The man and I walked away from Times Square until we reached Fifth Street, still hustling and bustling, even at this late hour.
The mystery man looked to be about in his mid-fifties, with graying hair and bushy brown eyebrows. He had the first sign of a wrinkle under his left eye.
He began to speak.
“You need to find me here.” He handed me yet another slip of paper. What was it with 1932 and slips of paper?
“I’ll be at this address for another two weeks. After that I’m moving to an area where it won’t be safe for you. You need to find me before I move away, is that clear?”
“Why can’t we just talk here?”
“There is a very complicated reason, and as you may have already guessed, the Society is involved. Actually, I’m under direct orders not to tell you.”
“Orders? Orders from who, that Society bitch?”
“No.”
“Who then?”
He stared right at me, a deep, piercing stare that stopped me in my tracks.
“You.”
After a pause, he killed the stare. We resumed the walk, and after a short awkward silence, he said “I’ve said too much. You weren’t supposed to hear that.”
“Why hasn’t The Messenger shown up at all? He seemed to be very active back in my time.”
”Several reasons. One, this is an alternate universe, so he can’t be here for extended periods of time. Bad for their cellular structure, I hear.”
“Their?”
“Yes, there are more than one. What, did you honestly think he was unique? They are a race of aliens.”
I took a minute and processed that.
“The second is that he doesn’t dare show his face around here. Especially not New York City. He’d scare enough normal people that even if he didn’t directly alert the spies, the rest of the citizens would. We can’t give away your whereabouts, at any cost.”
My face turned red.
“You were followed, weren’t you?”
I nodded.
He looked at his wristwatch. “Shit! I can’t to tell you about the sickness. It’s almost time…”
“For what?”
“For me to take a bullet for you.” And with that, he stepped in front of me and spread his arms wide, like Jesus, nailed to the cross. A shot rang out. Somewhere in the throng, I could’ve sworn I heard someone mutter, “Shit!”
He fell over backwards, and when he hit the ground, people started screaming and fleeing. There was a red splotch on his chest, just under the heart. He was bleeding profusely.
“Run…” He gasped, and with that, died.
I hadn’t even known his name. But I took his advice, and ran. Several times more I heard gunshots, but I was not hit by a single bullet. Zap and I slept in a homeless shelter that night.
The next morning, we went to the housing district in Queens.