Olen Steinhauer - The Nearest Exit

That had been six days ago. Now, as he switched trains in Brooklyn, examining the signs above his head to make sure he didn’t lose his way, he repeated that verse. It was busy here, and he was just another speck in the mass of many nations that poured through the New York transportation system every day.

Until Prospect Park, everything had been predicted, for he had sat down with Rick and gone over each moment in his journey westward. He’d made his illegible notes on the map Rick supplied, and circled the corner of Garfield and Seventh Avenue. First, though, he had to go to the park.

He’d taken an early flight, and with the change in time zones it was still only a little before three in the afternoon. The day was bright but chilly, and as he settled on a bench he saw couples and people with dogs, some on leads and others running loose. Dogs of a confusing variety of breeds. There were also businessmen on cell phones. It was, he realized, much like Germany, and he wondered why so many Moldovans he knew were desperate to come here. He thought of Vasile, another taxi driver, who would be sick with jealousy if he knew where Andrei was. But no one knew. Rick had been insistent about this. “Not even Rada.”

Poor Rada, who woke up that morning and couldn’t help but dress in black again, despite the end of the official mourning. This man, Milo Weaver, hadn’t just killed Adriana. He’d killed Rada. He’d killed Andrei, too.

So when he left that morning with his small bag he’d explained that he was taking over Vasile’s morning shift. As if she knew, she’d asked him to call someone else to take it over. She wanted him at home, with her-she had already called in sick again. She wasn’t sure she could bear the empty apartment alone today. He’d had to be firm-“Calling in sick like this, you’re going to lose your job. Someone has to earn money”-but he’d given her the kindest kiss he could manage.

“Andrei?” said a voice with an accent that skipped over the rolled r in his name.

He looked up to find another Chinese man. A skinny man, taller than he’d expected, wearing a trench coat. He carried a paper shopping bag with

BARNEYS

NEW YORK

written on it.

“Ja?” he said, then remembered where he was. “Yes. I am Andrei. You are Li?”

“About time,” the man said, then launched into a stream of English Andrei couldn’t understand at all and set the bag at his feet. He ended with “Okay?”

Andrei nodded. “Yes. Thank you.”

For a second the man stared at him, his face full of doubt, then turned and walked away.

Andrei waited, breathing through his mouth because his nose had become stopped up, and watched the dogs racing across the park, stumbling and jumping over one another and chewing on each other and pinning each other down. Tongues lashed against their faces as they ran, and their eyes were huge with pleasure.

She recalled Venice. After all, it was the three of them again-the three of them and a strange man. Angela Yates was the only missing actor, and she was dead. She’d been dead for eight months.

That was later. At the moment it occurred, she recalled nothing. It was a moment unto itself, with no past or future, and her instincts took over: She reached for Stephanie and pulled her close.

They had just left the apartment. It was nearly seven-they were running late for their reservation at Long Tan, and Little Miss was talking. “If you park in a driveway and drive on a parkway, then…” She didn’t finish her sentence. Not because of what happened, but because she couldn’t find the words to express how much the English language had let her down. A minute later, Tina would share her inarticulateness.

He didn’t stand out. In a city like New York few people stand out, but the small man in the soiled, waist-length jacket sitting on their stoop with a leather bag and a shopping bag from Barneys looked like any number of visitors in this city of visitors. Beyond him, a black couple pushed a baby carriage along the sidewalk, and across Garfield the Vietnamese florists were checking on the breathtaking variety of flowers arranged on the sidewalk outside their convenience store every day. The man, hearing them come out, turned to look. He had a round, flabby face and deep-set eyes, and besides the stubble that went nearly up to his eyelids he had plenty of hair. The hair on top of his head looked oily.

Tina turned to lock the door while Milo told Stephanie, “Language doesn’t always make sense. Take Russian, for example-”

He stopped because he, too, had noticed the man now staring at them. With a hand that moved as if it were a separate creature entirely, Milo grabbed Stephanie by the arm and pushed her behind him, placing his own body between this man and his girls.

“It is you,” the man said in heavily accented English.

With a voice harder than any she’d heard in her life, Milo said, “Go back inside, Tina.”

Tina had already locked up and pocketed the key. “What?”

“Inside. Take Stef.”

“Milo Weaver,” said the man on the steps.

“Inside, Tina.”

Her hands were shaking, but she got the door open and pulled Stephanie, who knew better than to ask questions right now, inside. They shut the door and watched through the window as Milo took a step down and began to speak softly to the man.

The window was thin, and they could catch phrases:… should go home… can’t solve anything… not at my house… Then they switched to German. The word “Stanescu” came to them, and Tina realized with an unsettling shift in her stomach that Stanescu was the name of the Europe an girl who’d been killed.

Then she recalled this man’s face (it looked so different in reality) from some video on CNN, with the weeping mother. The poor man, Tina thought, looking down at him over Milo’s shoulder. Then the poor man reached into the Barneys bag and removed a small pistol. All the air left her and she reached for Stephanie, who was glued to the glass, saying, “He’s got a gun! He’s got a gun!” Tina pulled her tight to her stomach and tugged her backward. “Stop, Mom!”

Tina wouldn’t stop. She understood enough about bullet trajectories to know that if that man tried to shoot Milo and missed, the bullet would come at them. She wouldn’t have her daughter in the way of that. Nor would she have Stephanie watch her father get shot. Tina had watched that before, in Venice, and knew how horrible it was.

She was hardly thinking as she lifted Stephanie, kicking, onto her shoulder, and with strength she didn’t know she had carried her up two flights and used her free hand to unlock the door and get inside. Stephanie ran for the window to look down, and Tina took out her phone and dialed 911. “There’s a man with a gun,” she told the bland emergency operator as a single gunshot rang out. She dropped the phone and ran to the window, where Stephanie was screaming for her father. Tina looked down-the little man was rushing around the corner onto Seventh, and Milo was sitting on the front steps.

She rushed to the door and spun around, pointing at Stephanie, who had begun to cry. Frail girl, shaking hands. “Stay here!” Tina shouted, then fled downstairs, thinking, I’m a terrible mother. She couldn’t help it. She was what she was.

By the time she reached the front steps three people were standing over Milo, two with cell phones to their ears, one holding Milo’s arm and speaking calmly to him. Milo was hunched forward, a bright red hand clutching at his stomach. Blood was all over the three concrete steps, and he was making guttural sounds. She pushed the stranger aside and got close to Milo’s face. His lips were too red, and so were his teeth, and when he coughed, bloody spittle shot out onto her blouse. “Honey,” she said. “Hey, baby. Look at me.”