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the patent application. “And I happen to think it’s a beautiful thing. It’s an innovation that can be retrofitted to the big old engines that made this country great. Can’t you guys get behind an idea like that? It’s magical.”
    “It’s nostalgic,” Carter said. “I can see where you’re coming from, Holden. I can see why you’re attracted to the idea, but I don’t know if it’s investable. I mean, the federal regulations on a thing like this alone would take years to navigate.”
    “Look,” Holden said. “Not everything’s about money. This is a beautiful idea. I predicted it would be out there if we scoured the patents. You guys proved me right. It’s elegant. It’s nostalgic. It’s masculine. I love it.”
    “So you want us to pursue?” Carter said. “The patent owner lives here in New York.”
    Holden shook his head. “Don’t you go anywhere near him. If the guy who invented this is anything like I’m picturing, you guys are going to scare the crap out of him.”
    “It’s probably a mechanic,” Jimmy said. “No big company is going to put money into something like this. They hate this kind of thing.”
    The lawyers nodded. “For good reason,” one of them said.
    Holden looked at Jimmy. “Just leave this to us, gentlemen. If a mechanic drew this design, Jimmy and I are the one’s who’ll win him over.”

X
    W HEN LUCY GOT HOME THAT night she went straight out to the fire escape. The streets below were dark and quiet and abandoned. New York was supposedly the city that never slept but that really only seemed to apply to the hippest neighborhoods. Most of New York, just like every other city in the world, was filled with people who worked hard to make their living and who often struggled to support their families. And if there was one thing Lucy knew about people like that, it was that at the end of the day, they slept. To her, New York was the city that slept as much as it could, and then got up at the crack of dawn the next day and worked hard all over again.
    She’d used her tips to buy groceries on the way home. After putting them away she’d come out to the fire escape to think. The air was cooler out here. It was peaceful, calming.
    She’d forgotten about the envelope she’d received for most of the day. She’d stuffed it in her locker at work and had been too busy to think about it. Now that the day was over she finally had a chance to look at it. She held it in her hands. Lucy, her name, was printed neatly on the front. The envelope was of richly textured paper. She felt apprehensive as she held it in her hands. She was almost afraid to find out what it contained. She’d heard of waitresses around Wall Street being given crazy requests like this in the past. She had no doubt what the man had in mind when he’d handed her the envelope and kissed her. What else could it be?
    She tore it open. Inside was a note with the man’s name, Jefferson Lund, and a phone number. It was written on company paper, Lund Associates, headquartered on Liberty Street. She wasn’t familiar with the company but she was certain if she looked it up she’d find that it was a fancy financial brokerage of one sort or another. She’d known as soon as she set eyes on the man that he was rich and powerful. She tried to think now of what else she’d noticed about him. He was in his mid-thirties, good-looking in the pristine, perfect kind of way that the super wealthy often were. His suit was tailored. His hair was like something out a men’s magazine. He was unusually handsome. But it was still with a sense of strong foreboding that she pulled out the other piece of paper in the envelope.
    She should have been surprised when she saw what was on it but she didn’t feel surprised at all. It was a check, a thousand dollars, a thousand badly needed dollars that could take a lot of pressure off of her mother for a few weeks.
    She held the check in her hand. She already knew what she was going to do.