Central Park

of Broadway was occupied by Lincoln Center, built around the Metropolitan Opera House. Alice looked up to get her bearings. Several stories high, the glass-and-steel prow of a gigantic ship protruded over the avenue.
She recognized the Juilliard School; she had been here before with Seymour. On the upper floors, behind glass walls, ballerinas practiced and musicians rehearsed.
“The parking garage!” she exclaimed, gesturing at a concrete ramp that sloped down.
Gabriel nodded. Stealthily, they went down the ramp, standing aside whenever a car climbed past them heading for the exit. One level belowground, they used a final burst of energy to run across the entire lot, then took the stairs to an emergency exit that came out three blocks away, in the little enclave of Damrosch Park.
Emerging at last into the open air, they were relieved to discover that their pursuers had disappeared.
Leaning against the low wall that circled the esplanade, Alice and Gabriel felt as if they would never get their breath back. Both were sweating and crippled with pain.
“Hand me the phone,” she said, gasping.
“Oh, shit, I…I must have dropped it!” He groaned, hand searching his pocket.
“I can’t believe it! You—”
“Just kidding.” He grinned and passed her the cell phone.
Alice gave him an icy stare and was about to launch into a tirade, when her mouth was suddenly filled with a metallic taste. Her head spun and she felt nauseated. Bending over a window box, she spat out a thin trickle of bile.
“You need water.”
“What I need is food.”
“I told you we should have stolen a hot dog!”
They walked carefully to a drinking fountain to quench their thirst. Bordered by the New York City Ballet and the immense glass arches of the Metropolitan Opera, Damrosch Park was busy enough that nobody took any notice of them. Workers were putting up tents and podiums on the main square in preparation for an event.
After drinking a few mouthfuls of water, Alice looked at the phone, checked that it was not protected by a code, and called Seymour’s cell.
While she waited for him to answer, she trapped the phone in the hollow of her shoulder and massaged the back of her neck. Her heart was still hammering in her chest.
Pick up, Seymour…
Seymour Lombart was the second in command of the investigative team that Alice led. Alice, Seymour, and five other cops made up the “Schafer squad,” which shared four small offices on the third floor of 36 Quai des Orfèvres.
Alice checked her watch, calculating the time difference. It was 2:20 p.m. in Paris now.
The cop picked up after three rings, but the clamor of voices behind him made conversation difficult. If Seymour was not in the office, he must still be eating lunch.
“Seymour?”
“Alice? Where are you? I left you a bunch of messages.”
“I’m in Manhattan.”
“What? Are you kidding?”
“I need your help, Seymour.”
“Sorry, I’m having trouble hearing you.”
It was the same for her. Bad connection. Her deputy’s voice sounded distorted, almost metallic. “Where are you, Seymour?”
“At the Caveau du Palais, on Place Dauphine. Listen, let me go to the office and I’ll call you back in five minutes, okay?”
“Okay. You have the number?”
“Yeah.”
“Great. But hurry up. I’ve got work for you.” Frustrated, Alice hung up and held out the cell phone to the musician. “If you want to call someone, do it now. You have five minutes.”
Gabriel looked at her strangely. In spite of the urgency and the danger, he couldn’t help smiling. “Do you always order people around like this?”
“Don’t start,” she warned him. “Do you want the phone or not?”
Gabriel took it from her and thought for a few seconds. “I’m going to call my friend Kenny.”
“The saxophone player? I thought you said he was in Tokyo.”
“If we’re lucky, he might have left the keys to his apartment with a neighbor or a super. Do you know what time it is in Japan?” he asked as he typed in the number.
Alice counted on her fingers. “Ten at night, I think.”
“Damn, he’ll be in the middle of a gig.”
The call went straight to voice mail. Gabriel left his friend a message explaining that he was in New York and promising to call again later.
He gave the phone back to Alice. She looked at her watch and sighed.
Get a move on, Seymour! she pleaded silently, tightening her fingers around the phone. She had just decided to call her deputy again when she noticed the series of numbers scrawled in ballpoint on her palm. The sweat had almost erased them.
“Does this mean anything to you?” she asked Gabriel, opening her hand in front of his face.
2125550100
“I found it when I woke up this morning, but I have no memory of writing it.”
“Probably a phone number, don’t you think? Show me again. Yeah, that’s it! Two one two is the area code for Manhattan. Hey, are you sure you’re a cop?”
How did I miss that?
Ignoring his sarcasm, she typed the number into the phone. It was answered immediately.
“Greenwich Hotel, Candice speaking, how may I help you?”
A hotel?
Alice thought quickly. Where was the Greenwich? Was it possible she’d been there this morning, however briefly? It made no sense, but she gave it a try anyway.
“Could you put me through to Alice Schafer, please?”
There was a silence on the line, and then: “I don’t think we have anyone staying at the hotel under that name, ma’am.”
Alice persisted. “You don’t think? You mean you’re not sure?”
“I am sure, ma’am. I’m sorry.”
Even before Alice had hung up, Seymour’s number flashed on the screen. She answered her deputy’s call without even bothering to thank the hotel receptionist. “Seymour, are you at the office?”
“Nearly,” a breathless voice replied. “So…this thing about New York…please tell me you’re joking.”
“I’m afraid not. Listen, I don’t have much time and I need your help.”
In less than three minutes, she told him everything that had happened to her since the previous evening: the night out with friends on the Champs-Élysées; the blank in her memory after she entered the parking garage; waking up in Central Park, handcuffed