Chapter 18

18

As usual, Olivia's father, Emilio Ramos, left the Bronx Hunts Point Terminal food market facility where he worked at four on the dot.

And just as usual, across Food Center Drive, he saw that the bus stop was already crowded with a dozen of his fellow day shift truck loaders waiting on the BX #6.

Yeah, he was one of the dirty dozen all right, he thought, as he trotted across the 18-wheeler-lined industrial street. Or to be more specific, make that one of the dirty frozen dozen as they all actually worked in a windowless refrigerated warehouse humping sixty-pound boxes of frozen chicken parts by hand and hand truck and forklift for eight hours straight.

"Como se cuelgan?" said his buddy Victor, who was one of the forklift mechanics.

Victor offered him a cigarette from a pack of Marlboros he took out of his pocket.

"Nah, man. I quit," Emilio said as he accepted one with a wink and a smile.

Finding a window seat in the far back of the bus that uncharacteristically arrived two minutes later, Emilio cursed under his breath for forgetting to bring his headphones again.

Because the diesel engine roar would have been bad enough, he thought from where he hunkered down in one of the bus's plastic rear seats, but it was actually nothing compared to the loose window in the back.

The clattering rattle of the window as they blasted over the south Bronx's countless potholes sounded, not just a little but almost exactly, like an M240 belt-fed machine gun laying down suppressing fire.

He knew this from personal experience. Oh, yeah, knew all about that sound. He had made it himself often enough from atop the LAV-25 armored reconnaissance vehicle he'd rode in Iraq II with the marines.

To add to this commuting pleasure, the bus couldn't get over twenty-five miles an hour before it had to stop at the next stop and you got a good healthy blast of the nails-on-chalkboard shriek of its rusty-sounding brakes.

Injured in an Accident? he read off a cheap lawyer billboard as they rattled past the Bruckner Expressway overpass.

Emilio shook his head.

Does hearing loss count? he wondered.

"Conduccion dura," said Victor, shaking his head as the window went off again.

"Hard riding," Emilio mumbled to himself as the window started to rattle again. He thought about his time in the war again.

"Story of my life," he said.

Emilio had just gloriously zoned out when a new sound started. It was a light drumming, sporadic little clicks. He looked out through the dust-and fingerprint-streaked plexiglass into the dark gray afternoon.

Freezing rain was falling now onto the death-pallor gray concrete universe of the Bronx.

Perfect , Emilio thought.

Then he remembered something at least a little hopeful. Today was the day the investigator, Colleen, was going up to Connecticut to find out what had happened to his daughter, Olivia.

He checked his phone but there was nothing.

Oh, well. Maybe later or tomorrow , he thought.

As he put the phone away, something caught his attention. Outside the window of the opposite side of the bus, a guy on a motorcycle, a loud Japanese bike, zipped up and stayed along one side of the bus, keeping pace with it.

The biker was a big dude, made the bike look like a toy. He was wearing a full helmet with a black visor and as he rode along, he seemed to peer into the bus windows. Like he was looking for someone up near the front.

Then he slowed and came around the other side of the bus and looked in at Emilio and Victor next to him.

"Joder es esso?" the old man said as the biker suddenly tore away.

"Beats me," Emilio said.

Forty minutes later at just after five, Emilio was back in his fifth-floor apartment on 188th Street and Audubon Avenue in Washington Heights.

His favorite chair was a used leather La-Z-Boy he'd bought on eBay, and he was fully stretched out on it, watching the beginning of a Netflix movie about a hot-looking Pam Anderson–like city slicker lady who inherits an Alaskan gold mine when it happened.

Behind him, he very distinctly heard the front door of his apartment open.

"What the?" he said, putting down his fork in the chicken salad he'd put together for himself.

Was it the super? Emilio thought as he laid down the bowl on the floor. He'd do things like that. Open your door with his passkey, wouldn't even knock sometimes. Dude was an enforcer for the landlord, wasn't he? he thought as he stood up. He treated all the renters like garbage.

"What's up, Angel? You ever hear of knocking? What the hell, man?" Emilio said as he came into the hall.

But no one was there. He could see the front door at the end of the hall and it was closed and seemed locked.

Did Angel open it and then close it? Emilio thought, peering at the front of his apartment. Was he hearing things?

He walked over and looked down at the lock. It was fine. Then he tried the knob. It was definitely locked.

Then he turned around and looked at the doorway to his kitchen and saw that he hadn't been hearing things after all.

Because standing there was a large man wearing a balaclava.