177a Bleecker Street Novels & Stories

I was pretty sure ‘acquire stalker’ wasn’t on my vision board this year. I was about to dial the number when another message appeared almost instantly. “Brooksfield Crown Hotel. 48 Willowcrest Drive, West End District, Brooksfield. 20th floor. Room 907. Go there and see for yourself.” — Unknown Curiosity gnawed at me, piercing like the throbbing in my feet. I told my driver the address without hesitation. An hour later, we arrived. “Give me the keys. Take a cab home,” I said the moment we stopped.

I said, trying to convince her. “Okay… Whatever,” she said, pulled her arm from my hand, and started walking towards the entrance of the building. I sighed and went after her. We were in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, and it seemed to be a busy night, cars passing on the street, kids playing in the nearby square, people coming and going, people walking their dogs, some beggars and drug addicts lying on the corners of the street and right at the entrance to the building, a bunch of bad-looking young people listening to R&B blasting on a JBL-style speaker while smoking something inappropriate, they stared at Ava and me with intimidating expressions, clearly realizing we weren't from there. I wrapped an a

If the apartment has a roof and fits my budget then it could be perfect for me, and the first piece of good luck since I got here. The ladies hadn't been exaggerating about the shop being in a rough area. The street has more windows boarded up or patched with tape than it has undamaged windows. It's a pretty big contrast to the other parts of Hackney I walk through to get there. There are several parks and a bunch of very rich looking houses. A pretty screen in front of a cesspool. the shop is a convenience store that also sells liquor and tobacco. There's a metal shutter that's stuck half-way closed over the window. It's badly dented, as if someone drove a car into it. The sidewalk outside

“Just tell me about that apartment you found for Tony recently. Tell me where it is. I just want to go take a look at his apartment, eh?” Elliot hesitated for a long while. “I just want to look at his apartment. What’s wrong about that?! Are you trying to ask for trouble here? Okay. I’ll just call your grandmother and ask her,” Sebastian hissed. “Hey, hey, hey. Don’t do that, Old Master Hart… It’s the Ocean Blue Residence on Heathrow Street. It’s Unit 709 on the 7th floor in Block A. Don’t tell anyone that I told you about it, Old Master Hart!” Elliot looked extremely helpless and glum right then. He quickly ended the call once he finished his words.

I said his name out loud, because I needed to hear it in the air to know it was real. "Atlas Marchetti." I turned the key. I drove forty blocks south. Fifth Avenue blurred past me. A taxi cut across me at 50th. A bus stopped at 47th. A man on the corner of 38th sold roses from a bucket, three for ten dollars, and he was the only person on the street who looked like he was in his right life that night. The building was on Greenwich Street, three blocks east of the river. Pre-war cast iron. Six floors. Dark windows except for one on the top floor.

and resist. It was a domestic battle that, punctual as clockwork, took place every Friday afternoon; a battle that Arlyne Weiss fought bravely and that Billie Weiss always won. The Mob Girl 26 At dusk, mother and daughters would walk through the great wrought gates of Knickerbocker Village, a twelve-story apartment block that stood near the East River, just north of the Brooklyn Bridge. Knickerbocker was a model building erected ten years earlier in what had been New York's most terrible slum, known as the "Lung Block" because many of its three thousand tenants, who lived in crowded quarters, suffered from tuberculosis. The demolition of those pigsties had been part of an ongoing effort to

I sighed deeply. My phone buzzed again, pulling me out of my spiral. I scrolled through what the QR code had revealed, my chest tightening when I saw it. An address. 442 West 34th Street, Chelsea, New York, 10001. My breath caught. Was I supposed to go there? Is that what all of this was about? “No,” I whispered, shaking my head. “Hell no.” I dropped the phone on the nightstand as if it had burned me, pushing myself toward the window instead.

But I was going to find out. I pulled out my phone. Opened the search bar. Typed the three letters that had haunted my dreams for seven days. **A.B.** The address for Black Enterprises came up immediately. Gleaming tower in midtown Manhattan. Forty-seven floors of power and money and people who would never look twice at someone like me. I stared at it for a long moment. Then I started walking.

Jade bent her neck, staring up at the hotel. It was nothing short of modern, located on what was known as Billionaire's Row on 57th Street. Every level of the large tower was made of reflective glass that cast off prismatic gleams from the surrounding city lights. She could barely make out the brightly-lit night sky between the narrow spaces of the surrounding buildings.

“What’s the location?” Alex asked, his voice calm but sharp enough to cut through the air. James turned to him, confused. “What?” “I said what’s the goddamn location of the bastard’s address?” Alex barked, eyes burning with fury. James blinked rapidly, startled by the sudden rise in his tone. “Wait... Alex, calm down. You’re not thinking straight.” “Read it!” Alex thundered, slamming his palm on the dashboard. James sighed heavily, pulled out his phone and scrolled through the email. “It says 27 Shady Creek, Bronx,” he muttered.