Chapter 59

AFTER I FINALLY MANAGE some sleep, at 5 a.m. I text Sabryna.

Please keep an eye on Willie. I’ve got something really important I must do.

Of course Sabryna’s already awake, down in the shop. She texts back.

No problem. Go solve your problems, lady.

At 7 a.m., I’m getting off the Q train. The air is warm, misty, yet strangely refreshing. I’m only a few blocks from the Atlantic Ocean.

Even at this early hour a few hundred people are sitting or running on the boardwalk at Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. This area of Coney Island is called Little Odessa because Odessa is where many of the first immigrants hailed from—at least that’s what I was once told. Now the immigrants come from all parts of Russia. It is crowded and busy and very foreign, very, well, Russian.

I walk along the boardwalk. On my left is the beach, where later in the day the older heavy women will be wearing one-piece black bathing suits with little black skirts attached. Some of these old girls will even wear old-fashioned rubber bathing caps. The shapely younger women will be wearing barely-there bikinis. To my right are the shops and restaurants, most of them now shuttered.

No, I am not here to look for Nina, and I’m certainly not looking for anyone who might be her hidden accomplices. I am also not looking for men in cheap suits, men who might be members of the Russian mafia.

I am looking for a fish store, called Seafood King. When I find that fish store, I should also find Irina and Nik, the owners. Irina is a mother whose baby I helped deliver about two years ago. It was a tough birth, almost fifteen hours of labor. When it was time for Troy to relieve me, Irina and Nik pleaded with me to stay. Irina said I was her good luck charm. I agreed to stay. The result? A midwife almost as exhausted as the mother. And a terrific baby boy, Pavel, nine pounds, two ounces. Ouch.

According to Google Maps, Seafood King is near the water and not far from the New York Aquarium. I see the aquarium ahead. Seafood King should be just off the boardwalk on the right.

Yes!

Irina is at the wooden display cases in front of the store. She shovels heaping loads of chopped ice on top of the flounder and bluefish and shrimp. I call to her, and she freezes in place. It’s how I imagine the saints reacted when the Blessed Virgin appeared to them. Her eyes are wide open. Her hands cover her mouth.

I rush toward her. “Yes, it’s me. It’s Lucy!” I shout.