The air beneath the train bridge is thick with humidity and the cloying stench of decay. A greasy, metallic tang clings to the scattered refuse and the discarded remnants of lives that are lived on the fringes.
Even the sun that is usually a relentless force seems hesitant to pierce the oppressive gloom, and leaves the underbelly of the town shrouded in a perpetual twilight.
Candy navigates the forsaken landscape, with her senses alerted. Like many times before, she wading through a sea of forgotten souls, some unwanted, and some disillusioned, but all of them swallowed by the shadow of a town that has deliberately turned its back on them.
Despite the dimness, she spots Corey instantly. A stark silhouette that is hunched against a massive concrete pillar, a ghost in his own life.
The strap of her bag bites into her shoulder and harshly reassures her of the six-pack she is carrying. It is a peace offering, a bribe. A decent, imported lager, carefully chosen and chilled to perfection. In this ironclad town, cold beer is currency: It serves as a liquid lifeline.
As she approaches, the details sharpen. The hunched posture, the slump of his shoulders, and the defeated droop of his head. His once sharp journalist's eyes that were windows to a relentless mind are now dulled with a cocktail of cynicism, the haze of drink, and lingering pain. The discarded notepad is lying beside him, stained and forgotten, as if it is a silent testament to the voice that he has deliberately taken from himself. The truth which once was his weapon has become his prison.
But Sherry's truth, the message that was tugged into the pendant, deserves his attention. Candy clings to this conviction as she moves cautiously closer, aware of the uphill battle she will face. Each step across the uneven ground is a gamble, but she is good at it.
As she places the six-pack before him, the condensation is beading on the bottles. Their clink against the gravel is unnervingly loud in the oppressive silence all around.
"Top of the morning to you," she says softly and her voice is a tentative thread in the heavy air. "Before you tell me to get lost again, look at this!" She gestures towards the beer. "Consider this a white flag. A very cold one."
He glances at the six-pack, but his expression stays unreadable and his hand firmly planted in his lap. Candy knows that the conversation with him will be a minefield.
He has turned his back on the truth ever since it destroyed him. Each word has to be carefully chosen, if she wants him to have faith in Sherry´s.
"I went to the precinct yesterday," she blurts and her gaze fixes on the dust motes that swirl in the murky light. "I told them about the pendant… And about Sherry Jones."
Like an impassive statue carved from disappointment, he remains motionless. In his life he has seen enough lies that masquerade as truth to last several lifetimes and nowadays he is tired. Of lies, of truth, of life. Who would blame him?
Candy wrestles down a surge of frustration and focuses on compassion. She understands his hesitation. Sherry's note has to pose a monumental challenge to a worldview as shattered as his. In return for the understanding she shows, she is desperately hoping for some in return.
He knows nothing of the thorn of a memory that is the rose bush day, which painfully overshadows her present, and even less he knows that, against all reason, Candy has fallen for him long ago. That is why she needs him to be the person who will believe her, and walk her through the terrifying unknown that is finding Sherry Jones.
"The detective didn't believe me," she continues and struggles to keep the edge from her voice when she remembers Harding. "He reacted… Well, he reacted just like you. Like it was nothing, a waste of time." She pauses, takes a deep breath, and adds, "It isn't, though. And I think… I might be able to prove it. I have a lead."
Instantaneously his eyes snap towards hers. The movement is as sharp and sudden as a gunshot. In their depths, she sees a flicker of something that she cannot quite decipher, but it spurs her onward.
"I went to the jewelry shop across from the precinct," she explains, "the one with the antique clocks. And I asked the saleswoman there if she knows anything about the pendant, like where it could have been bought, or who might have bought it." A beat of silence, in which she is waiting and hoping he will reach for his notepad, but he doesn't. He merely averts his gaze, and focuses on something beyond her.
"This lady, Tiffany… She didn't recognize the piece, but she said it looked custom-made. She suggested a local artisan might have made it. Someone on Bleecker Street."
She watches him, desperate for a reaction, but he remains a closed book. She needs him to understand that this isn't only about Sherry. It is, somehow, linked to Candy herself, and Candy needs him to be there for her.
"I just thought… Maybe we could go there together," she adds, the words barely a whisper. "Look, Corey, I don't want to go alone. I don't know if it's safe."
She holds her breath. Silence. Then, finally, he picks up the notepad. His hand trembles slightly as he scribbles something and thrusts the pad towards her.
"You don't know what a lead is, do you?" the note reads. "This isn't one, okay? The detective is right, just let it go, and fucking leave me out of it!"
The fragile hope in Candy's eyes falters, then shatters against the harsh lines as she reads them. The tang of approaching rain laces the air with a bitter taste, and dying hope is hanging heavy in her gaze, as her eyes slip from Corey's note. The skeletal fingers of the train bridge that bruise against the fading twilight catch them from falling.
Beneath the rusting ribs of the bridge, she feels the dampness seep through her sneakers. The river that is usually a playful ribbon of silver churns darkly, as if it were reflecting the sudden turmoil that rages within her.
Who is the man beside her? Does she even know him, the person who she thought Corey was? All of a sudden, a stranger who is wearing Corey's face is staring back at her with cold indifference, and even though they are unspoken, the words from his note echo through the cavernous space, like carelessly dropped stones that are bound to shatter the placid surface of her world.
The wind picks up, and the bridge above groans mournfully. It only amplifies the hollowness in her chest. Corey slightly turns, as if a marionette that is controlled by an unseen hand. The sudden movement steals the air from Candy's lungs, and her thoughts start spiraling.
What is wrong with him? Why is he so cold?
She might have underestimated the trauma that has silenced him, and forced him into this self-imposed exile. Or is there another, much darker reason for his behaviour?
Blatant disregard is etched on his face, as if it were one of the graffitis that are crumbling the concrete pillars behind him. Even so, he has become too important to her, too intrinsical to finding Sherry, for her to walk away.
With a sigh, she pushes her shock aside and offers him a lifeline by an act of defiance against his growing despair.
"Corey, don't bullshit me, I know you know that this is a real lead. What's wrong with you that you won't follow it? Aren't you supposed to be drawn to stories like this?"
She shakes her head, and her frustration is rising.
"I thought you lived for finding the truth. I believed that you were a true journalist. Don't you see? This is your chance to be him again. Or are you too chicken to take it?"
Regardless of the swelling reproach and resentment in her voice, Corey only shakes his head, and wards off her words with a weary, dismissive gesture.
The first raindrops start falling. Thick and heavy, they softly drum on the bridge above them. The atmosphere changes, and so does the light in the cavernous archway. Then, as the strongest rays of the ascending morning sun slice through the air, as the world starts shifting.
A raw sound rips through the silence. Thereafter, a torrent of agitated words splash against Candy's face, like Arctic water. Their force seems to shake the foundations of the bridge just as much as those of everyone beneath it.
"Shut the fuck up! You have no idea what you're talking about! I know Sherry Jones, she's responsible for this disaster! I wouldn't be fucking here if it weren't for her!"
Corey's voice… Tt is back. The first words that escaped his lips in months echoe against the concrete, and send a shockwave through the rows of people who are huddled around them. The sleepy looks are wiped off their faces, to be replaced by wide open eyes that are staring. The humming whispers cease. In stunned sIlence, everyone turns their heads, and fixates on Corey who nobody out there has ever heard speaking. Until just now.
Candy is staring at him too, but not because his voice is suddenly back. She is staring at the words themselves that it has chosen to express, a curse that was born of frustration, pain, and something else…
Something that sounded like hate.
As if his voice cast a spell on her, Candy stands across from him like frozen. Only her heart hammers against her ribs. The growing rain that is relentlessly drumming against the corrugated iron of the bridge mirrors the frantic rhythm in her chest. Water streams off the bridge´s edge, and miniature waterfalls cascade into grimy puddles below. They are as murky as Candy´s thoughts, and just like them, her mind is threatening to overflow.
Why hasn't Corey said that he knows Sherry Jones?
Perhaps Candy should have guessed it. By the way his jaw tightened when he first read the note, by his tendency to avoid her gaze thereafter, and by his desperate attempts to shut down her investigation.
Is he trying to protect himself from the memory of Sherry, a woman who he blames for everything that he has lost?
Or is there a more sinister reason for his behaviour?
Candy swallows hard. She doesn't even want to consider it.
He couldn't have anything to do with Sherry's disappearance... Could he?
Still staring at him, she wraps her arms around herself, and tries to ward off the damp, unsettling feeling that has been growing inside her since Corey first refused to help.
He is standing only a few feet away from her, but the light paints his features in sharp contrast, and the wit that usually dances in his dark eyes is shadowed by a reproachfulness that burrows deeper than the chill in the air. In a relentless drizzle, the rain drips from the concrete arch. Each drop is a hammer blow against the fragile silence. Deep within, it carries a whisper of doubt that chips away at Candy's trust.
Was she wrong about him? Or can she trust him? Can she trust Corey, someone she thought she loved?
The logical side of her brain screams danger. Maybe asking for his help was a mistake. She could have been wrong to come here in the first place. But her instinct tells her that this is where she needs to be. With Corey.
Whatever has happened between Sherry and him might not even be relevant to Sherry´s disappearance. Candy clings to that hope, and she knows that she will only ever find out whether this is true or nor by keeping Corey close.
Suddenly, she felt watched. Her eyes dart to the shadows beneath the bridge, where a pair of emerald eyes is glinting. The black cat! It is back.
With its tail held high, it emerges from the dark embrace that it was caught up in, and pads towards them.
Candy's thoughts ground to a halt.She stares at Corey, then at the cat, then back at Corey, in disbelief.
"This... can't be a coincidence," she gasps, and her voice is barely audible in the gathering wind. "This is the universe trying to tell us something."
A flicker ignites in Corey's eyes as he glances at the cat. Slowly, he reaches for the six-pack, and rips a bottle from the clutches of the cardboard. Like the strike of a poisonous snake, Candy hears a hiss as he bites off the cap with his partly splintered incisor.
He takes a long sip of her peace offering, one hand resting on the purring cat that is wound around his legs.
"Bleecker Street, huh?" he finally asks, and gulps down the rest of the beer. He tosses the empty bottle to the ground and prances. "Alright then. I'll come with you."
Before she can fully process his decision, he moves closer. A gust of wind carries the stench of stale beer and unwashed bodies towards her. It mixes with the cloying sweetness of the cheap perfume that clings to her clothes and coats the back of her throat. When she swallows, it tastes bitter and unsettling. The air in her mouth, and the words´s from Corey´s that she is only now comprehending.
After everything, does she even want him to come?
He is a variable, an unknown in a situation that is already overflowing with uncertainty. After his confession, taking him to Bleecker Street, and involving him further means inviting chaos. Now that Candy can no longer know for sure who he really is.
Her gaze wanders to the riverbanks, where the water swells with the relentless rain, and carries debris, like secrets, towards the dark horizon.
Her eyes glued to it, she makes a decision.
She will trust him. Or at least pretend to. That's what she has to do if she wants to find out what happened between him and Sherry. It is her only chance to get him talking.
"I'm ready whenever you are," she presses out, and forces a smile. "Delighted that we can actually talk on the way. The notepad would be rather inconvenient in this rain…"
She nudges him, in an attempt to semblance of the friendship they once had. It is rather a charade that she hopes will encourage him to open up.
Briefly after he steps out from beneath the archway, he is devoured by grey dampness. As his outline starts to fade into the fog, Candy feels a hand on her shoulder. With an almost bruisingly strong grip, it tries to turn her back around, and a deep voice rumbles behind her.
"Podozhdi, not so fast, golubka! I need to have word with Corey. Call him back!"
Candy flinches as she recognizes the voice. It is Big Joe. The Russian. She has always been afraid of him. Only ever has she heard the worst about him and his associates, the Bratva. Both in the underbelly of the city and in the respectable parts of town.
His wide, edgy jaw is tight with anger, when she turns around to look at him, and the grey sky seeps into his brown eyes to make them look cold and hard. Despite it, he releases her shoulder as soon as he has her attention.
"Izvini ty menya, milaya, but now Corey has found voice again, and he better say when he can come up with money he owes, 250,000," he drops a bombshell on Candy that she didn´t see coming.
She gasps, and her eyes frantically search for Corey's receding outline in the distance. But the thick fog is swallowing him whole.
Jesus Christ, 250,000…
What for? And if she didn't know about 250,000 that he owes, what else does she not know about Corey?
As if answering her unspoken question, Big Joe shrugs.
"Boatman told me, or like you English people say, little birdy told me he not getting money from where he said he would. He dickhead, bl´ad, fucking liar! Typical journalist prick! Ne doveryay yemu, golubka moya, don´t trust him. This is warning for you."