Sophie walked to the restaurant, following Broadway for a change. The bright morning delighting her.
She passed through Washington Square, took the time to pause at some performances, street art, vendors.
Union Square, marking the union of Broadway and the Bowery, the Barnes & Noble store where she liked to buy thrillers and food books and, there, the Decker Building, Andy Warhol’s Factory.
She resolved to take a walk in Central Park - how long had it been? - during the mid-afternoon lull between lunch and dinner. Rod would be around to keep tabs.
She jumped in a cab, sat back and saw Macy’s, Times Square, all the stuff New Yorkers take for granted.
Her business partner was at his usual table, enjoying a pot of coffee and some scrambled eggs. He rose when Sophie walked in.
'Like some coffee, Soph?'
'Yes, thanks. I'll grab a cup.'
So she got a white china coffee cup and sat across from Rod in a red velvet booth.
'You look a little shaky,' he said. 'I heard about last night.'
Sophie shook her head. Did all that really happen? 'The police were here until five. When I did get home, I couldn't sleep.'
'Shit.'
'I hope we're busy today. That'll keep me going. Else I'm in trouble. You look partied out?'
He made a dismissive gesture with his left hand as he poured Sophie's black coffee. 'Just a few drinks. I want you to tell me everything. From the start. We need to be ready for any press attention, maybe look at putting out a release.'
So she inhaled the coffee steam, told him the story, from the minute the guy had appeared at the table.
'He handed a little package to the congressman, looked like it was a really nice present. The congressman's security jumped on him right away and the box dropped to the floor along with the table and everything else.'
Rod nodded, looked to where the busboys were resetting the table after the Cuban cleaners had spent the end of the night mopping and soaking and drying. A vague smell of chemicals.
'The guy was from off the street, he's always down at the corner shouting about God and 9/11 and stuff,' continued Sophie. 'He said that a guy had just walked up to him and offered him a hundred dollars to bring the package in and hand it to the congressman. Two officers cuffed and held him while Detective O'Brien took the package back into our office.'
Danny O'Brien was made of strong stuff alright. He had witnessed all of the horror that passes for daily life in New York. No need for details. He had used his gun twice on duty, killed one man. He still thought about the man often - too often - but, in terms of the actual killing, he was good with that.
Inspecting the package, the neat little bow, the delicate wrapping paper, he expected a threatening note, a bullet, a turd even. Instead, he got a smell, a smell that brought him back to when his mom used to roast a leg of lamb or a shoulder of pork on a Sunday, back before the divorce and the breakdowns and all of that bad stuff that he also thought about too often.
It was a little golden sausage, resting on a bed of straw-like paper strips. Literally golden, the thing was wrapped in gold leaf, that really thin sheet of gold you get by beating pure gold forever with a little hammer. Wrinkles and a bulge. A knuckle. The gold was clinging tightly to the sausage. Not a sausage at all. A finger. A damned finger.
Using his pen, he gently lifted the gold leaf, exposing the browned flesh. A painted fingernail and a thin gold ring there, with a little heart shape. Oh no. In his gut, Danny knew.
The congressman was at the door. Danny said nothing just pointed at the finger.
'What the fuck?' said the congressman.
Danny shrugged, his brain was spent.
'A finger? What the fuck?'
He leaned closer, the smell of it. The black-painted fingernail, the ring he bought for her sixteenth birthday.
'It's Cathy. They cut off her finger, Danny! Her finger! Oh, my poor baby.'
Sirens sounded outside, the bomb squad, an ambulance, more cops. The congressman left Danny and the finger and went back out to the restaurant floor, to the mutilator.
He lunged, punched the guy hard on the nose so blood streamed out. He hit him again and would have kept doing it, but the strong arms of the uniformed officers restrained his rage.
'I don't think he knew what he was doing sir,' explained one. 'He's just a patsy.'
'Where is she?' screamed the congressman. 'Tell me or I'll tear you to pieces.'
The guy just slouched there, his cuffed hands at his nose.
'I'm sorry,' he said. 'The man said it was a birthday present for you, said he was in a hurry.'
'What did he look like?' asked a cop.
'Tall guy,' he mumbled. 'Well-dressed, beard. Now that I think about it, he spoke in an accent. Could've been a Taliban, you know, that kind of look.'
Danny was at the congressman's shoulder. 'Shit. We've got to call in Homeland Security.'
Sophie sighed, suddenly looked frail and exhausted.
'She's on life support now.'
'Will she pull through?' said Rod.
'The doctors are hopeful, but the poor kid was cut to pieces. Bastard.'
'Can she ID him?'
'I don't know. But the Feds were here in minutes and they're working on the assumption that it's terrorist-related.'
'Good.'
'Good?'
Rod flushed. 'Good that they have a line of investigation. Look, I think we should adopt a No Comment line with this whole thing. Any publicity is good publicity, but we don't want to jeopardise any prosecution. Agreed?'
'Agreed. I told everybody who was on last night not to talk to the media.'
'Excellent. I'll remind everyone today. What's next?'
Sophie glanced at her watch, drained her coffee cup as she stood. 'Lunch. Doors open in twenty minutes. You need anything to eat?'
'No thanks. I'm stuffed, ate very late last night.'
Rod went to the men's room, washed his hands. Then he went to his office and looked at the CCTV footage of the gilded dish’s delivery from the backup files on the hard drive. This made him smile.