Ollie’s mother had loved Quincy Market: the people, the food, and most of all, the history. According to her many spiels on the subject, the long, narrow building had been constructed in the early 1800s as a sort of grocery store for nineteenth-century families. Back then, shoppers bought raw ingredients—fish, produce, bread, cheese, meat—from butchers and vendors on either side of the walkway. In modern times, the food stalls had transformed into tiny takeout restaurants, each offering quick-serve meals, snacks, and desserts of every conceivable variety.
Ollie entered at the east end and found himself immediately assaulted by the familiar cacophony of sounds and smells. The heat from dozens of grills and stoves was, initially, a welcome change from the chill outside, though it soon became stifling. He unzipped his coat and inhaled, savoring the spice and smoke in the air as he wound his way through the hungry crowds.
Enchiladas. Fried rice. Lamb kebabs. If the North End was Italy, then Quincy Market was the whole damn world. Visitors could sample Chana masala, corn dogs, beef teriyaki, and Spanakopita, then top it all off with saucer-sized cookies and gourmet cupcakes. And of course, there was the seafood: Lobster rolls and clam chowder were the stars of the show, but locals knew to also seek out supporting players like spicy tuna, oysters, and crabmeat salad on the ever-rotating menus.
If this had been a normal sort of visit, Ollie would have ordered a fried-clam roll and lingered under the high rotunda of the central seating area. Maybe listened for a while to the violinist playing for change in the corner. Instead, he hurried through the entire longer-than-a-football-field span of the market and pushed open the glass doors on the other end. The west end, as instructed.
Ollie checked the time; he was ten minutes early. Then he rezipped his coat, shivered, and settled nervously on the top step. Waiting.
The stairs faced the historic Faneuil Hall building and City Hall Plaza across the street. Ollie’s eyes scanned his surroundings, searching for anything out of the ordinary. To his right, a pushcart sold hoodies emblazoned with the names of all the local colleges and universities. Another cart offered “Wicked Pissah” t-shirts, Boston Baked Beans candy, and various other tchotchkes. And directly in front of him, at the bottom of the granite staircase, an acrobatic street performer was trying to entice passersby from the top of an oversized unicycle.
Two huddled women were pointing—at him? No, just at the building. A lone man in a business suit approached the stairs, started climbing…and then passed through the market doors and disappeared. Ollie squirmed nervously. Was he in the right place? A group of twenty-something workers in paint-splattered clothes passed close to his legs, but didn’t stop. A tall woman nearby seemed to be staring at her phone. Or was she? The acrobat finished a complex juggling routine and bowed to the gathered crowd.
Smattering of applause. Ones and fives tossed into a black hat on the pavement.
Ollie looked at his phone: five past six. Should he stand up? Walk around, maybe?
“You like show?”
Startled, Ollie glanced up to see the acrobat standing on the stairs.
“Hmm?”
“Show? You like?” the man repeated, a wide smile on his sweating face. He seemed bigger, up close. His ink-black hair was just long and wavy enough to seem unruly. On his feet, he wore what looked like a pair of gray ballet slippers.
“It was…good.” Ollie was confused, then realized that the man was holding his black felt hat in his hand. He wanted a tip. “Oh, sorry. Yeah. Here you go.” Ollie reached into his front pocket, fished around, and dropped a dollar into the hat. He had to get rid of this guy, fast.
“I thank you,” the Lycra-suited man said in a thick Slavic accent.
“Sure,” said Ollie, bewildered. In all his years of coming here, he had never been directly approached by a street performer.
“My name is Laszlo,” said the acrobat. “Laszlo Kravchenko.”
And I care, why? Ollie thought. His agitation rose. This idiot was going to screw up everything.
“You are wondering, Kravchenko, like the famous Kravchenko Brothers of Ukraine?” the man asked. Then he flashed a proud, sheepish smile. “Yes, is true. They are my uncles.”
The man’s defined musculature was accentuated by the tight, metallic blue suit, which left nothing, unfortunately, to Ollie’s imagination. Who was this jackass? “Listen, dude, I—”
“And you are Ollie Delgato,” the man interrupted pleasantly. “Of the North End Delgatos. You are waiting for me, no?”
Ollie went still.
“You received my note?”
The cement stairs felt unsteady, suddenly. He nodded but didn’t speak.
“You are looking for your friend. Antonella-Nell?”
“It’s…” Ollie cleared his throat. “It’s just…Nell. Like, a nickname. Who are you?”
“I told you. I am Las—”
“No, I mean, who are you? What is this? How do you know Nell?”
“I don’t,” the man shrugged. His face was hard and angled, punctuated by a narrow nose and somewhat beady eyes. “Not exactly. I only meet her one time.”
Ollie’s eye narrowed. Granted, he didn’t know everything about Nell’s life. But if she had been hanging out with a blue-suited, unicycle riding street performer, he felt pretty certain that it would have come up in conversation. “Where did you meet her?” he asked.
“At WRC. I work there.”
“Uh huh.” This guy was full of shit. What possible job could this burly man’s man have at a Women’s Resource Center?
“I saw you there, too. Yesterday? When you leave, I follow you.”
“Well, that’s…” Ollie sputtered. “Why?”
Laszlo studied him for a moment. “The Center. Is not what name says, if you understand. Is something else.” When Ollie didn’t respond, he continued. “You have heard of, how do you say, house violence? In house? When man hits wife?” He pantomimed a punch.
“Domestic violence?” Ollie supplied.
“Yes, yes. This. When this happens, there are places to go. For help. Centers.” Laszlo emphasized the last word.
“That’s what the WRC is?”
“Yes. But is secret. So you cannot tell.” He lowered his voice and pressed a finger to his lips. “They need to get away from husband. Or not always husband. Sometimes is father, or brother. Sometimes is boyfriend. Sometimes even other woman. Old and young. All kinds. You understand?”
Ollie nodded. Yes, he understood, too well. Goddammit. He had been right all along. About Nell’s situation, about The Guy. Why had he not spoken up?
Maybe because it never worked. Not for him, anyway. All those years of bloody lips and ripped clothing on the playground…liquid soap from the dispenser in the boys’ room, forced down his throat. He had tried telling his teachers. And what had it ever gotten him? Nothing. No, worse than nothing—it had gotten him a nastier beating the next day, after the kids learned he had ratted them out.
He had tried protecting his mother, too. He really had. Once, he had thrown his body between her face and his fists. He thought he could make it stop, but all he did was make Matteo Delgato even more enraged. And Francie had paid the price.
Ollie’s mouth had gone as dry as toast. His tongue felt too thick, too heavy. Finally, he managed to ask, “How do you know all this?”
“Like I say, I work there,” Laszlo said with a shrug. “Sometimes bad men come looking. They are not happy. So WRC hires me to be there. For protection.”
“And that happens…a lot?”
“Enough, sure. They want to be big, powerful man again. Knock around little girls. And instead they find me.” He laughed with unselfconscious delight. “Not good for them.”
Suddenly, it all became clear to Ollie: That’s why those women at the center wouldn’t even let him through the door. Why they had been so wary and suspicious. They thought he was one of those men. They actually thought that he might be the one who had been hurting Nell.
“I could go back.” Ollie said, floundering. “I could explain.”
Laszlo shook his head. His arms and shoulders looked like blue peapods, bulging out at intervals. “They will not believe you.”
“But you will? Why?”
“Because you are not that man.”
“What?”
“You are not her man. I have seen that man, with her, and you are not him.” Laszlo spread his arms. “I have been doing this long time, my friend. I see all kinds of bad things. Bad people. I see what they do not want me to see. But you…” he paused and chuckled. “You make it easier than most.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ollie asked, feeling strangely insulted.
“It is good thing, Ollie Delgato. You show your insides on your outsides. You cannot help it. You are clear, like vodka. And I see right away, when I see you yesterday, that you are afraid for your friend. And if I am honest with you, I am feeling worried for her, too.”
“Why?”
Laszlo gave him a long look, then said, “When the women come, they must choose. It is never easy, no? Sometimes, they want to go somewhere else. Secret places, to be safe. But to do this, you understand, they must stay gone. They must leave everything behind.” He shook his head. “Never easy. But for some, it is only choice. I take them where they need to go, or I take them to someone else, who takes them to next person, and so on. Like, what do you call it…Under the Ground Railroad?” He paused. “This is one choice. But there are others.”
“And Nell…she had to go away?”
Laszlo was watching his face. He seemed to be considering something. Then he asked, “How well do you know your friend?”
Ollie bristled at the question. “Well enough.”
The acrobat nodded. “As I say, there are other choices. Your Nell did not want to leave. So she chose something else. Something more…temporary. I cannot explain more. But when they make this other choice, I take care of that, too. So, I bring her, and I tell her what to do. And then she was supposed to come back.”
“What do you mean, supposed to?”
“I did not realize she had not come back,” Laszlo continued. “Not until you came, looking for her. And then I did counting of days, and I realized…” He stopped, running a finger along a seam in his shiny suit.
“What?” Ollie said, leaning forward. “Realized what?”
“I realized that she should have been back already. There is time limit, you see. Time must be respected.”
“Or what?”
“They must return in time, or they cannot return. At all.”
“So, go get her!” Ollie almost shouted. He didn’t understand most of what this strange man was saying, but he understood enough to know that something was wrong. Something bad.
“I cannot,” the acrobat answered, shaking his head. “It is not allowed. I bring them, I tell them when to return. And then I hope that they do.” He gave a small shrug. “It is up to them what happens next.”
“What are you talking about? What the hell kind of a place is this?”
Laszlo sighed. “It is kind of place that…that I cannot explain. Some things you must see for yourself, yes? I can only say there is more to your world than you know, Ollie Delgato. More, even, than you could imagine.”
“So what can you tell me?” Ollie asked, his eye beginning to twitch. “Is it too late?”
“No, I do not think so. There is still some time. But she might need help. Getting back, I mean.”
“Then I’ll go help her.” The words came out of Ollie’s mouth before he could stop them.
“You say that, of course. But I must tell you that it is not something easy to do,” Laszlo said. “Where she is…it is not a kind of place that you’ve ever been before.”
“I don’t care,” he told the acrobat. True, he hadn’t traveled much, but how hard could it be? Hop on a plane or a bus or whatever. Find a hotel. He would make it work. His knee began to bounce—up and down, up and down, up and down—countering his bravado. Ollie lowered his voice and asked, “What do I need? Do I need a gun or something?” He had no idea how to use a gun or where to buy one, but it somehow seemed like a logical question.
Laszlo chuckled. “No. No guns in this place. You need only your brains, to be clever and smart. But you have those things, no?”
Ollie’s lips curled with worry. “Not really,” he admitted. His scholarship was for community college, not Harvard.
Laszlo waved a hand. “Yes, you do. I can see it in you. You have smarts behind eyes.” He tapped his own lid for emphasis. “If you want to do this, I can tell you where she is, and I can tell you how to get there. But the rest you do alone.”
“That’s fine,” Ollie nodded, screwing up his courage. Fake it ’till you make it, his mother had always said.
“And time limit is for you, as well,” Laszlo said. “You must come back in time. Less than three weeks. You understand? If you have not found her by then, you must return anyway. Yes?”
Three weeks? Ollie was taken aback. “So long, you think?”
“Perhaps,” the acrobat said, holding up his palms. “Perhaps much less. Hard to say, exactly. How long it will take.”
“Oh.” Ollie’s mind began to spin. Now that he stopped to think about it, he’d tried the fake it ’till you make it routine lots of times and never seemed to advance beyond the first step. He chewed his bottom lip. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Maybe he should—
“All right, then.” Laszlo interrupted his thought, slapping a hand against his metallic thigh. “I am cold. Freezing in this suit. Meet me tonight, at Visitor Center on Common. You know where this is?”
Ollie nodded.
“Good. They close at nine, and we must be there just before. Say, eight-thirty. You can do that?”
“I—” Ollie was getting confused. “Yes, I can be there. But why?”
Laszlo shot him an impatient look. “You must leave tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes! Tonight! What do you think? I just tell you, the time is ticking,” he said, snapping his fingers three times. “Ticking! You want to help your friend, or not?”
“Of course I do. But tonight?” It was happening too fast. Ollie was having trouble breathing.
Laszlo got to his feet. “I understand,” he said, brushing off his Lycra. “Is not easy decision. Now you know how those women feel, yes? Big decision, and not much time to decide.” He flashed an apologetic smile. “You think about it. I will be there tonight. If you decide to come, I will see you there, and I will help you find your friend.”
“And if I don’t?”
“If you don’t, you don’t.”
“But what will happen to Nell?”
The man regarded him thoughtfully, like a scientist studying a particularly odd specimen. “Sometimes, we can only do what we can do. This is sad but truth.” He held out his hand again. “Whatever you decide, it was good to meet you, Ollie Delgato of the North End Delgatos.”
They shook.
Laszlo’s grip threatened to crush several bones in Ollie’s hand. In a haze, he watched the acrobat walk down the steps, gather up his gear and a duffle bag, and disappear down the cobblestone street. The meeting was over, and yet, somehow, he was even more confused than before it had begun.