Chapter 5: The Dorian Collective
Tomorrow, Then
New York City, 1999
“I know what I saw, Harvey. Stop playing dumb with me.”
Dom shoved his hands into his pockets as he walked shoulder-to-shoulder through the river of moving bodies. He slid in and out of the crowd with such natural direction that Harvey could not help but question his own ability to avoid stumbling over every object or appendage within his reach.
“Dom!” he called. “Wait up, will ya?”
Dom continued as if he hadn’t heard him.
“They have eyes and ears everywhere, Harvey. You don’t understand—not yet at least—but you will.”
The tone in his words hit Harvey like needles, stopping him dead in his tracks. He peered up into the city-torn sky, tracing the haze of neon lights against the day’s fading light. He’d forgotten what it felt like to be as insignificant as a number—a datapoint—in a sea of faceless frames. It hadn’t taken long for the loneliness of the city to shiver through him. The crumpled wrappers and amorphous stains blotting the sidewalk underfoot only solidified that sentiment.
“It’s been ten years, Dom. Let it go,” he said.
Dom had always been such a bullheaded twenty-something set on his own ambitions, but there was none of that left here. A new, more unsettled identity had taken its place—one fueled by only fear and self-isolation.
It had broken him physically, as well. His hair hung in shaggy locks, his gut rounded, and eyes weary—all mild changes in comparison to the chill in his profoundly apathetic stare. That alone irked Harvey more than he could muster.
“You know I can’t do that,” Dom said. “She tried to kill me, Harvey. You don’t know how that feels.”
Harvey sighed, hoping his annoyance would deflect the conversation. Maybe—if he was lucky enough—the subject would simply peter out.
“If you don’t want to talk about it, why’d you make the trip in the first place?” asked Dom.
They approached another busy intersection. Harvey stopped at the edge of the crosswalk, but Dom continued confidently through the open street, headfirst into another wave of oncoming pedestrians.
“You used to be so good at city walking,” Dom chided, peering back over his shoulder. “What happened to you?”
Harvey stumbled on cue.
“I haven’t lived in a city since Boston,” he answered, “not since Ernie offered me the job.”
Dom scoffed—an unexpected reaction, but not out of character.
“Speaking of jobs,” he said. “You could’ve found something better if you just waited, y’know. He offered you the job because he knew you’d take it. And that’s exactly what you did.”
The grit in his words left Harvey annoyed, more than he cared to admit.
“Waited for what, Dom? For you? I’m sorry to say it, but I was moving on whether I accepted that job or not. People move on. It’s what we do. You should try it sometime.”
The sidewalk opened into a wider cavalcade of taxis and sedans. Streetlights clicked from reds to greens and back again, traffic following suit. Buildings on either side lit the world with a murky glow.
“Three weeks,” said Dom. “That’s all it took for you to leave me alone in that goddamn apartment.”
“Jesus, Dom! I came here thinking we’d work things out, but all you’ve done so far is bitch. You called me. Remember? I don’t need this shit.”
It wasn’t that Dom had lost the fiery swell behind his eyes. It was that Harvey remembered Dom so differently than who he was now. The spunk was certainly still there, it just simmered now rather than boiled. So Harvey waited for a heated quip—maybe an index finger pointed in his direction—but nothing came. Just subdued quiet.
After a string of hesitant moments, Dom finally broke the silence.
“I called you because I found something, Harvey. I thought you’d be interested. You were there that night after all—you’ve seen them up close—but we have to be careful. Do you understand? It’s something you should see in person.”
This was what Harvey had come to fear the most.
“So you’re still chasing ghosts,” Harvey answered, “after all these years.”
“Don’t act like you understand what I’ve been through, Harvey,” he said, “because you don’t.”
The pointer finger made an appearance, an odd relief from Harvey’s perspective.
“She haunts me,” Dom growled, louder now. “Every goddamn night. I can’t get her out of my head.”
His anger soured from there, so much so that Harvey couldn’t help but physically squirm at Dom’s egregious look of defeat.
“Do you even remember that night? Or did you forget about it?” Dom asked. “Like you forgot about me?”
The scene rushed back to Harvey as though it had never left—the stale cup of coffee between his palms, Annette’s vacant stare, the flattened cushions of base-market plastic chairs.
Keep your friend in check when he wakes up, she’d said, or we’ll be forced to do what is necessary.
Harvey didn’t answer, couldn’t answer.
“I can still feel the blood on my hands—and her laugh—it sends chills down my spine. I want to forget it—start over—but I can’t, Harvey, not until I know why.” Dom paused, but only for a moment. “Think about it. What’s stopping her—them—from coming back and finishing the job? It’s all I think about.”
Harvey had no reply. His silence felt more like withdrawal than agreement. At least that’s how Dom seemed to take it.
“So,” Dom barked, “do you want to see what I found or what?”
“Dom, listen to me.”
Harvey pulled at the sleeve of his friend’s jacket to quell his sputtering movement, but the current of sidewalk bodies pushed them to the outer edges of traffic anyway, so close to the line of buildings that Harvey felt forced to lean against a lip of concrete about waist high. An overlit window display of headless mannequins brightened the sidewalk enough to reveal to Harvey the true frustration in Dom’s eyes.
“What happened wasn’t fair. I get that. The cops should’ve done a better job,” Harvey said, “but this isn’t healthy. It’s consumed your entire life.”
“We shouldn’t be talking about this in public,” Dom answered, physically cowering. He lowered the tone of his voice to a growl. “Especially not here.”
Pedestrians continued to pass, no one sparing even a harmless glance.
“Look around, Dom. We’re alone. No one cares about our conversation.”
Despite the meandering, they’d reached their destination. A few steps ahead, the concierge doors to Harvey’s hotel opened and closed intermittently between arriving and departing guests. Across the street, several glowing adverts recommended places to eat. Taxis lined the street by the curb.
“I’ll tell you what,” said Dom. “It’s late. We’re both tired. You’re here for a few days so there’s no need to rush this. Let’s just get you settled in your hotel room and we’ll meet for breakfast tomorrow at the diner across the street. We’ll figure this out then.”
The offer wasn’t what Harvey expected, but so far, nothing was. He nodded in hesitant agreement, adding a melancholy grin for show.
“Tomorrow, then,” he said.
“Then it’s settled. Tomorrow morning, across the way. Goodnight.”
A honking taxi tore Harvey’s attention for only a moment’s time, but when he returned, Dom had already disappeared into the crowds up ahead.
It was something Harvey would come to contemplate for years to come.
***
“Can I get you something, hon? You’ve been sitting here for ages.”
The waitress—a soft spoken woman lost in the blue and white stripes of her one-piece uniform—stood with her weight angled to her left hip. Her right hand held a tray of syrup-soaked plates, cloudy glassware, and stained porcelain mugs. She stood in front of Harvey like a statue of easy eyes and graying hair.
“Coffee would be nice,” Harvey answered.
She grinned, but in a pitiful kind of way, like how someone looks at a stray dog.
“Coffee it is. I’ll be back.”
Hours had passed, but Dom hadn’t shown, so he’d sat wondering why he even made the trip if Dom’s plans included blowing him off. He tapped at the table with the pads of fingers until the waitress slid the mug of steaming joe into them.
“You’re not Harvey, are you?” she asked. “Harvey Divvy?”
The air left his lungs like he’d cannonballed into a frozen lake.
“How do you know my name?”
“There’s a message for you,” she explained. “It came really early, like half past three in the morning early.”
She retreated to the long stretch of counter separating the kitchen window from the dining room and leaned over its lip. She returned holding a grease-stained scrap of paper between her index finger and thumb, passing it to him.
He held it to his eyes cautiously as she hovered, waiting for him to read it.
Harvey Divvy, it read, written in messy longhand. 1112. Keep it safe. And find it before they do.
“Does it mean anything to you?” she asked. “He made it clear there were three ones before the two. That part was particularly important, I guess.”
Harvey read it a second time, then a third.
“No...at least I don’t think so. Did he leave a name?”
“Nope. That’s all it was.”
She turned away, back to her usual hustle of diner guests, but paused halfway across the room to glance over her shoulder. Her gentle eyes had turned obtrusive and cold.
“He was worried,” she added. “Whoever he was.”
It was the way she said it, the way she kept her gaze on him a little too long. It was enough to pry him from his seat in the direction of the door.