The Hollow Ones(32)
Odessa made a decision and got up.
She had a letter to write.
To Hugo Blackwood, Esq.
My name is Odessa Hardwicke. I am a special agent with the FBI working out of the New Jersey Field Office, currently on special assignment.
A fellow agent, Earl Solomon, suggested that I write to you to request your assistance on a pressing investigatory matter. This is an unusual and unorthodox act on the part of an FBI agent, but Mr. Solomon insists, and presently the investigation is at a standstill.
I am writing you concerning two separate and seemingly unrelated rampage killings recently in the news, one in Montclair, New Jersey, the other in Little Brook, Long Island.
Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
Odessa sat on a subway seat near the center door, the handwritten note sealed inside a six-by-nine manila envelope as instructed, addressed to “Hugo Blackwood.” She had folded it once, only once. The envelope lay facedown on her lap. The subway car rolled under the Hudson River, carrying late-arriving morning commuters from New Jersey into Lower Manhattan.
Odessa felt alternately purposeful and foolish, undertaking this strange errand. If it was a sign of desperation on her part, at least it was a private gesture, one she could disavow if necessary, with no harm done.
She exited the subway into a downpour, one the weather app on her phone had anticipated. She opened her umbrella, tucking the envelope inside her jacket to keep it dry. The rain blew in at a slight angle, battering the black nylon shield over her head, kicking up from the sidewalk to soak her ankles and the cuffs of her pants. She had a clear path, as the rain had frightened pedestrians off the streets, or at least forestalled their midmorning coffee runs or electronic cigarette breaks. As the wind lifted the rain onto her knees and upper legs, she considered waiting out the cloudburst herself, but decided she needed to get this over with. There was a dreamlike quality to her actions; she would not be released from this trance until her objective was completed. She hurried through the blowing rain toward Stone Street.
She had researched it that morning, after Linus left for the law office. Stone Street was a narrow cobblestone way dating back to 1658, the first Manhattan street paved with stone back when the island was a Dutch farming and trading colony known as New Amsterdam. (The street was then known as High Street.) Wall Street was at that time an actual wooden wall, a protective barrier at the northern edge of the settlement. There followed a centuries-long, inexorable descent into neglect. As recently as the 1970s, Stone Street had been a seedy back alley; in the 1980s it declined further into a graffiti-scarred garbage pit.
Construction then divided the street into two sections. The eastern half, only two blocks long, flanked by restored lofts and warehouses dating from the mid-1800s—after the Great Fire of 1835 destroyed most of what remained of New Amsterdam—had since been restored as a pedestrian-only thoroughfare, renamed the South Street Seaport Historic District. With granite paving, bluestone sidewalks, and streetlights resembling old gas lamps, it had been revitalized as a dining destination with outdoor tables in warmer months. International flags strung building-to-building fluttered over perhaps the most European-seeming street on the entire island.
The western half remained open to one-way traffic, but scaffolding-covered buildings and construction areas squeezed the road to a forbidding passageway. There were no pedestrians in sight, only a delivery truck at the far end of the street, its hazard lights flashing. Odessa passed 11 Stone Street and continued ahead, the next marked building numbered 19. She doubled back, scouring granite doorways for address numbers, with no luck. She grew frustrated and was on the verge of giving up—angry at herself for following the instructions of an obviously confused elderly man—when she peered skyward into the falling rain and noticed two building numbers on raised stone tiles, tucked beneath the ledge separating the street level from the second floor.
Two buildings grew together, the stone seam between them barely visible in the knitted brick. The exterior walls above were decorated with greened copper fleur-de-lis motifs.
There, before her now, was the black cast-iron mailbox. Somehow she had walked past it three times already without seeing it. Its face was smooth from age, not from polish. The box was slick with rainwater, the slot barely discernible due to a quirk of shadow.
Odessa looked around, the mail slot’s discovery feeling like an illicit act. She withdrew the envelope from inside her jacket, pausing a moment to look at the addressee’s name in her handwriting. Mr. Hugo Blackwood. A few stray raindrops spattered the thick manila paper, streaking the ink. She quickly fed the letter inside the slot. The envelope disappeared without a sound.
She looked around again, feeling suspicious, even watched. This felt like a dead drop, something out of a spy novel. The narrow street was dark, a sheer cavern full of pouring rain falling past the windows in the former dry goods warehouses.
No one appeared, nothing happened.
She walked away, the fine hairs raised on the back of her neck. She came to a pub a few doors up on the opposite side of the street and collapsed her umbrella, ducking inside. She took a seat at a two-top near the window and ordered a latte. She watched the onyx slab, difficult to see from that angle, distorted through the slanting rain. A few people hurried past it under umbrellas or folded newspapers, but none stopped. The stone wedge appeared to be part of the fa?ade of the conjoined buildings, with nothing behind it. No visible way to retrieve the letter.