Rachel Alexander 04 - Lady Vanishes

short and wide, his eyes fixed on Dashiell but his feet taking him nowhere, so stunned, it seemed, by Dashiell’s presence that he couldn’t move; a youngish woman the color of molasses, her black hair in a long braid that lay on the line of her spine, a teddy bear in her hand, holding it out, her treasure, for Dashiell to take.
    “Lady,” one of them said, a man of about thirty.
    Or maybe he was fifty. Here, the old people looked young, the young ones looked old.
    He dropped the shoe he’d been carrying and reached out for Dashiell.
    Cora began to cry, having forgotten, I guess, that she’d seen him just half an hour ago. “She’s—”
    “Back,” Dora said. And she began to cry as well.
    They all gathered around him, fluttering, moaning, babbling, he the eye of a daisy, the residents the petals surrounding him.
    When I heard something behind me, I turned. It was David.
    He was standing in the doorway, looking up at the ceiling, his forefingers and thumbs drumming away, exhaling audibly, as if he were trying to speak.
    I wondered if he’d been in the lobby all along, if when I’d come back with Charlotte, I hadn’t seen him—so still and quiet, he’d all but disappeared.

CHAPTER 4
    You Want To Explain That?

    Leaving Harbor View, I crossed the highway and took Dashiell to the long, skinny park that ran along the river, a wide roadway, part of it marked off for bicycles and skaters, the rest for walkers, a line of benches facing the Hudson.
    This used to be dog heaven, the only place in the neighborhood where a dog could be off leash and really run. Then the city designated the area a park and began to ticket off-leash dogs. Unhooking Dashiell’s leash meant risking a hundred-dollar fine, but after an hour and a half at Harbor View, it would have to be considered a necessary business expense.
    We headed for the Christopher Street pier, where he could run and I could keep an eye out for the green trucks the rangers used to patrol the city’s newest park. At five-fifteen, I headed for Serge’s gym to meet Venus.
    We crossed back to West Street at Eleventh, where there was a traffic light, though if you wanted to make it safely across, you had to run. Heading north a block to Serge’s gym, I noticed again how broken up the sidewalk was, big fissures in the concrete because of the reconstruction of the roadway. In some places, cracks had been filled in with gravel, making walking there even more treacherous because the danger was now more difficult to spot and would be slippery whenever it rained. Why would anyone ride a bike here if they didn’t have to?
    I began to wonder where the rider had been going when he plowed into Harry Dietrich. If someone was riding for pleasure, he would never ride on a broken sidewalk when there was a smooth bicycle path just across the road, a safe place to cross three short blocks away.
    Was he a messenger, I wondered? But then, I thought, to whom would the messenger be delivering? Unless Harbor View was getting something, there was no one else on the block. In fact, most of the buildings on West Street had their entrances on the side streets, Bank, Twelfth, or Jane, not on West itself.
    As for the Chinese food delivery theory, again, to whom would the food be going? Riding along on West Street would be the long way around for a delivery.
    A lot of the delivery guys would cadge a nap at Westbeth. I’d seen them many times, sleeping on one of the wide, low walls that divided the courtyard, finding a spot in the shade of one of the trees. I’d throw the ball for Dashiell, watching him race by the sleeping delivery men, one of them waking up once, seeing a pit bull heading his way, ending his break one, two, three.
    But they napped after a delivery, not before. I never saw one letting the food sit and get cold while he slept. And there were no Chinese restaurants along West Street. So leaving the courtyard, they’d head back along Bank Street, toward Washington or Hudson, where the restaurants were.
    Venus was waiting in the lobby, dreadlocks pulled back with an elastic band, wearing shorts and a workout bra, her midriff bare, big multicolored cross trainers on her feet. She was ready to work out, except for the necklace, a pav6 diamond heart on a long gold chain. What an odd thing to wear to the gym. To each her own, I thought as she showed me where to sign in and waited while I tied Dash’s leash to the red metal bench near the front door. Then together we headed