Wednesday was bright and sunny but in a dec eptive way: There was a
knife - edged chill in the air.
Just before noon, I slipped on my Italian overcoat, anticipating a nice hot
bowl of Vietnamese pho with Maryam — but just then, my phone dinged.
Maryam had always protected our sixty - minute lunch dates — she even put
them on her calendar at the hospital — and it was a shock to read her text:
‘Sorry, work is crazy today. Have to cancel.’
It had been a tough morning at Tiger Corp, and the thought of eating a
salad alone at my desk was d epressing. Abbas had instructed Kyle to aid me
with the EB - 5 project, but as soon as the old man left, Kyle had turned on
me: “WTF, Ali? I get pulled off West Side Project to do this Mickey Mouse
shit? You’re barely here for three months, and you sweet - talk the old man
into restructuring teams?”
I’d reassured Kyle that I had nothing to do with this decision, but he
stormed into his office, locked his door, and pulled on his huge headphones.
My assistant, Angie, said that he was clearly jealous, that he was used to
getting all of Abbas’s attention — and I’d retorted that this was a real estate
company, not a first - grade classroom.
I needed to talk this situation over with someone, but all the other
project managers at Tiger Corp were Kyle’s buddies. I just texted Maryam
back a thumbs - up, but I had another plan in mind. On busy days at the
hospital, Maryam would often skip lunch, and that wasn’t good for her. So,
I’d get her a large chicken pho and drop by her office at the psych ward.
Maryam would be happy to have a hot lunch — and if by any chance she had
an extra five minutes, I’d run the Kyle situation by her.
This plan was a “win - win,” as Abbas liked to say
The guard in the lobby of the NYU Medical Center was about to wave me
in when he frowned and said that he’d just remembered Dr. Khan had left
the building, and maybe I could catch her outside by the food trucks.
I sighed and jogged back out, carrying a large bag of boiling - hot pho, the
way she liked it, with extra basil leaves. The plaza outside the hospital was
packed with food trucks: greasy pizza, bad tacos, and those overspiced
state - fair gyros.
I spotted Maryam near the pizza truck, walking fast, wearing an anklelength black down
coat, and I felt that was a good omen. I’d spent a small
fortune on the coat — a modernist creation from Yohji Yamamoto’s winter
collection — but as Kyle had predicted, Maryam had never worn it.
I called out Maryam’s name, but maybe she did not hear me, because
she pulled up her boxy hood and strode on, head bent, her face obscured
like a futuristic monk. Maryam was a quick walker, but I did not want to
run after her. Surely, she was heading to the pho place, and I’d catch her
there.
But Maryam strode right past the Vietnamese restaurant and k ept
walking, all the way to Park Avenue. At the entrance to the subway there,
she flipped her hood back and looked around — a quick, furtive glance,
almost comical.
I could have easily called out to Maryam, but her expression stopped
me: mouth set into a thin, determined line, eyes narrowed. Pulling the hood
back up, she rushed down the stairs into the subway.
Clearly, the situation had changed: This was no longer about bringing
Maryam lunch. It was about trust. Maryam had told me that she was busy at
the hospital — and here she was, heading off on the subway to God - knowswhere.
Maryam was consistently courteous, she never interfered, and she gave
me a lot of space — but it was precisely that space that made me uneasy. I
had grown up in a house where you breathed the same air as your loved
ones and inflicted your bad moods on them. Politeness was reserved for
strangers, while real intimacy was being able to treat each other with a
rough familiarity. In dark moments, I suspected that the bubble around
Maryam hid some de ep secret, and that she had only granted me so much
room in order to protect herself.
And then it struck me what Maryam could be hiding: her old boyfriend
Weissberg, the surgeon who was able to sew back severed fingers. It made
sense: He was still here in the city. How ironic if she’d been sneaking off to
see him during the afternoons. I imagined Maryam naked, spending a
secretive hour in some small overheated apartment and then heading back
to the hospital, thinking that I would never find out.
The pho I carried was still hot. I threw the whole bag into a nearby trash
can and followed Maryam down into the subway. I’d just made it to the
platform when a southbound train pulled into the station, and I sprinted
through the closing doors, hoping that I did not run right into Maryam — but
she was not in that car. I looked around wildly and glimpsed, through the
cloudy glass connecting doors, a distinctive, boxy hooded figure in the next
compartment. It was Maryam — unless two women were wearing the same
ten - thousand - dollar Yohji Yamamoto coats on the 6 train at noon, and what
were the chances of that?
Forty minutes later, Maryam paused outside a squat art deco diner, a
survivor of 1920 s New York, overshadowed by towering corporate high
rises.
She’d changed trains at Grand Central, taken a local to Fulton Street,
then made her way through the winding, narrow streets of the Financial
District. Was she meeting up with her lover here, far away from the
hospital, to avoid detection? The New Yorker Diner was a strange choice —
Maryam hated fast food — but perhaps this was one of those ironic hipster
places where a young avant - garde chef takes over an aged establishment
and starts serving grilled cheese with truffles, blinis with caviar.
Maryam hesitated at the doorway; she’d taken a thick manila envelope
out of her handbag and was holding it uncertainly. She finally pulled the
door open, and I glimpsed a crowded counter and a row of dingy red
booths. Definitely an odd choice for a romantic assignation, but then again,
what did I really know about Maryam? Only what she wanted to show me,
and that was carefully curated.
If I followed her inside, she’d see me, so I ducked into a recessed bank
entrance across the street. From there I could see right into the large
brightly lit windows of the diner, and I tracked Maryam’s legs and torso as
they moved down the aisle. Surely her old lover would now appear, the tall
Jewish surgeon with the receding hairline and long sensitive fingers. He’d
say, All good? And Maryam would answer, Ali’s clueless. He thinks I’m at
the hospital. And then, of course, they would kiss.
Instead Maryam stopped at a window booth. It was occupied by an
elderly Black man in a crumpled purple suit and, oddly, a straw Panama hat.
The man gathered up the newspapers he had spread out over his table — who
the hell read a physical newspaper these days? — and gestured to Maryam,
who sat down, leaned forward, and started to talk. A few minutes later, the
man held out his hand, and Maryam gave him the package; the man glanced
inside and nodded.
I was still trying to process all this when Maryam sank forward, covered
her face with her hands, and began to cry. The old man, moving surprisingly
swiftly, went around to her side and threw an arm around her shoulders.
There was nothing sexual about this; he patted Maryam on the back and
gestured for a glass of water, which arrived promptly. Who the hell was he?
Some sort of therapist? And what was in the envelope she’d given him?
The old man murmured something as Maryam sipped the water, and her
emotions seemed to stabilize. She talked on, uninterrupted, in a measured
fashion, and the man scribbled notes in a long r eporter’s not epad. He
interrupted only to ask Maryam questions, which caused her to pause and
think carefully before formulating answers. Their interaction indeed had the
rhythm of a therapy session.
If only I had a camera with a long tel ephoto lens, I could read Maryam’s
lips. Still, I could make out a lot from their body language, and eventually I
concluded that the old man was a confidant, and that Maryam was getting
something off her chest. What was she talking about — and why here, in the
cramped, public confines of a diner, where she could easily be overheard?
None of it made sense.
Thirty - eight minutes later, Maryam left the diner. She flipped up her
hood and walked quickly away, glancing at her watch.
Standing in my doorway, I waited for a few minutes, then texted her:
‘Hey, how is your day going?’ I closed my eyes and sent out a tel epathic
message: Tell me, Maryam, that you traveled all the way downtown to a
diner near Wall Street. Tell me that you talked to someone about something
de eply personal.
A minute later, Maryam r eplied: ‘Things are really crazy at the hospital.
More later.’
Blatant lies. The confusion clouding my brain turned to angry curiosity.
The old man was still at his booth at the diner, writing briskly in his
not epad, and I wanted to see his face close - up. There was no risk since he
would have no idea who I was.
Besides, I was half - frozen, and a cup of burnt coffee would be fine.
Inside, the diner smelled of stale fried food. A faded tin sign above the grill
said NEW YORKER DINER — NOTHING FINER — SINCE 1965. I sat at a corner of the
counter with a view of the window booths and studied a huge laminated
menu. It offered up breakfast all day, quesadillas, roast turkey, chicken
salad, and a “bottomless” cup of coffee for $1.50. With its crowded signage,
long counter, and fixed metal stools, the diner reminded me of an iconic
1950 s photo by Robert Frank.
After Maryam’s d eparture, the old Black man in the Panama hat
arranged sections of The New York Times, the Post, and Daily News in neat
piles on his table. He appeared to be eating, simultaneously, a huge muffin
and a plate of congealed scrambled eggs. Close - up, his face was smooth,
and his age was given away only by his bone - white goatee and the outdated
purple suit with wide lapels. At one point his chin fell to his chest, and he
seemed to doze off — but then he jerked awake and scribbled something else
in his long r eporter’s not epad, which was stuffed with tattered newspaper
cuttings.
Maybe it was the warmth of the diner and the ordinariness of the other
customers — chattering secretaries, construction guys in safety vests, traders
in cheap suits — that made me feel better. The old man looked like a
harmless eccentric, and my panic began to ease.
Two older women settled themselves next at the counter and loudly
debated the merits of the chicken parmigiana over the veal cutlet. I was
distracted by their chatter, and when I next looked over, the old man’s booth
was empty. He had somehow packed up all his stuff and left, but I hadn’t
seen him beckon to the waitress for a check.
A sense of confused anticlimax set in. Should I head back to the office?
There was a ton of work to do at Tiger Corp, but it took some time before I
caught the attention of the waitress and mimed a request for a check. She
finally came over, a sixtyish woman with dyed red hair, and from her sharp
eyes and worn snub - nosed nursing shoes, I could tell she was a longtime
employee. Perhaps she knew the old Black man. All over New York, I’d
seen lonely senior citizens who annexed a booth in a diner or a stool at a bar
and came in every day for the social interaction.
As I paid my check, I took a chance. “That guy in the hat, sitting over
there. I’ve seen him here before, haven’t I? He’s a regular?”
The waitress was barely listening. Her eyes constantly scanned the other
booths, anticipating coffee refills. I dropped a twenty - dollar bill onto the
check and said I didn’t need change, and she suddenly snapped into focus.
“The old guy? Orlando? Yeah, he’s been here since — I don’t know,
before my time. More often after he retired.” She saw the question on my
face. “NYPD. Used to be a detective. Shame what they did to him. Real
shame.” A dark shadow crossed her face.
“What happened?”
She turned her sharp eyes on me, taking in my fancy Italian overcoat.
“All this bullshit about ‘abolish the cops’? Young people have no idea what
this city was like in the eighties. Men like Orlando, they stood between us
and insanity. And they, the NYPD, they forced Orlando out, and then he had
that hip r eplacement, and it didn’t take, and now he’s...” A customer
gestured for more coffee, and the waitress trailed off. “Ah, life. What’re you
going to do? Have a good one, buddy.”
The waitress hurried away, her thick - soled nurse shoes squeaking on the
linoleum, and I struggled to process what she had said: The old man was
not a therapist. Why was Maryam talking to an ex - NYPD cop?
I quickly typed into the search bar of my phone — “Orlando + NYPD +
Detective” — and the results took a second. There were many old newspaper
articles from the Post — the old man had apparently investigated several
high - profile murders — but at the top of the list was a link for Hawk
Investigations. The website was basic, with clunky font, and under the
banner its expertise was clearly spelled out:
Find out the truth — and regain your peace of mind.
Domestic, marital, asset investigations. Background checks.
A sudden chill ran through my body, erasing all the effects of the hot
coffee. Hawk Investigations had just one employee, Orlando Epps, the lead
investigator, with “a thirty - year track record at the NYPD”; Mr. Epps had
headed up several interagency task forces, blah, blah, blah — but my eyes
were drawn to a testimonial at the bottom of the page from a woman named
Esmeralda Z.:
My marriage hit rock bottom, and I needed surveillance services. It is a hard decision
for a woman to make, but Mr. Epps was thorough, discreet, and empathic. He provided
me with all the materials I needed to initiate divorce proceedings and to claim what I
was owed. Hawk Investigations is pricey, but Mr. Epps is the real deal.
Everything was suddenly, horrifyingly clear. Somehow — how? Had I
been talking in my sle ep? Had Barey Mian dropped some hints? — Maryam
suspected that I’d had an affair with her sister. Just when I thought things
were going well between us, she was meeting with a private eye to have me
investigated.
It was hard to breathe. Now I could imagine the conversation that had
just taken place in the red leatherette booth: The old man, his breath scented
with coffee, asking, And when did you first suspect your husband was
cheating on you? Maryam’s brow furrowing as she r eplied: Well, he was
flirty with my sister in Mumbai, but then, in New York, he k ept
disappearing. He would come home and jump right into the shower, but I
smelled his clothes, and Farhan’s perfume was all over him ...
What a goddamn cliché: The cheating husband. The wronged wife. The
canny, dogged PI.
From the Hawk Investigations website, an old black - and - white
photograph of Orlando Epps stared up at me: He was standing on some
courthouse st eps and talking animatedly to a gaggle of r eporters. Younger,
skinnier, and even back then he wore that straw Panama hat, tilted back at a
rakish angle. A glistening brass NYPD badge was clipped to his belt, and
the matte butt of a pistol stuck out from under his suit jacket.
Photographs can be made to lie. I knew that, from having photoshopped
a million wedding images, but this one captured a hard - driving energy:
Epps was not some alcoholic wreck. He was a tough, experienced cop.
Surely he would dig around and talk to Farhan’s neighbors, who would
testify to the nature of my visits; the sound of our encounters must have
traveled through the thin walls. My marriage to Maryam had barely lasted
four months. Now she would divorce me, and I’d be sent back to Mumbai
in disgrace. I would become the laughingstock of Mumbai, the punch line
of a very bad joke.
I had blown my one chance at making it. I was finished.
I have no idea how I got back to my office at Tiger Corp.
The next thing I remember is standing by the window pressing my
forehead against the cold glass. The sunlight was fading, and a wind
whipped down Fifth Avenue, sending plastic bags and scraps of paper
wafting through the air. I looked down and imagined plummeting to the
sidewalk — but even in that bleak moment, I knew that I did not have the
courage to end it all.
Just then, Kyle wandered into my office. He looked she epish and threw
open his arms in apology. “Ali, brother, I got to walk back that stuff I said
before. I’ve been looking into the EB - 5 thing, and it’s a fucking gold mine,
okay? I was outta line yelling at you, what can I say?”
I tried to speak, but all that came out was a strangled noise.
Kyle stared into my face. “What’s the matter? You eat something weird?
I told you, man, that shawarma guy you like, he’s unhygienic, and — ”
“I fucked up, Kyle. Big - time. I’m going to get canned.”
“Hey, hey, we’re not brain surgeons. If we screw up, no one dies.
Everything we do is a storm in a teacup.” He sat down carefully on the edge
of my desk.
“This is political. It’s big.”
Kyle leaned over and ruffled my hair. “Bro, whatever mess you’re in —
we can figure it out. Believe me, I’ve done plenty of stupid stuff in my
time.” He continued, his voice calm and kind, “Don’t panic. The first thing
is to take emotion out of the equation. It’s a question of understanding
everyone’s interests — what they really want. I’m here for you, buddy.
Together, we can talk this through, okay?”
Kyle waited for me to answer, but my eyes were riveted to the window:
Fat snowflakes were falling from the sky and blanketing Fifth Avenue. The
sharp edges of the city were blurring, and for a moment I wished I had a
camera on hand to capture the transformation — but then Kyle coughed, and
I snapped back into reality.
My time for taking pictures was over.
Real winter had arrived.