Chapter 8

8

Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing.

—Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment

Midtown Manhattan

Two Years Ago

It’s three minutes past eight. She should have been out here by now. I check my phone and, finding nothing, return to watching the glass doors of the building. The security guard at the desk hasn’t looked up from his phone in the eleven minutes I’ve been standing here, which means he hasn’t noticed me. Which means he sucks at his job.

People stream past on the busy Midtown sidewalk. I pull my scarf over my face a little because it cuts against the bite of the wind, but also it makes me feel a little more secure when people can’t see my face.

I’m hungry. Should have eaten something earlier. Always a mistake, not eating beforehand.

My phone buzzes.

So sorry. Meeting ran over. Headed down now.

I respond back: No problem.

I scroll up through the previous texts from Sara.

Me : What are you in the mood for?

Sara : There’s a holiday thing over at Bryant Park. How about some hot cocoa?

Sara: Maybe some ice-skating?

Me : I don’t know how to ice-skate.

Sara : There’s a trick to it. I’ll show you.

Me : Oh yeah? What’s the trick?

Sara : You’ll have to wait and see. I have a meeting until 8. Ok to meet after?

Me : Perfect.

Since I’m already in my phone I click over to the dating app where we connected. The first picture that comes up is her sitting in her office, presumably upstairs. She’s wearing a blue and pink and gray flannel shirt. Her auburn hair curled and tousled, she’s flashing a brilliant, nearly blinding smile.

Her likes include science fiction, spirituality, and eating out, as well as power exchange, group play, and ethical nonmonogamy. Which is why I love this app. It’s geared more toward kink and hookups than it is long-term dating, which means the important cards are on the table as soon as you sit down. When we matched and started chatting, two things were clear from the jump.

First is, neither of us was looking for anything serious, and that suited me just fine. We both wanted a regular friend-with-benefits type of situation, where we could get together and do some weird shit, but also maybe catch the occasional movie or go to a museum. When I shook Ravi’s hand on that pier in Singapore I accepted that a nuclear family and white picket fence wasn’t in my future. Which is fine; you can’t be wistful for a thing you never had. But after years of one-night stands and escorts, I’m yearning for something a bit more.

Not for someone to know me, but maybe someone I can know a bit.

The second thing, which came across even in our messaging, was that talking to her was like touching the tip of a live wire. We spoke with the comfort of old friends, slipping into a rapport that felt fast and sexy and even a little sweet.

This is still a risk. I don’t mind taking risk onto myself; that’s my job. It’s the risk I could be exposing her to. But I cling to the hope that I could protect her from anything. There aren’t that many people on this planet dumb enough to mess with me.

“Mark?”

Sara is outlined against the light pouring out of the building’s lobby, giving her a warm, golden aura. She’s wearing a blue knit hat and a dark overcoat with a fuzzy black collar that swaddles her neck. The wind seems to stop the moment we lock eyes, causing the ambient temperature to come up a few degrees. All that rush of Midtown traffic and pedestrians suddenly goes silent.

“That’s me,” I say, trying to sound suave.

She smiles and tilts her head, and the way she looks at me is like she recognizes something. Then her eyes dart down to my crotch and she raises an eyebrow. “Your fly is down.”

I spin around and zip it up in one motion, then turn back to her. “Not the kind of first impression I was hoping to make.”

“It’s okay,” she says, stepping toward me, and I smell lavender. “How about that hot cocoa?”

We’ve only just met—some texting and one video chat—but she turns in the direction of the park and hooks her arm into mine. It feels adorably old-fashioned. There’s a magnetism drawing me toward her. It would be unsettling if it weren’t so soothing.

The branches of the trees surrounding the park reach into the sky like skeletal hands, cradling a heavy full moon in the indigo sky. We wend our way through the tables, the space lit by twinkle lights, the ground wet from melted snow and crunchy with salt, and head for the truck offering hot cocoa. It costs ten dollars a cup and takes five minutes to make. The line would move faster if fewer people were taking selfies at the front.

“New York exists in a quantum state,” I tell Sara.

“Oh yeah?” she asks.

I nod toward a young couple throwing up peace signs for selfies with their cups of cocoa, blocking the next group of people from placing their order. “Simultaneously the best and worst city in the entire world.”

She looks at the lights strung around the park, cranes her neck to watch the ice-skating rink, then turns to the tables filled with people talking and laughing.

“I don’t know,” she says with a smile. “I think it’s pretty great.”

Well, then. The way she punctured and deflated my cynicism makes me feel sheepish. But I don’t mind it, either.

And that smile. I struggle with how to approach describing that smile.

Like she has it figured out, all of it, and she’s patiently waiting for me to join her so she can celebrate my success.

We wait in a little pocket of silence, the line slowly inching forward, when she asks, “So what do you do, Mark? You never said.”

“Data analyst,” I tell her, which is my go-to. There’s a kernel of truth there—my job is math-based, in a way—but it sounds broad and boring enough that it doesn’t invite follow-up questions.

“Tell me how you got into that,” she says.

Except now, I guess.

“I’ve always been a numbers guy,” I tell her. “Math is how I make sense of the world. Makes me feel like I have a purpose. It’s not what I wanted to do when I was growing up, but hey, who gets to do that?”

“And what did you want to do when you were growing up?”

“Astronaut.”

She moves her body closer into mine to stay warm, fitting into the grooves like a puzzle piece. “Why?”

My pulse ticks up a few notches. I’m not used to people asking me questions about myself. I can’t remember the last time I had a real conversation with another human being that wasn’t related to my job. And those conversations tend to be brief or unfriendly.

The real answer is that I wanted to escape this earth and with it, my childhood, an unsettled and insecure series of foster homes. But that feels too intimate to share, so I tell her, “I wanted to see the stars.”

Her smile tells me she knows I’m not telling the whole truth.

We take our hot cocoa and find an empty table—it’s flimsy and the seats are small and cold but they’re dry, and we sit and sip and stare at each other and something significant is happening. My brain is always passively taking in the surroundings, at some level of alert, even now when there’s no present danger. It’s just this constant hum: Where are the exits? How many people are around me? What can I use as a weapon?

And right now it’s like all I have is this tunnel vision with her at the end of it. My perception is working in stops and starts. More than that, I feel like I should be worried, like I’m off my game, like it’s not good to be distracted.

“So you said you were in the nonprofit world,” I say.

She takes a sip of her cocoa and rolls her eyes back. “Oh, that’s good…Yeah, I help run a group that organizes food pantries around the city. I wanted to be a princess when I was a kid, but part of the reason for that is I wanted to be a benevolent ruler where no one in the kingdom starved, so, it’s on brand, at least.”

I take a sip of my cocoa and she’s right; like drinking a melted chocolate bar. This might have been a mistake, but I have some Lactaid in my coat. I nod up toward the skyscrapers looming over us. “And you sort of work in a castle.”

“Right, but no scepters or fancy dresses,” she says. “Astronauts analyze data, you know?”

“Yeah, but I don’t get to go to the moon,” I tell her. “It’s fine.”

“Stressful?”

“Some days. A lot of the time it’s just, you know, killing the alligator closest to the boat.”

She makes a face. “I hate that phrase.”

“Some days are like that, though.”

“Right, but why does productivity have to be about killing things?”

“What should I be doing to the alligators instead?”

“Petting them?”

“I’d lose a hand.”

“Then make them…I don’t know, bunnies.”

“Bunnies?”

She nods. “Pet the bunny closest to the boat.”

“Wouldn’t the bunnies drown?”

She sticks her tongue out at me. “Pet the bunny closest to the bench.”

“That’s cute. I like it.”

She places the hot cocoa in front of her and puts her legs in my lap. Immediately I start massaging her calf muscles. “What about family?” she asks.

“Don’t have much of one. No siblings. Parents passed when I was a kid.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I tell her. Seeking to put a period on the topic, I ask, “What about you?”

“My parents live in Phoenix, which is where I’m from. I have a brother who lives upstate. He’s a prison guard. We’re pretty close, but I don’t see him as much as I’d like.”

“Prison guard. He must be tough.”

“He likes to think he is. If you ever meet him, he’ll probably threaten you, do the whole ‘big brother’ thing, but don’t worry, he’s harmless.”

I laugh at the thought, but also, the idea that I might meet a member of her family. That’s new. I take a deep sip of my cocoa, racking my brain for something other than family to discuss so we don’t stumble back onto my lack thereof, when I catch sight of a familiar face behind her.

Antonio Amato.

“Tell me a little more about how you got into the food bank thing,” I say.

And I listen with one ear while I run the math in my head.

Sometimes I flip through open contracts on the Via Maris. Just something to pass the time between Agency gigs. Local jobs don’t tend to pay as well, but they’re way easier to pull off because I’m not infiltrating a government building or figuring out how to eliminate a major security system. Some of it is bullshit; a guy wants his wife killed because she’s having an affair, someone wants their neighbor killed for mowing the lawn at seven a.m. every Sunday. I don’t mess with stuff like that.

But two nights ago, I saw a contract for Amato and filed it away in the back of my head.

The empire lorded over by the Five Families may have crumbled to dust, but there are still pockets of mafiosi around, and Amato is apparently a big player who managed to piss off another big player, and that other big player is looking for someone to take him out.

Amato is wearing a tan coat, his graying hair slicked back. He’s built like a linebacker who let himself go a bit. He’s sitting a few tables over with an attractive young woman. College-aged. Maybe a mistress. The two of them talk and sip cocoa and I tell myself I shouldn’t try to pull double duty on a date, but it’s hard to say no to a hit of the adrenaline.

Sara finishes up what she’s saying about helping people and I tell her, “That sounds like a really rewarding job.”

“It is,” she says, her eyes narrowed at me. “Sometimes I volunteer in the pantries. It’s a good workout. We can always use a strong back. Mostly the volunteers are seniors. We need someone for when the fifty-pound bags of potatoes come in.”

“That could be fun,” I tell her.

She puts down her cocoa. “You okay? You seem like you’re somewhere else.”

Weird, I’m usually better at multitasking. Amato gets up from the table and moves in the direction of the restrooms, so I tell her, “Yeah, this is a little embarrassing to share on a first date.”

She raises her eyebrows and takes another sip, like she’s waiting for a hammer to fall.

“My stomach is a little wonky.” I hold up the cup. “I got a dairy thing.”

She sighs out a stream of relief. “Jesus, I thought you were going to tell me you were married or something. We could have gotten something else, you know.”

“Yeah, but your heart seemed set on this.”

She leans forward and pats my arm. “Everybody poops, it’s okay. Do you want to use the bathroom in my office building?”

“Nah, bathrooms here are pretty nice. I’ll be back in a few, okay?”

“Ice-skating after?”

“I told you I don’t know how to ice-skate.”

She gives me a smirk and a wink. “I told you there was a trick.”

I put down my cocoa and get to my feet. “I’ll consider it.”

She leans back in her chair and crosses her legs in front of her, then whips out her phone, promptly disappearing into Instagram.

The bathrooms are at the far end of the park, and I make my way over, hoping I’ll get lucky. On the way, I pull out my phone and hunt for the original post, find it, and text the number attached:

Accepted, will report back shortly

By the time I make it to the bathrooms, I get a response.

Picture plus payment info

Normally I’d say who I was and ask for the whole payment up front—no one ever says no—but I don’t feel like getting into that now. Sara seems pretty understanding about the potential of intestinal distress, but the longer I’m in here, the more it may chip into my chances of taking her home tonight. Some mental images can’t be unseen.

The bathroom is a trailer with a loud humming generator. Two doors, one for men and one for women. There’s a traffic cone nestled in some brush, so I grab it and drop it in front of the door as I step into the men’s side. Amato is standing at a urinal. I give a quick peek underneath the stalls and don’t see any feet. There were no visible cameras on the walk over, since we’re in the park, far from the street.

I lock the door. The shunk of it is loud and Amato spins around, his fly still down. Considering he has a contract on his head, I’m sure he knows exactly what’s going to happen. I know I’m right when he charges at me. I try to sidestep but get blocked by a sink; the space is too tight. He grabs me around the waist and whales on my side, aiming for my kidneys and liver. Despite his age, he’s a brawler, and brawlers do well in tight spaces.

I get a knee up to create some distance and consider headbutting him, but that could open a cut on my head, and head wounds bleed like crazy, which would be complicated to explain, so instead I throw a fist into the side of his throat. The human trachea has the same tensile strength as a soda can, and you can’t fight if you can’t breathe.

He chokes a little and backs up, his eyes wide.

“Please,” he says, gasping. “Whatever they’re paying you, I’ll pay more.”

I don’t know what he did. I usually know what people did before I kill them. It helps to know sometimes. But I have to figure whatever got him a $25K contract on his head wasn’t good.

“Sorry, bud,” I tell him. “Math, you know?”

I snap my foot into his stomach, but he grabs it and wrenches it to the side. I go tumbling and hit my head on the sink. Get up and press my head and feel blood. Exactly what I didn’t want. I get to my knees and throw a hard fist into his stomach, which doubles him over, and I grab him around the neck and yank, hard. His spinal column cracks and his body slumps to the floor. I flip him over and snap a picture with my phone, then send it along with my crypto account to the number from before.

I realize I have to pee but I feel like I’ve been in here too long, and sooner or later someone is going to disregard that traffic cone. My head is swimming and I check it in the mirror; there’s a nice gash on my forehead, oozing blood. I grab a bunch of paper towels and press them to the wound, then crack the door open to make sure the coast is clear.

When I get back to the table, Sara is still on her phone. She looks up at me, confused for a second, and then her eyes go wide. “Are you okay?” she asks.

“Yeah,” I tell her. “Slipped on some ice.”

She motions me to sit and puts her hand on mine, taking the wad of paper towels, and winces at the sight of it. “We should get this looked at.”

“Nah, it’s not deep. It’ll stop bleeding in a few.”

“It’s deep enough.”

“What about the ice-skating?”

“We can ice-skate another day.”

“Yeah,” I tell her. “But you promised to tell me the trick.”

She smiles that knowing smile again and sits back. “Let’s just go up to my office, okay? It’s right here. There’s a kitchen and a first-aid kit.”

“Sure.”

We stand and she locks arms with mine. We’re walking back the way we came, when a scream slices through the tranquility of the evening. It’s the woman who was sitting with Amato.

“Someone, please, help! My dad!”

Oh.

Sara looks over—the woman is running back from the bathroom. “Maybe we should help,” she says.

But there’s already a handful of people rushing over. “I…I’m feeling dizzy,” I tell her.

“Okay,” Sara says, and we head back to the office, but the energy of the evening has shifted. What felt playful is suddenly fragile, like glass gone brittle in the cold.

Usually I walk away from a job a little high. That god-energy shot through me. I did the thing I was good at. I lived, the other person didn’t. I would be rewarded. But I thought the woman was a girlfriend or a mistress. I don’t know why that made it okay, but it did. Something about it being his daughter, and then Sara witnessing his daughter’s grief, and now we’re just walking someplace for her to clean me up and she doesn’t know that I’m the one who caused that pain, makes me feel ashamed of what I did.

I’ve never once felt like that.

“Hey,” she says, “are you okay?”

We’re in the elevator, gliding up to her office. I don’t remember walking through the lobby. What is happening?

“Yeah,” I tell her.

We make it to her office and she leads me to a small kitchen and sits me down in a hard plastic chair, then disappears, returning with a white plastic first-aid kit. She opens it and lays out wipes and antibacterial ointment and butterfly strips, then goes to the sink and washes her hands.

Something about her doing this makes me feel worse.

Like I don’t deserve it.

She comes back and opens a wipe, dabbing it around the wound on my head, cleaning away the blood, and I ask her, “What’s the trick?”

“Hmm?” she asks.

“The trick to ice-skating?”

“Oh,” she says. “Don’t slip.”

I laugh, and it cracks something open inside me, and I have to force myself to keep from crying. She stops what she’s doing and looks me in the eyes. But she’s not just looking at me, she’s plucking through the strands of my life with her gentle brown eyes.

And she asks me, “Are you happy?”

I don’t need to answer.

She knew it before she asked.

She puts down the wipe and leans forward and kisses me, and in that moment, I find a thing I never even knew I was looking for.

I feel safe.