City of Dreams (69 page)

“I can’t see them.”

So she took his hand and they simply ran.

They ran along a street that Gil Walker and Loretta Rogers would have known by its shape and light if not by the height of its buildings. They ran past the Morgan Bank where Tim Riley had thought his last thoughts and prayed his last prayer. They kept running toward Trinity Church that, like St. Paul’s, had survived the steel and concrete storm of 9/11.

And when they got to the corner of Broadway and Wall, they looked north and south, uptown and down, toward the old common and the older Bowling Green.

“I don’t see them,” said Peter.

“It’s like they disappeared,” said Evangeline.

And they stood there, at one of the oldest intersections in America.

Then Evangeline said, “Let’s go south. I bet they’re heading to the Bowling Green.”

“I think they’d go to St. Paul’s.”

“Bowling Green,” she insisted.

“All right,” said Peter. “You found the bonds. You’re on a roll.”

So they turned down Broadway and hurried along sidewalks that in the sad September of 2001 had been covered in five inches of concrete dust . . . past buildings with windows blown out in September of 1920 . . . along block after block that had been an impenetrable wall of fire on a terrifying September night in 1776. . . .

And life went on.

In New York, life always went on. . . .

As they passed the Chase Bank, they noticed a video screen, tuned to CNBC. Stocks were up, and a reporter was standing on the steps of the Supreme Court in Washington. “The ruling, in a suit brought by financier Austin Arsenault, says the 1780 bonds are valid. However, the court rejected all compound interest arguments. So, a hundred dollars at five percent, simple interest, over two hundred and thirty years is worth one thousand two hundred and fifty dollars, instead of seven-point-four million.”

Peter Fallon laughed out loud.

“A split decision,” said Evangeline.

“Everybody wins and nobody wins.”

The reporter was saying, “The full text will be found on our Web site . . .”

But Peter and Evangeline were already hurrying south.

They ran past the Wall Street bull and onto the Bowling Green. But there was no sign of Jennifer or Joey, not on the benches, not by the fountain.

Peter and Evangeline were not surprised. They stood for a few moments, watching the fountain send a sparkling jet of water into the air. Then they walked a bit farther south, into the bright sunshine at the entrance to Battery Park.

The Sphere
greeted them. It endured. And the harbor flashed blue and silver beyond.

Evangeline said, “They’re gone.”

And Peter said, “No, they’re not. They’re”—he waved his hand around—“here. They’ll always be here. They’ve always been here. They were here from—”

“From the very beginning.”

“It feels that way.”

And Peter and Evangeline looked up into the blue spring sky, as if they might see Joey and Jennifer somewhere up there, rising into the air and mixing their elemental selves with the essence of the city they loved.

Then Evangeline slipped an arm into Peter’s. “So, Mr. No-Pete, did we save America from itself?”

“Not even No-Pete and the E Ticket can do that alone.”

“Then what about living in New York?”

“Let’s talk about that tomorrow.”

“Okay. Then what time is it?”

He looked at his watch. “Quarter to one.”

“As Henry says, we have a lot of explaining to do, but I’d like to get cleaned up. We could be in my apartment by one thirty.”

“One thirty?”

“As in one thirty . . . er.”

Peter looked into her eyes. She kissed his cheek.

And they turned away from the waterfront where it had all begun, where the Indians had bartered their island for beads, where the Dutch had built their settlement at the edge of a wilderness, where the British had built their wharves, where Americans had built their businesses, where so many immigrants had come to build their dreams.

And Peter Fallon shouted, “Taxi!”