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Disappeared Oct 23. Have You Seen Her? A portrait below featured Annabelle’s Shirley Temple curls and adorable wink.
Tears welled up in Cecil’s eyes. He noticed the two mid- dle-aged cashiers staring, and he wiped his cheeks.
“That’s Cecil LeClaire,” one of them whispered. “Holy shit.”
“What’s he gonna do?” the other whispered. “Hand out fliers on the street? They’ll maul him.”
“We should call TMZ. They’d love this.”
Cecil scooped up his fliers and approached a homeless man bundled up in sleeping bags and cardboard, hands trembling, smelling of urine and vomit. He put a one-hundred-dollar bill in the man’s paper cup.
“Are you okay, sir?” Cecil asked. “Can I get you a sandwich? A glass of water?”
The man held the cup shakily. “No.”
“Um, sir. My...My best friend disappeared. And the police- woman told me that people hand out missing posters to bring their loved ones back. And...And I really love her. So...” He held up a poster and pointed to her photo. “This is her. Her name’s Annabelle. Can you please keep a lookout?”
The man grasped the poster, eyes blinking rapidly, face turn- ing green. A flash of recognition, but then he vomited an alcoholic stew all over the poster, and it sank to the ground.
Cecil hugged his posters closer to his chest.
“Leave one with us,” the cashier called to him. “We’ll post it in the window.”
“Thank you.” He solemnly placed a stack of posters in front of her.
The cashier whispered, “Poor kid. He doesn’t have a clue.”
Cecil stepped back into his chauffeured Escalade, which drove him straight toward the black heart of Manhattan, the crowded hell where real New Yorkers rarely dared to venture.
Times Square.
The Escalade parked outside the Visage flagship store. The brand’s famous watch cogs and silver wires ran like veins over the windows. White beetles decorated windowpanes. The entire building façade was caked in real metallic blue butterfly wings.