Elsewhere(27)

"Esther!" Liz interrupts a third time. "But how do the binoculars work? How do they know what I want to see?"

"It's a secret," Esther replies. "I could tell you, but I'd have to kill you."

"That isn't at all funny." Liz starts to walk away.

"All right, Lizzie, I'll tell you. Come really close, and I'll whisper it in your ear."

Liz obeys.

"Ask me again," Esther says, "and say please."

"Esther, how do the binoculars work, please?"

Esther leans in toward Liz's ear and whispers, "It's" she pauses "magic." Esther laughs.

"I don't know why I even bother talking to you."

"You don't have any friends and you're profoundly lonely."

"Thanks." Liz storms out of the OD.

"See you tomorrow, Liz," Esther calls cheerily.

August 12, the day that would have been Liz's sixteenth birthday on Earth, arrives. Like every other day, Liz spends this one at the ODs.

"Lizzie would have been sixteen today," her mother says to her father.

"I know," he says.

"Do you think they'll ever find the man who did it?"

"I don't know," he answers. "I hope so," he adds.

"It was a cab!" Liz yells at the binoculars. "AN OLD YELLOW TAXICAB WITH A FOURLEAFCLOVER

AIR FRESHENER HANGING FROM THE REARVIEW MIRROR!"

"They can't hear you," a grandmotherly type tells Liz.

"I know that," Liz snaps. "Shush!"

"Why didn't he stop?" Liz's mother asks her father.

"I don't know. At least he called 911 from the pay phone, not that it mattered anyway."

"He still should have stopped." Liz's mother starts to cry. "I mean, you hit a fifteen-year-old kid, you stop, right? That's what a decent person does, right?"

"I don't know, Olivia. I used to think so," Liz's father says.

"And I refuse to believe no one saw anything! I mean someone must have seen; someone must know; someone must "

Liz's time runs out, and the lenses click shut. She doesn't move. She just stares into the closed lenses and lets her mind go black.

Liz is furious to learn that she was the victim of a hit-and-run. Whoever hit me should pay, she thinks. Whoever hit me should go to prison for a very long time, she thinks. At that moment, Liz resolves to find the cabbie and then to somehow find a way to tell her parents. She pops an eternim in the slot and begins to scour the Greater Boston area for old yellow taxicabs with fourleafclover air fresheners hanging from their rearview mirrors.

Liz systematically searches for the lucky cab (her name for it) by watching the parking lots and the dispatchers of all the cab companies that service the area near the Cambridgeside Galleria.

Although there are only four cab companies that drive this area, it still takes her an entire week and over five hundred eternims to locate the lucky cab. Liz raises the additional eternims by asking Betty for clothes money. Betty is happy to oblige her and doesn't ask too many questions.

She just crosses her fingers and hopes Liz is coming out of her funk.

The cabbie's license says his name is Amadou Bonamy. He drives cab number 512 for the Three Aces Cab Company. She recognizes the cab immediately. It has the fourleaf-clover air freshener and it is older than Alvy, maybe older than Liz, too. Looking at the car, Liz is surprised that it even withstood the impact of her body.

The day after Liz locates the cab, she watches its driver. Amadou Bonamy is tall with black curly hair. His skin is the color of a coconut shell. His wife is pregnant. He takes classes at Boston University at night. He always helps people with their luggage when he drives them to the airport.

He never purposely takes the long route, even when the people he's driving are from out of town.

He doesn't speed much, Liz notes. He seems to obey traffic laws religiously, Liz further notes.

Despite his car's dilapidated condition, he takes good care of it, vacuuming the seats each day.

He tells dumb jokes to his passengers. He listens to National Public Radio. He buys bread at the same place Liz's mother buys bread. He has a son at the same school as Liz's brother. He Liz pushes the binoculars away. She realizes she doesn't want to know this much about Amadou Bonamy. Amadou Bonamy is a murderer. He is my murderer, she thinks. He needs to pay. Like her mother had said, it isn't right to hit people with dirty old cabs, and then leave them to die in the street. Liz's pulse races. She needs to find a way to tell her parents about Amadou Bonamy. She stands up and walks out of the Observation Deck, feeling flush with purpose and more alive than she has felt in some time.

On her way out of the building, Liz passes Esther.

"Glad to see you leaving while it's still daylight out for once," Esther says.

"Yeah." Liz stops. "Esther," she says, "you wouldn't know how to make Contact with the living, would you?"

"Contact?" says Esther. "Why in the world do you want to know about that? Contact's for damned fools. Nothing good's ever come out of talking to the living. Nothing but hurt and bother. And goodness knows, we've all got enough of that already."

Liz sighs. Given Esther's response, Liz knows she can't ask just anyone about Contact. Not Betty, who is worried enough about Liz already. Or Thandi, who is probably angry at her for not returning her calls. Or Aldous Ghent, who would never in a million years help Liz make Contact.