Rabbits(16)

The diner wasn’t packed, but more than half a dozen booths were full of people. How the hell did this woman know I was the person who’d called about Scarpio?

“My name is K,” I replied.

“K. Is that short for something?”

“Yes.”

After realizing she wasn’t getting anything more, she leaned forward and crossed her hands on the table. “Where is he?”

“Scarpio?”

“Who the fuck else?”

“I don’t know.”

I wasn’t sure when, but at some point during the conversation or interrogation, I’d begun tapping my fingers on the table: the third and final set from the 1991 Wimbledon final between Steffi Graf and Gabriela Sabatini. It was a classic, cementing Graf’s legacy at Wimbledon. Graf was serving on my left, Sabatini on my right. Steffi was down one game in the second set. Princess Diana was in the crowd. It was a beautiful day.

There was something about the way this woman looked at me, like she could see straight through my eyes and into my mind. My pulse was racing. I did my best to concentrate on taking slow, deep breaths.

“You met him here last night?”

“Yes. Well, we met at the arcade, then came over here for pie.”

She nodded, processing this information.

“Is Mr. Scarpio going to be joining us?” I asked.

“What happened after you had pie?”

“I didn’t have pie. Mr. Scarpio had pie.”

She just stared, waiting for me to answer her question.

Salesperson at Tiffany’s was definitely off the table. This woman was something else entirely. I continued to tap out the points of the Wimbledon match. Steffi Graf was serving at five-all in the third set.

“Mr. Scarpio met me at the arcade across the street. We came over here for a while, and then I walked him to his car.”

She considered this for a second or two. “Did he play any games?”

“What do you mean?”

“At the arcade. Did he play any of the games?”

“Um…yeah. I mean, I know he played Robotron.”

“Robotron: 2084?”

“Yes.”

She pulled out a worn old orange Moleskine notebook and a black roller-tip pen and wrote something down.

“I’m sorry, who are you?” I asked.

She looked at me like I imagined an overworked clandestine government agent might look just as they were about to switch interrogation tactics from asking questions to beating the shit out of their subject with a phone book. “I work with Mr. Scarpio.”

“That’s it?”

“What else?” she asked, ignoring my question.

“I’m sorry?”

“What else happened?”

It felt like the temperature in the room suddenly dropped by ten degrees, and the lights dimmed, just a little.

I considered telling her about the call Scarpio had received just before he’d abruptly ended our time together in the diner, but there was something about this woman that felt incredibly dangerous. I suddenly wanted this interview to be over.

I shook my head. “That’s it.”

It was at this point that something strange happened.

Steffi Graf lost the 1991 Wimbledon final.

This was impossible.

I’d run that particular match over in my mind hundreds of times. I see every point as it happens, very clearly, without exception. Steffi Graf wins. She won. It’s a fact of history.

This had never happened to me before. Every match I’d ever re-created mentally had played out exactly as it happened in real life. I was never a single point off. I was shaken. My hands began to tremble.

“Are you okay?” the woman asked.

“I’m fine,” I lied, and did my best to compose myself. “Do you think Mr. Scarpio is coming?”

“I don’t think so, but if he does, please tell him to call home immediately.” And with that, she stood up and walked out of the diner.

I watched her cross the street and enter the arcade.

I’d walk over later to see if the mysterious woman said or did anything interesting, but I had to do something first. I went back over that tennis match in my mind, at high speed.

Steffi Graf won, just like she was supposed to.

I relaxed a little bit and ordered some food.

I was starving.



* * *



—

“Hey, you’re the meatball sub guy’s friend.”

I took the last bite of my three-cheese omelet and looked up into the familiar wide grayish-green eyes of the server who had shown a great deal of patience dealing with Scarpio yelling lines from the film Point Break, and who had seen that patience rewarded with an enormous tip.

“Guilty,” I said.

“I have something for you,” she said, then walked away from the booth toward the back of the restaurant.

I had no idea what she was talking about.

She returned about a minute later and handed me Alan Scarpio’s phone. “You left this last night,” she said, then hurried off to help another patron.

Either Scarpio accidentally left his phone in the booth after he’d played me the rhubarb sounds, or it had somehow slipped out of his pocket.

I stared at the cute dog photo for a moment, then realized his home screen wasn’t locked. If I wanted to, I could access Alan Scarpio’s phone with one simple swipe.