“I’m going down to the street. If he wants to come out to the sidewalk and say good-bye, that’s fine.”

“The sidewalk will do. I’ll bring him by in the car and you can speak through the window.”

Jan was interrupted by a large figure lumbering out of the garden and colliding with him. The bearded man. Words were spoken, quickly, softly. The two did a little dance, and Jan swung his arm to fend the other off. There was a heavy clatter and the large man sank to his knees.

Ana took a step or two back, grasping at comprehension. There had been some swift, violent exchange right in front of her, too fast to see. The bearded man gripped his left forearm with his right hand, dark blood staining the sleeve of his jacket and welling up between his fingers. On the pavement before him lay a large black pistol, a little closer to him than it was to the still-standing Jan. Neither man moved for a few seconds.

“Ms. Kessler,” said the man on his knees, never taking his eyes off the Dutchman. “Please step away.”

Ana’s legs felt as heavy as lead. She tried to take in what was happening. Jan’s expression remained placid, but she could see his eyes gauging the distance to the weapon, the man, her. She also saw several inches of steel blade protruding from his right hand, held close against his leg.

“You will note,” Jan countered, “that this man assaulted me. I merely protected myself.”

“Ana,” said the bearded man, urgently, “Matthew asked me to watch you. Do as I say. Step well away from us.”

She stepped back several yards. She had the impression that the man on the ground, though pained by his wound, was not distracted by it. That he had sunk to his knees only to get closer to his fallen weapon. Now it was a standoff. Neither could reach the gun without exposing himself to a blow by the other, yet neither could withdraw and give up the gun to his opponent. Ana looked around for some figure of authority to break this up.

Then Jan was backing off, not down the lane but up the garden path, his free hand held close to his chest, as if ready to reach inside his jacket, but not doing so. The other man shifted closer to the pistol, even stretched his hand out, but made an equal show of doing no more.

“Ms. Kessler,” Jan said. “I’m sorry to see our business concluded this way. Please keep an open mind. And be careful of this man, he is clearly dangerous. In fact, I will wait a bit if you would like to leave now unhindered.”

How nice of both of them to worry so much about her.

“I think you better go, Jan. Before something worse happens.”

“Very well.” He smiled at her. “Do take care.”

He did not go right, into the garden, but continued up the path and through an archway in the brick wall that Ana had not even realized was there. Vanished, God knew where.

The bearded one was on his feet with the gun instantly, staring long at the archway, then all around them, ignoring Ana.

“You’re bleeding pretty badly,” she said.

He glanced at his soaked sleeve and nodded.

“Stupid. I didn’t know he would be so quick.”

“Were you trying to kill him?”

“No. That would have been easy, he was completely focused on you. I was trying to take him, but he was too fast. Lucky he didn’t kill me. I’m Benny, by the way. Sorry about this.”

He still barely looked at her. She realized that she should fear him, but did not, whether from instinct or from emotional exhaustion, she couldn’t say.

“Did Matthew really send you?”

“No, his grandfather, but on Matthew’s behalf. I guess the boy loves you or something.”

Ana felt dizzy, then nauseated. The shock hitting her, no doubt. She wanted to sit down on the pavement and cry.

“We should go,” Benny advised. “We can get a cab at a Hundred-tenth.”

“Where are we going?”

“To a hospital, first. Then someplace where we can keep you safe. You’ve stirred up some unfortunate interest.”

20

T he platform was emptier than he would have liked. Matthew made it a point not to take the subway late at night, but getting a cab near Grand Central had become impossible, and his feet naturally guided him down the long staircase and through the turnstile. A smattering of people were on the upper level, coming up from the trains or heading west down the wide passage to the Times Square shuttle. He descended to the uptown platform, to find almost no one there. Just a very large homeless man in a filthy red bandanna, muttering to himself. Anxious and sleep-deprived, Matthew wandered north along the dirty concrete.

You must cure yourself.

He had let everything go for days now but the all-consuming chase. Thoughts of his father and Ana had broken through, but not sufficiently to distract him. He had not checked his answering machine until getting back from Greece, and he was stung to find two messages from his mother, angry that he had not called. There was one from Ana also. She was doing some research; they could compare notes when he returned. There was no warmth in her words-she was all business-but he took comfort in the fact that she had called at all. He went straight to his parents’ house, before even going to his apartment, and tried her from there this morning, but there was no answer.

Despite his mother’s protests to the contrary, his father looked stronger. He had more color and energy, and felt good enough to give Matthew hell about vanishing. The visit had been tense, but they both felt better by the end of it. Needing to be at work the next day, without fail, Matthew had taken the train back into the city after dinner. His body clock, which had barely adjusted to Greek time, had not yet reset for New York, and exhaustion, combined with travel and emotional stress, had kicked him into a strange, nearly surreal state. His eyes drooped, but his heart hammered. A certain color, or the shape of a face, would leap out at him from the blurry details of a crowd. He needed sleep badly.

A bunch of kids with an angry boom box shuffled down the steps, posing and cursing in their droopy jeans and baseball caps, displaying all the artificial, late-night animation of intoxicated young men. Matthew moved away from them. From far down the tunnel came the sound of the number six train.

You must cure yourself.

He almost felt he had. Those haunting eyes, that layered mystery, had been left somewhere behind, in some dream life he’d briefly passed through. The icon was not in Greece, he knew, yet he felt he had left it back there. It was part of that culture; its beauty and otherness had no place in this city without history. Past and present fused in Salonika. The past was crushed by New York, even the personal past, his own past. It was lost, left somewhere on a baggage carousel. It had never happened to him. Such magic did not exist.

His mind whirling, he sat down on a wooden bench to still himself. These were fatigue thoughts, delusional riffs from a traumatized brain. He could not get his hands around them. He was trying to free himself from an emotional condition by force of will, and in this delicate and overreceptive state of mind he almost believed he had succeeded. But it was white noise, sound and fury, meaningless. It would all be clearer in the morning.

He glanced up, and a huge figure loomed over him.

“Jesus knows your sins. You can’t lie to him.”

Matthew flinched, knocking his bruised spine against the bench. Mad, bloodshot eyes stared through him and body stink stunned his senses. The mutterer had become a shouter.

“I’m sure you’re right.”

“Your Father knows when you’re lying. He sees into your heart.”

A roar filled the station now, the uptown local hurtling out of the tunnel. There was no getting past the homeless evangelist in any conventional way, so Matthew swung his feet over the low bench back, and staggered across the gum-sticky platform to the yellow line. Reflected light climbed the broken white wall tiles, then the square front of the train rushed by him. The preacher’s voice bellowed from behind.