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Street, I hear sirens, which is unwelcome. Twin cop cars doppler past in a hurry, lights whirling, whoop-whooping like a war party, heading south.
    I guess the butler finally found Mr Harrow.
    I pull out the glove the butler gave me.
    Examine his shaky sketch.
    &.
    Think again about what he told me.
    A fishhook. Twisted into the shape of an eight.
    I run a search for AMPERSAND+EIGHT+TATTOO. Still nothing.
    Then just AMPERSAND+EIGHT. Find a jazz combo in Queens.
    Then AMPERSAND+FISHHOOK.
    Actually, ISHHOOK.
    F key doesn’t work.
    Fucking kiosks.
    So I type in AMPERSAND+HOOK instead.
    Bingo.
    It’s a missed connection, of the type that litter the Internet. Cute-girl-I-saw-you-reading-on-the-subway kind of thing.
    This one says: You, burly type with a fondness for whiskey. Me: cat’s eye-glasses, matching you drink for drink. Not sure, but I swear we had a moment at night’s end out in the street waiting for a car service, in the light of the neon ampersand. If I was right, meet me tonight back at the Bait & Switch in Red Hook. You bring the bait. I’ll bring the switch.
    Run a search on the Bait & Switch, which turns out to be a titty bar down in Red Hook, with a knock-three-times, private-members S&M room in back. Switches, riding crops, cat-o’-nine-tails, bullwhips. Whatever your pleasure, they’ve got a cabinet, and it’s very well stocked.
    And also, possibly, an outreach program. Job placements for wayward teenage girls.
    Service jobs.
    Maybe my tattooed henchman is an extremely loyal employee. Who recruits reluctant women. Ungently.
    Long shot, I know, but I write the address down anyway, then log off.
    Ball up the butler’s stained white glove.
    Drop it down the sewer.
    Same place I’m headed, more or less.

5.
    It’s well past dark by the time I start walking down the waterfront. Not the safest walk at this hour, and the shortest route on foot would be straight down Columbia Street. But I still can’t bring myself to walk down Columbia Street.
    Personal reasons.
    So I take the scenic route, winding through Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens, past the blocks of boarded-up and blacked-out brownstones. Occasional bonfire burns in a bay window. Nearly all the trees on these picturesque streets long since chopped down for salvage or firewood.
    Stump-lined streets.
    If only my Stella could see this. What’s come of our old stomping grounds.
    My Stella.
    She was my wife.
    That’s not her real name either. Just a nickname that stuck. At least between us.
    I skip our old block. Give it a wide berth.
    Like I said, I like Brooklyn least of all.
    And then I finally reach the raised Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, cross under, and head into what’s left of Red Hook.
    All the wiring’s waterlogged, corroded and useless, so there’s not a streetlamp lit in any direction. Streets are dark and the warehouses derelict, windows all broken by bored kids withgood aim. In the road, oily water waits in puddles, camped out by the overstuffed sewers. There’s a dead-dog smell and, sure enough, a dead dog, chained to a fence to guard an empty lot, then left on its leash to starve and fester.
    Flies feasting.
    Red Hook’s version of a welcome mat.
    Red Hook sits low on the water, and from some parts you can see the Statue of Liberty, and supposedly the whole place used to feel like a frontier town, a refuge to escape to when the rest of Brooklyn got flooded with money. But then Red Hook got flooded with water. A few times. Waist-deep sewage and six-foot-high watermarks staining the walls. Storm of the century came three times in a decade, so this neighborhood was in trouble even before Times Square. After Times Square, forget it. Anyone with a car and a suitcase headed for higher ground.
    Some people still live here. The poor with no options, packed into public housing. Hardy stubborn squatter types who don’t mind living in an abandoned row house that’s made up mostly of mold. Business interests that rely on an element of privacy.