quiet of a moment of elastic time. Melnikov slowly dropped to his knees, a forest trunk falling, holding his side, Alexei still bent over, but starting to move, awkward steps, staggering to some invisible finish line. Then Melnikov fired, a miss this time, but the sound speeding everything up again. Alexei tried to run faster, but his feet splayed, tripping over themselves, until they finally stopped and he crumpled onto the road, the gun clattering away from him.
“Don’t move,” Leon said to Kay, then got up and ran to Alexei, blind to everything around him, Kay’s voice behind, men rushing toward him, the fishermen at the rail lifting their heads to watch.
“Jianu!” Melnikov called again, weaker this time.
On the stairs there was a clomping of feet, Gulun barking out some order.
Leon dropped next to Alexei. He was gulping for air, blood pouring across his upper chest.
“The gun,” he said, raspy, moving his eyes to the side. “Get the gun.”
Leon picked it up.
“Jianu!”
Leon looked behind. Melnikov getting up, holding his stomach.
“So,” Alexei said, still breathing in gasps.
“Hold on. We’ll get an ambulance for you,” Leon said. But who wanted him?
Alexei shook his head, then blinked at the gun.
“You do it. Not them.”
Leon froze, the gun suddenly cold in his hand.
Alexei nodded. “It’s time.”
Leon stared at him.
“My friend.” His eyes locked on Leon now. “Not them.”
Leon heard the scrape of a shoe on the road, Melnikov moving.
“What are you doing?” Kay said to Melnikov, somewhere in the distance.
“Do it,” Alexei said, another blink, some awful permission. He moved his hand, limp, covered with blood, to touch Leon’s arm, his eyes sure, so wide that Leon thought he could see to the back of them, who he was. “Please,” he said, his voice fainter.
Leon knelt, paralyzed. One second. Alexei looking at him as if there was no one else on the bridge. Please. Leon fired. Alexei’s body jerked, an electric jolt, his eyes even wider, then everything settled, quiet.
“Are you crazy?” Melnikov was yelling, close now, the bridge noisy again with men running.
Leon turned, as if he were protecting Alexei, already dead, with his own body. But Melnikov wasn’t aiming at Alexei, his other hand still clutching his side, bleeding, eyes rabid with fury.
When the gun went off, Leon was too surprised to duck. Here? Like this? Why now? What was the point? Shooting him no more to Melnikov than stamping his foot. Then the fire exploded in his chest, literally the heat of flames, and some force, like a hand in his face, pushed him back, falling over.
“No!” Kay yelled, hitting Melnikov, but he was pointing the gun again, feet planted apart, rooted. She reached for it, trying to force it up from the ground. Melnikov knocked her away.
“Leon,” Kay said, her face over him, her voice high-pitched, almost a keening. Kay only a shield. Dorothy. But what could she have known? Passed on? Why do it? Money? Maybe like Georg, lost in an idea she couldn’t let go. Now there’d be questions. Months of them, squeezing. A trial, if that was useful. Housecleaning. Protecting flanks. And then a new Melnikov would plant a new Dorothy and it would start again. Dorothy traded away. All Alexei was worth at the end. Leon heard more voices in the road, loud, then fainter, receding, the dusk suddenly getting darker.
And in some part of him, aware of what was happening, he was curious. Would it really be a white light, appearing from the end of a tunnel and enveloping him until he was part of it? What Alexei must just have seen. But it wasn’t light, it was faces. Hazy, like underexposed film, but moving closer, until they were right next to him. Phil in his cockpit, waving. Georg walking his dog in Yildiz. Mihai at a boat rail, the faint suggestion of a smile. And then Anna. In Lily’s garden that first spring, worried because they were happy. Before anything happened. Her face so close now he felt he could touch it. All the faces of his life. Then they went away.
“Finally,” a voice said. “I’ll get the nurse.”
Light. Not that light, the enveloping one, just daylight. White walls.
“Leon?”
A face. Mihai. Leon tried to speak, his tongue stuck. “Some water.”
“Yes, yes.”
A plastic straw, a stream of cool liquid soaking into his dry throat.
“They said you’d be dehydrated, even with the drip.”
Mihai’s face now in focus, concerned.
“Where is this?”
“Obstbaum’s. I had you moved. The hospital, there’s a risk of infection. Even Kleinman said. After an operation.”
“An operation.”
“He had to take a piece of your lung. Where the bullet hit. Take a breath. See? A little less. No more smoking, so maybe a good thing. Not so good for your business, though. Considering.”
Leon tried to smile, then wet his cracked lips with the straw.
“You’re lucky, you know that? A matter of inches, he said, and then- And now look. The man of the hour. Watch, they’ll give you a medal. Something. What for? Being lucky.” He shrugged. “But that’s what they’re always for, isn’t it?”
Leon tried to follow this, still catching up. “How are you here? You were-”
“How? The train. From Aleppo. Like always.”
“That’s days.”
“Two. You’ve been out. Maybe Rabbi Pilcer prayed for you. He has a direct line,” he said, pointing a finger up. “So he thinks. Somebody must have. You almost died.”
“Yes.”
“Yes? You knew?”
“It doesn’t feel like anything,” Leon said to the ceiling, then looked back. “I saw you.”
Mihai stopped, thrown by this, then took the water away. “Wonderful. With wings? This is what happens? A little disappointing.”
Leon reached over the sheet to cover Mihai’s hand, resting it there. Mihai looked up, surprised, not sure how to respond.
“The ship?”
Mihai nodded. “All safe. Four hundred new citizens. So thank you for that.”
Leon shook his head. “Him. Jianu. He made them let you go.”
“Why? For his sins? You think he feels something? Not that one.”
“How do you know?”
“A man tries to cut your throat, you know everything about him.”
Leon was quiet, looking toward the window, everything else too complicated.
“You don’t forget what that’s like. Ever,” Mihai said, touching his neck, as if a knife had actually been there. He looked away. “Anyway, it’s finished now. He pays. It’s what I said from the first. The first night.”
“That’s not why I killed him.”
“Why you killed him,” Mihai said slowly, looking at Leon. “No? Why?”
“He asked me.”
Mihai didn’t say anything to this.
“He wanted me to do it.”
