control. Once she did, she closed it and hurried forward to the stairs.
47.
168TH STREET AND BROADWAY NEW YORK CITY MARCH 25, 2011, 3:56 P.M.
Holy shit, there she is!” Genti shouted, pointing, as Prek made the right-hand turn from Broadway onto 168th Street running between the Columbia University Medical Center on the left and the Armory on the right. Genti’s glance had alighted on the woman carrying a shopping bag when the wind blew her umbrella, threatening to lift her into the air. He saw her face clearly, and it was the Grazdani girl, no doubt about it. She was walking quickly toward the subway entrance. “Stop!” Genti shouted as Prek slowed.
“Who’s with her?”
“No one, I didn’t see no one,” shouted Genti. “Let me out. Wait for me here.”
Genti, who was riding shotgun, leaped from the van the moment Prek was able to stop. He ran after Pia, who he guessed was maybe twenty yards ahead of him, making her way toward the subway entrance. As he ran, Genti checked that the gun was secure in his jacket pocket. He wasn’t certain what he’d do if he caught up with her- should he shoot her in the street? Grab her and bring her back to the van?
He just knew the one thing he couldn’t do was lose her.
Genti watched Pia disappear from his view as she descended quickly into the station while he weaved in and out of the cars, gypsy cabs, buses, and vans on the busy corner of Broadway and 168th Street. He reached the subway entrance and rushed down the stairs but couldn’t see her. Was she catching the A train or the 1? Probably the express train, the A, he thought. He was desperately looking ahead for her, half pushing people out of the way.
“Excuse me, excuse me.” He didn’t want to get too aggressive: New Yorkers were liable to get aggressive right back at you. Genti rarely rode the subway and didn’t have a Metro card that he could swipe to get through the turnstiles, and he certainly didn’t have time to stop and buy one from a machine. Hoping there were no cops looking out for fare dodgers, he followed a schoolkid and pushed through the turnstile behind him.
Genti had to choose, the A or the 1. Changing his mind, he opted for the 1, and as he neared the giant, aging elevator that took riders to the platform deep underground, he caught a glimpse of Pia at the head of a group of passengers who’d just got on. The doors began to close. He saw she was standing to the side, ready to be first off. He raced forward.
“Hold the elevator!” he shouted. “Hold it.”
Genti reached the doors as they were almost closed and frantically tried to stop them. For a moment his hand was trapped and he was forced to pull it out quickly. He looked around. Stairs. Genti wasn’t careful anymore; he pushed past an old woman and leaped down the refuse-strewn stairs three or four at a time. He didn’t know that the platform was the equivalent of eight stories below and pressed on, dodging the few passengers walking up or down, yelling at everyone to get the fuck out of the way. He was breathless but reached the bottom only to find that the elevator had already discharged its load of descending passengers, and new ones were already boarding.
Genti took in lungfuls of air, his hands on his knees. He was the first to admit not being in the best shape. Then he heard nearby the high-pitched squeal of a subway train’s brakes. Uptown or downtown? He guessed she was going downtown, as the majority of people were doing. He pushed forward and heard the mechanical sound of train doors opening. He entered a barrel-ceilinged passageway leading from the elevators to the station itself. Suddenly there was a crowd of people coming toward him, filling the tunnel from one side to the other. They’d just disembarked from the train, and he had to fight his way through them. When he reached the platform, he looked up and down its length, spotting Pia farther down the platform.
Genti saw her clear as day. She was right there, maybe thirty feet in front of him. She stepped into a car.
Then Genti made a mistake. While he waited for the “Please stand clear of the closing doors” announcement that always preceded the train’s departure, Genti marched down the platform intending to board the train through the same door she did. Then, as he drew level, the doors closed without warning. Genti banged on the door and looked back toward the conductor about twenty feet away. “Hey, man, the door!”
The conductor ignored him, and the train’s brakes released with a hiss of air. Genti looked into the car. Pia’s and Genti’s eyes locked for a brief second before the train began to pull away from the station. All Pia saw was another guy trying to push his way onto the train.
Genti turned to stare down the conductor, who drew his head into his cab with a slight smile on his face as the train picked up speed. Genti watched it disappear into the tunnel, keeping his eyes on its taillights until they disappeared into the gloom.
He’d failed.
Genti walked back to the elevator. In some ways he was embarrassed that he’d missed the girl, but he rationalized that it probably was for the best. Maybe he would have had trouble getting her out of the station without interference. Besides, he reasoned, if they were supposed to get the boy too, it would be easier to get them together and deal with them at the same time. If they’d taken the girl, the boyfriend might have gone to ground and been hard to find.
By the time Genti had ridden up in the elevator he was feeling much better about having missed Pia. And he had been reminded of what a beauty she was. He looked forward to snatching her off the street and taking her to Buda’s isolated summer house where no one could hear anything going on inside.
Genti stepped onto the street and looked for the white van but couldn’t spot it. He called Prek, who told him he was down beyond the Neurological Institute where he’d been able to snag a great parking place between the medical school and the dorm just beyond where 168th Street turns into Haven Avenue.
Genti walked west and soon saw the van. He got in and related how he’d just missed her in the elevator and then missed her a second time, as she was getting on the subway car. He said he was so close it was frustrating.
“It’s not the worst thing,” Prek said, echoing Genti’s earlier thoughts. “This is the perfect spot right here. Hopefully, if we’re lucky, when she shows up it will be with the boyfriend, and we’ll be waiting. I’m thinking we need to get them together.”
“How will we know which one he is?” Genti said. “I bet she has a lot of boyfriends.”
As if Aleksander Buda were reading their minds, Prek’s cell phone buzzed. It was an e-mail from Buda with an attachment. When Prek opened the JPEG he found himself staring at George’s medical school admission photo listing his height and weight.
“He’s six-one, one-ninety, with blond hair,” said Prek. “Taller than most. We shouldn’t have too much trouble picking him out.”
“Perhaps he’ll come by on his own,” Genti said.
“No, my sense is they’ll be together since they seem to be spending a lot of time together recently. I know I would if I was him. I imagine they’ll meet up when she comes back from wherever she’s going.”
48.
CORNER OF FIRST AVENUE AND THIRTIETH STREET NEW YORK CITY MARCH 25, 2011, 4:40 P.M.
As the last of the daylight threatened to fade away completely thanks to the low clouds and rain, Pia paused outside the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, gazing at the front of the half-century-old building. It wasn’t inviting in the least, with its weird facade of blue glazed tiles that reminded her of the Ishtar Gate of ancient Babylon. She’d seen pictures of the latter in an almost equally ancient
