wall with her hand, the crucifix gouging out a small chunk of plaster. Something was behind her, coming up the stairs at her. She yelled in Creole as she emerged into the sunlit first floor, running the length of the long kitchen, grabbing her handbag, knocking over the Food Emporium bag, snacks and drinks crashing to the floor, too scared to turn back.
The sight of her mother running screaming from the house in her ankle-length floral dress and black shoes brought Sebastiane out of her car. “No!” yelled her mother, motioning her back inside. She ran as if she was being chased, but in fact there was no one behind her. Sebastiane dropped back into her seat, alarmed.
“Mama, what happened?”
“Drive!” Neeva yelled, her large chest heaving, her eyes still wild, focused on the open side door.
“Mama,” said Sebastiane, putting the car into reverse. “This is kidnapping. They have
Neeva opened her palm, finding it bloody. She had gripped the beaded crucifix so tightly the crosspiece had cut into her flesh. She let it fall to the floor of the car.
17th Precinct Headquarters, East Fifty-first Street, Manhattan
THE OLD PROFESSOR sat at the very end of the bench inside lockup, as far away as possible from a shirtless, snoring man who had just relieved himself without wishing to trouble anyone else for directions to the toilet in the corner of the room, or even removing his pants.
“Setraykeen… Setarkian… Setrainiak…”
“Here,” he answered, rising and walking toward the remedial reader in the police officer’s uniform by the open tank door. The officer let him out and closed the door behind him.
“Am I being released?” asked Setrakian.
“I guess so. Your son’s here to pick you up.”
“My—”
Setrakian held his tongue. He followed the officer to an unmarked interrogation room. The cop pulled open the door and motioned for him to walk inside.
It took Setrakian a few moments, just long enough for the door to close behind him, to recognize the person on the other side of the bare table as Dr. Ephraim Goodweather of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Next to him was the female doctor who had been with him before. Setrakian smiled appreciatively at their ruse, though he was not surprised by their presence.
Setrakian said, “So it has begun.”
Dark circles—like bruises of fatigue and sleeplessness—hung under Dr. Goodweather’s eyes as he looked the old man up and down. “You want out of here, we can get you out. First I need an explanation. I need information.”
“I can answer many of your questions. But we have lost so much time already. We must begin now—this moment—if we have any chance at all of containing this insidious thing.”
“That’s what I’m talking about,” said Dr. Goodweather, thrusting out one hand rather harshly. “
“The passengers from the plane,” said Setrakian. “The dead have risen.”
Eph did not know how to answer that. He couldn’t say. He wouldn’t say.
“There is much you will need to let go of, Dr. Goodweather,” said Setrakian. “I understand that you believe you are taking a risk in trusting the word of an old stranger. But, in a sense, I am taking a thousandfold greater risk entrusting this responsibility to you. What we are discussing here is nothing less than the fate of the human race— though I don’t expect you to quite believe that yet, or understand it. You think that you are drafting me into your cause. The truth of the matter is, I am drafting you into mine.”
THE OLD PROFESSOR
Knickerbocker Loans and Curios, East 118th Street, Spanish Harlem
Eph put up his EMERGENCY BLOOD DELIVERY windshield placard and parked in a marked loading zone on East 119th Street, following Setrakian and Nora one block south to his corner pawnshop. The doors were gated, the windows shuttered with locked metal plates. Despite the tilted CLOSED sign jammed in the door glass over the store hours, a man in a tattered black peacoat and a high knit hat—like the kind Rastafarians liked to wear, except that he lacked the ropy dreadlocks to fill it out, so it sagged off his head like a collapsed souffle—stood at the door with a shoe box in his hand, shifting his weight from foot to foot.
Setrakian came out with keys dangling from a chain, busying himself with the locks up and down the door grates, making his gnarled fingers work. “No pawns today,” he said, allowing himself a sidelong glance at the box in the man’s hand.
“Look here.” The man produced a bundle of linen from the shoe box, a dinner napkin he unwrapped to reveal nine or ten utensils. “Good silverware. You buy silver, I know that.”
“I do, yes.” Setrakian, having unlocked the grate, rested the handle of his tall walking stick against his shoulder and selected a knife, weighing it, rubbing the blade with his fingers. After patting his vest pockets, he turned to Eph. “Do you have ten dollars, Doctor?”
In the interest of hurrying this along, Eph reached for his money clip and peeled off a ten-dollar bill. He handed it to the man with the shoe box.
Setrakian then handed the man back his utensils. “You take,” he said. “Not real silver.”
The man accepted the handout gratefully and backed away with the shoe box under his arm. “God bless.”
Setrakian said, entering his shop, “We’ll soon see about that.”
Eph watched his money hustle off down the street, then followed Setrakian inside.
“The lights are right on the wall there,” said the old man, pulling the gate ends to meet again, locking up.
Nora threw all three switches at once, illuminating glass cabinets, display walls, and the entrance where they stood. It was a small corner shop, wedge-shaped, banged into the city block with a wooden hammer. The first word that came to Eph’s mind was “junk.” Lots and lots of junk. Old stereo systems. VCRs and other outdated electronics. A wall display of musical instruments, including a banjo and a Keytar guitarlike keyboard from the 1980s. Religious statues and collectible plates. A couple of turntables and small mixing boards. A locked glass countertop featuring cheap brooches and high-flash, low-quality bling. Racks of clothes, mostly winter coats with fur collars.
So much junk that his heart fell a little. Had he entrusted this precious time to a crazy person?
“Look,” he told the old man, “we have a colleague, we believe he is infected.”
Setrakian passed him, tapping his oversize walking stick. He lifted the hinged counter with his gloved hand and invited Eph and Nora through. “We go up here.”
A back staircase led to a door on the second floor. The old man touched the mezuzah before entering, leaning his tall stick against the wall. It was an aged apartment of low ceilings and worn-out rugs. The furniture hadn’t been moved in perhaps thirty years.
“You are hungry?” Setrakian asked. “Look around, you’ll find something.” Setrakian lifted the top of a fancy pastry container, revealing an open box of Devil Dogs. He lifted one out, tearing open its cellophane wrapper. “Don’t let your energy run down. Keep up your strength. You’ll need it.”
