Redress

by Karl Miller

“I think that went well,” Mark Gonzalez announces after the last of the potential clients exit the front door of the restaurant. He swirls the ice in his glass and tilts it back to get a last diluted bit of Jameson.

“Me, too,” Kevin Pierce agrees as he surveys the remains of a three-hour dinner at a four-star midtown Manhattan steakhouse, “but corporate won’t be thrilled with the bill.”

“They will when we close on the account.” Pierce and Gonzalez exchange a sloppy fist-bump. Gonzalez settles the check with the waiter and grabs his jacket.

The two are wobbly when they head outside. The frigid February air bites at them and drives the alcohol back, but not completely.

The Uber, a gray Nissan Sentra, arrives a moment later.

“You coming?” Gonzalez asks when Pierce doesn’t move from the sidewalk.

“Nah, I think I’ll walk. Clear my head a little.”

“You sure? It’s pretty cold.”

“Yeah, I’m good. Meet you in the lobby at eight tomorrow?”

“OK, that works,” Gonzalez says as he gets in the car and departs.

Pierce enters the hotel address into his phone and starts walking, breathing the cold air deeply as he passes rows of high-end stores closed for the night but still lit up, frustrated beacons of ostentation. He’s gone several blocks when he looks down at the map and sees a chance for a shortcut.

When he turns, the side street is empty and dimly lit. About thirty yards away, a small alley starts in shadows before ending in full darkness. When Pierce walks past it, he stops short.

A few feet away, a girl in her early teens sits on the ground, her back against a dilapidated two-story brick building with boarded-up windows.

Pierce looks around to make sure someone is with her, but there’s no one in sight. He shakes his head and resumes walking. Ten steps later, he sighs and turns back.

“Hey, are you OK?” he calls to the girl.

She slowly looks up at him but doesn’t say anything.

He cautiously walks to her.

The child has straight black hair framing an extraordinarily pale face, almost gaunt, with dark circles around dull green eyes. She’s wearing a ripped thin blue dress. He stares at her feet when he notices she’s not wearing any shoes.

“Is someone with you?” Pierce asks, pulling his gaze off her feet.

“I’m trying to find my mother,” she says softly with a strong Irish accent.

“Do you live near here?”

“Yes, I think so. But it seems different.”

Pierce decides to leave that comment alone and tries another angle. “Can you call your mom? I mean, you’ve got a phone, right?”

She shrugs.

“Should I get the police?”

The girl tenses. “Oh, no, don’t do that!”

“OK, OK, no police.” A pause. “Look, can I call anyone at all for you?”

“No, no one. Mother should be here any time.”

Pierce tries to hide a frown. “Can I give you some cash so you can get something to eat? Or at least get inside?”

At that, she seems horrified. “No, they’ll take it again.”

“Who will?”

She stares into space and doesn’t answer.

Pierce sighs one more time and looks at her for a moment. Finally, he pulls off his black woolen overcoat. “At least take this,” he says, laying it over her. “You’re going to freeze out here.”

“You’re a good man,” she says, looking up with the barest trace of a smile.

“Don’t stay out here too long, all right?” Pierce says and gives her a small answering smile as he turns away to walk the rest of the distance to the hotel. He pulls his blazer closer around him.

Three blocks later, he arrives at the Marriott. The lobby is busy, startlingly loud and bright. He enters the elevator and takes it up to the 37th floor.

When he walks into his room, he switches on the lights. He sees his woolen coat hanging neatly in the closet. His ears begin to ring and for a moment he questions how much he drank. He peers around the room cautiously.

His phone tones.

He extracts it from his pocket and sees a message waiting from an anonymous caller. Pierce sits down on the bed and plays it.

The call starts with static that goes on for a few seconds, decrescendoing to quiet, then a young girl’s voice.

“We lived in a basement then, with a lot of others. A man saw me on the street one day and gave me a penny. When the boys in the basement saw I had it, they stabbed me and took it. I lay there on the dirt floor for hours, waiting for Mother to come back, but she never did.”

When the words stop, the static resumes. The phone drops from Pierce’s hand, and he stares at it on the carpet. When he picks it up and tries to replay the call, the phone shows no record of any activity.

Shakily, he walks to the closet. When he takes the coat off the hanger, something falls from the pocket. Pierce reaches down and picks up a penny with a braided Liberty figure surrounded by stars over the year 1849, the coin looking as pristine as if it had just been made.

A strange, bittersweet warmth enveloping him, Pierce lays the coat on the bed and walks to the window. He touches the cold pane and stares out at the city for a long moment, imagining all the forgotten lives that have passed through it over the years as the present relentlessly tore down and built over the past.

Pierce takes some Grey Goose from the mini-bar, pours it into a glass, and gulps it down. With the coin resting on the nightstand, he turns off the light and mumbles ragged prayers for the girl and all the other unremembered before he fades into sleep.

The questions that would normally appear in the Challenge are in the Welcome message in this issue.