Limitless

I told the driver to cut over and drop me off in someplace like Scarsdale or White Plains. He considered this for a couple of minutes, looked around at his options, and eventually took me into the centre of White Plains. I paid him – and in the vague hope that he might keep his mouth shut, I gave him a hundred-dollar tip.

Carrying the holdall and the briefcase – one in either hand — I wandered around for a while until I found a taxi on Westchester Avenue, which I then took to the nearest car-rental outlet. Using my credit card, I rented a Pathfinder. Then I immediately got out of White Plains and continued north on Interstate 684.

I passed Katonah and took a left at Croton Falls for Mahopac. Off the highway now and driving through this quiet, hilly, woodland area, I felt displaced, but at the same time strangely serene – as though I had already passed over into some other dimension. Shifts in perspective and velocity intensified my growing sense of unreality. I hadn’t been behind the wheel of a car for ages – and not, in any case, out of the city, and at such speed, and never high up like this in one of these SUVs …

As I approached Mahopac itself, I had to slow down. I had to make an effort to refocus on what I was doing, and on what I was about to do. It took me a while to remember the address that Melissa had written down for me in the bar on Spring Street. It eventually came to me, and when I got into town, I stopped at a gas station to buy a map of the area so I could work out how to get to where she lived.

Ten minutes later I’d found it.

I cruised right on to Milford Drive and pulled up at the kerb in front of the third house on the left. The street was quiet and canopied with trees. I reached over to the back seat, where I’d put the holdall. I opened a side pocket of the bag and pulled out a small notebook and a pen. Then I took the briefcase from the passenger seat and placed it on my lap. I tore a page out of the notebook and wrote a few quick lines. I opened the briefcase, stared at the money for a moment and then secured the note inside so that it was clearly visible.

I got out of the car, pulling the briefcase after me and started walking along the narrow pathway towards the house. There was an area of grass on either side of the pathway and on one of them there was a small bicycle lying on its side. It was a single-storey, grey clapboard house, with steps leading up to it and a porch at the front. It looked like it could do with a lick of paint, and maybe a new roof.

I went up the steps and stood on the porch for a moment. I tried to peer inside, but there was a screen on the door and I couldn’t see properly. I crooked my index finger and rapped it on the frame of the door.

My heart was thumping.

After a moment, the door opened and standing before me was a spindly little girl of about seven or eight. She had long, dark, straight hair and deep brown eyes. I must have shown how surprised I was because she furrowed her eyebrows and said, officiously, ‘Yes?’

‘You must be Ally,’ I said.

She considered this for a moment and then decided to nod in the affirmative. She was wearing a red cardigan and pink leggings.

‘I’m an old friend of your mother’s.’

This didn’t seem to impress her much.

‘My name’s Eddie.’

‘You want to speak to my mom?’

I detected a slight impatience in her tone and in her body language, as though she wanted me to get on with it – to get to the point so she could get back to whatever it was she’d been doing before I came along to disturb her.

From somewhere in the background a voice said, ‘Ally, who is it?’

It was Melissa. All of a sudden this began to seem a lot more difficult than I had anticipated.

‘It’s a … man.’

‘I’ll …’ — there was a pause here, pregnant with momentary indecision, and maybe even a hint of exasperation – ‘ … I’ll be there in a minute. Tell him … to wait.’

Ally said, informatively, ‘My mom’s washing my kid sister’s hair.’

‘That’d be Jane, wouldn’t it?’

‘Yeah. She can’t do it herself. And it takes ages.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Because it’s so long.’

‘Longer than yours?’

She made a puffing sound, as if to say, Whoa, mister, you’re nowhere near as informed as you think.

‘Well, listen,’ I said, ‘you’re obviously all busy here.’ I paused, and looked directly into her eyes, experiencing something like vertigo, but with both feet on the ground. ‘So why don’t I just leave this with you … and you can tell your mom I was here … and that I left this for her.’

Being careful not to seem in any way pushy, I leant forward a little and placed the briefcase on a rug just inside the door.

She didn’t move as I did this. Then she looked down suspiciously at the briefcase. I took a couple of steps back. She glanced up at me again.

‘My mom said you were to wait.’

‘I know, but I’m in a hurry.’

She assessed this for plausibility, intrigued now – whatever she’d been doing before I arrived apparently forgotten.

‘Ally, I’m coming.’