instead, they stand on either side of me like sentinels, looking suspiciously at every person who gets on or off the train.

  What kind of weirdo needs security goons but takes the fucking train?

  We get off at the stop nearest the girls’ school and I practically run to the front desk. Ben is already waiting for me, his brow furrowed.

  “What the hell?” he says. “What is this emergency? Does this have to do with Henley?”

  “Dude,” I say. “Just shut up and do what I say.”

  Ed’s phone rings and he picks it up. He has a hurried conversation and then he runs outside, returning with two more bodyguards that look exactly like him. We all crowd around the front desk.

  “Where are they?” I ask the woman staffing the desk, tapping my fingers impatiently on the counter. “They should be here already.”

  “I don’t know where the girls are,” she says, catching on to my panic.

  I almost call the cops again when Olivia and Jane both come sauntering down the hall, looking irritated.

  “Where the hell were you?” I ask, gathering them into a hug and nearly crying with frustration and anxiety.

  “We were in speech class,” says Olivia, keeping her sling protected from my squeezing arm.

  “We were right in the middle of a debate,” adds Jane. “We had to finish or our team would have been super-pissed at us.”

  “Does this school not understand the word ‘emergency’?” I say, seething.

  Now there are the three of us and six security guards: two each for Olivia and Jane, plus Ed and Mel.

  “Are you going to tell us what is going on or are you going to just let us all be freaked out for no reason?” demands Ben. “I had to get Coach Jackson to cover for me and that means I’m going to owe him. Teaching his remedial history class is like being in a prison riot.”

  I look at Ed and Mel for support. They smirk at me. What the hell does Ben know about being in a prison riot? He’s soft and naive; he hasn’t seen the kind of real-life shit Ed and Mel and I have.

  “Look,” I say. “The three of you are going to get out of town for a while, and these nice men are going to go with you. It’s going to be an all-expenses-paid sudden vacation to Nantucket for a week or so, just until I figure out what’s going on around here.”

  “But I’ve got Quiz Bowl this weekend,” complains Ben.

  I take a deep breath to swallow my annoyance. “This is life or death,” I enunciate slowly. “My dad died Saturday, possibly under suspicious circumstances. Henley was murdered on Wednesday, the same day some lunatic ran down our daughter. So yeah, Quiz Bowl is out.” He goes ashen and for once in his life doesn’t argue with me.

  I bend down in front of Olivia and look her in the eyes, not wanting to freak her out but needing to know more about the person who attacked her before I let her leave. Surely the three of them will be safe on a damn island with four bodyguards watching their every move. Ben is a smug asshole loser who I hate, but he is actually fairly shrewd and careful when appropriately motivated, like any good New Yorker.

  “Olivia, can you tell me anything else at all about the person in the werewolf mask who broke your arm?” I ask.

  “Mom, it’s not broken,” she admonishes. “Just sprained.” But then my words click and she exclaims, “So you believe me! Finally.”

  “I definitely believe you,” I say. “Do you think you can remember how tall they were or if their nails were painted or not, for instance? Did you get the sense that they were a woman or a man?”

  “Mom,” says Jane. “Sex isn’t real. Only gender is real, and only sorta kinda real.”

  “Well, did you get the sense that they were trying to present as a woman or a man?” I ask, exasperated.

  Olivia thinks about it and then shakes her head.

  “They were kinda short,” she says. “It seemed like an accident, actually. I think they were trying to just scare me but then they opened the door too late and I ran into them. They got away as fast as they could. I think it was a man, but like, not a big one. Not like one of these security guys. Oh, and they were definitely white. Like, I could see their neck a little bit. Their clothes were baggy, so I guess maybe it was somebody more, like, female-identified or something, but probably not, right? Like, only a dude would be that incompetent and then wouldn’t care if I was, like, dying in the street about to get hit by a car, right?”


  “Right,” I say, unconvinced. I wish she could give us more information, but this is at least something.

  Ben pulls me aside.

  “I don’t really have time to get into all of this,” I say, anticipating his questions. “I have to take the train to Hell’s Kitchen, and I have to beat Bernard there or I will lose my last life. He has a helicopter and I only have a train pass, so he has a clear advantage.”

  Ben stares at me and then shakes his head, bewildered.

  “I haven’t been getting much sleep lately,” I say. “Listen, you will all be fine in Nantucket. The girls love it there and it will only be for a week. Their grandfather and uncle just died, for god’s sake. I am going to tell the school that this is a family retreat, which is mostly true, okay? You are going to take care of them and help them not freak out, and you are going to make sure that Olivia doesn’t break her other arm. I will try to join you in a few days, and hopefully I can tell you more then, but for right now, every single person in this family is in danger, including you. If you absolutely need to do this dumb Quiz Bowl, I guess I can’t stop you. It’s up to you how important the lives of your daughters are to you.”

  “Do we really need four bodyguards?” asks Ben. “Won’t one be enough? Or three?”

  “A square house has four sides,” I say. “One bodyguard for each side. When you get up there, find a place to rent in town and pay in cash, okay? Don’t use your own phone to find an available Airbnb. Go through the security agency, which knows how to do that kind of thing securely. And keep a low profile, dammit. Don’t let the girls go out alone.”

  Ben nods, taking me seriously, which makes me relax a little.

  “I don’t know what’s going on,” he says, “but freaking out for no reason isn’t like you. It really must be serious.”

  “I don’t know for sure, but I think it is,” I say. “And all the responsibility is falling on me. The cops are useless and my siblings are useless and even Angelo Marino is useless. I feel like I’m all coked-up and having a panic attack, but I’m mostly sober, if you can believe that.”

  “You look like you need some rest,” he says. “But actually, you look good. I haven’t seen you so excited about anything in years. You’ve got some color in your face, finally.”

  “I guess somebody trying to murder me has brought out the best in me,” I joke half-heartedly. “Now get the hell to the airport. I want you to fly commercial instead of taking the Nylo jet. Anything that says Nylo on it is dangerous right now.”

  I snap my fingers and one of the new security guards brings me the briefcase full of cash.

  “There’s ten grand in this briefcase,” I tell Ben. “You probably won’t need all of it. Just keep the rest or whatever.”

  “You don’t really know what things cost anymore, do you? How much do you think an apple costs, for instance?”

  “Don’t be a jerkwad. If you need more, just call Nylo and ask for it. They’ll get it to you through the security agency. Don’t use your bank card. Don’t use your credit card. Only use your phones in an emergency, okay?”

  26

  I hop back on the train, accompanied by Ed and Mel. They don’t quite seem to know what to say to me.

  “You guys can sit down if you want,” I suggest. “I don’t think there are any assassins about to target me in this train car.”

  “You never know, ma’am,” says Ed.

  “You don’t think I’m overreacting, do you?” I ask. “I mean, we have had death threats and stalkers in the past at Nylo. Disgruntled employees, overeager fans. But nothing like this. I mean, my brother is dead, right? Somebody tried to break my daughter’s arm.”

  “You are definitely not overreacting,” says Mel. “Anyway, we are providing a service. It’s not our job to figure out whether or not you need our help. We don’t ever think about it like that. If you are using our services, you have a good reason.”

  “If it were your daughters, you would do the same thing, right?” I say.

  “Absolutely,” says Mel. “What is money for if it doesn’t buy you security and peace of mind?”

  “Damn right,” I say. “Listen, my brother Bernard is not returning my calls and he won’t talk to me. But if this person is targeting my girls, then there is every reason to suspect that he is also targeting Bernard’s boys. Is there any way you can get a message to him through the security guards assigned to him? Can you tell him what happened to Olivia and that he should send Phoebe and the boys away for a while? Maybe to her parents’ place?”

  Ed and Mel furrow their brows and exchange worried looks.

  “He has instructed his security detail not to interact with the rest of us,” says Mel. “But we’ll see what we can do.”

  “Great,” I say. “Yeah, see what you can do.”

  Incredibly, unaccountably, Little Bologna still exists and is still open. The building is as old as the pyramids and in far worse shape. It is leaning slightly and there are actually giant steel beams at an angle attached to the side and buried in the ground. The beams are holding the building up, keeping it from slumping sideways and crashing down on some lamb-and-rice cart guy. It occurs to me the restaurant should be renamed Little Pisa. It’s funny, but I don’t laugh.

  I look around for Gabriella and Alistair, but I don’t see them. I call Alistair.

  “Where are you?” I ask when he picks up the phone.

  “We’re almost there,” he says. “It’s an extremely long walk. We stopped to get some lunch. I never do this much walking. Actually, stick your hand up in the air.”

  I stick my hand up in the air. I see somebody down the avenue waving back at me. I hang up. My brother and sister soon jog up to meet me, trailed by four security guards.

  “I can’t believe we just did that,” says Alistair. “My legs are cramping. I don’t even own a pair of tennis shoes. I think there are holes in the bottom of my loafers.”

  “Do you even remember this old office?” I ask Gabriella.

  “Not really,” she says. “I remember Little Bologna, but not the office.”

  The building is essentially condemned and so the street entrance to the upper floors is chained and bolted. We have to go in through the restaurant to get upstairs. Our security detail fans out, covering us from every side.

  “Let us check the place out first,” says Ed.

  Little Bologna is your basic bad New York Italian restaurant: white tablecloths and an ancient waiter milling around aimlessly, staring out the window with a towel over his shoulder. There is a giant faded picture of St. Catherine on one wall. When he sees us, the waiter grabs a stack of menus and holds them out begrudgingly, but the security guards trudge past him to the service stairwell through the kitchen.

  “You aren’t gonna eat?” he asks, astonished to see the six large men disappear behind him.

  “We’ll eat,” I say.

  Gabriella, Alistair, and I all take menus and sit down in one of the booths. We order coffee and cannoli.

  “Our dad’s first office was upstairs,” I tell the waiter. “Nylo Games. Do you remember Prescott Nylo?”

  “Ah yes, Mr. Nylo!” says the old man, a smile brightening his solemn face. “He hasn’t been here in ages. Did he forget about me? Did he forget about the good times?”

  “He’s dead, unfortunately,” I say. “He died last Saturday.”

  “Oh my god,” says the waiter, nearly dropping the menus he’d just collected from us. “He was younger than me. Oh my god!”

  “Has there been anybody suspicious in the building lately?” I ask. “Anybody you’ve never seen before?”

  The waiter looks up at St. Catherine for a moment, then shakes his head. “No,” he says. “Nobody new ever comes here. Nobody suspicious, nobody unsuspicious. Mostly nobody at all, you know?” He keeps shaking his head as he plods off toward the kitchen

 
The three of us sit in silence until the coffee and cannoli arrive. The ancient waiter’s hands are jittery as he sets down the cups and saucers in front of us. I reach for my coffee and take a tentative sip, then a longer one, pleasantly surprised to find it’s not weak and watery, but rich and dark, how I like it.

  Gabriella picks up her cannoli and I notice she actually doesn’t look all that bad. I get the sense that she is sleeping okay. I’m a little shocked, since she’s usually the most sensitive one in our family, easily spooked and always urging us to try some new method to deal with generalized anxiety, a miracle food or breathing technique that she swears has changed her life.

  Even though she doesn’t look visibly depleted, she seems distracted. She takes tiny bites of crispy pastry and glances around the room. She’s wearing bright red tennis shoes and red velour sweatpants, which I guess betrays the fact that she is getting used to having to walk everywhere in this game. All of a sudden, her eyes light up and she grins.

  “I remember the smell of this place now,” says Gabriella. “Garlic, smoke, and fresh paint.”

  “They invented Sea Farmers right upstairs,” I say. “They used to come down here to Little Bologna and playtest it after hours and the bartender would keep the place open. Old Eddie Rossi, who was the owner, would keep them full of free pasta and tell them they were all going to be rich and famous. Mom used to call him Eddie Spaghetti. Do you remember Eddie Spaghetti? He was tall as hell and had those long arms and hair so white it seemed like he dyed it?”

  “I just remember the smell,” says Gabriella with a shrug.

  “I remember Eddie Spaghetti,” says Alistair. “He was friends with Angelo, wasn’t he? That’s how they got the office in the first place, some kind of deal with Angelo’s uncle. They got really cheap rent on the place.”

  “It was mostly just the three of them back then,” I say. “Mom, Dad, and Angelo Marino. They were actually doing really well and making a ton of money thanks to Sea Farmers, but they didn’t see any reason to expand. Angelo Marino wanted them to sell the business altogether. Mom wanted them to cash out, too. But Dad thought they were crazy. He loved making games and he was unwilling to sell at any price, not when he knew that all the money coming in could be used to hire more artists and developers.”