The kid looked at the ground. So they were fake. He looked up. “What . . . what do you want me to do about it?”

“I want you to move your truck.”

The kid grimaced. Abby knew the word truck would get under his skin.

“It’s not a truck. It’s an Escalade.”

Wow, Abby thought. An Escalade driver with attitude. How rare. “Whatever. I want you to get inside, start it, and move it.”

The kid looked around. There were no parking spaces for about a hundred feet in any direction. “Where should I go?”

Abby glared her answer at him, as in, who gives a shit?

For a second, the kid looked like he was going to stand his ground. He glanced at the front window of the Acura. On the dashboard was a parking permit for the Queens County DA’s office, a large rectangle of laminated plastic that, despite the mayor’s efforts to curtail, generally allowed ticket-free parking on everything up to and including sidewalks.

The kid glanced at his laceless Nikes for a moment, weighing the options. He conceded. He pressed the button, unlocked the car, and with a movement somewhat slower than the glacier that had carved out the Niagara Escarpment, rolled back, and slipped inside. Driving down the aisle he executed his gangster lean, gave Abby one final glance in the rear-view mirror but did not – as Abby had expected – give her the finger. Obviously, he still had to go inside the store, and was not quite prepared for Round Two. Besides, who would get Mom’s nutmeg if he left?

Abby got in her car, pulled into the spot, the thought of NEW YORK AXIOM #208 giving her a warm feeling all over, that being:

Parking spaces fought over are much sweeter than parking spaces earned.

She unbuckled her seatbelt, checked her purse, making sure she had her wallet. Before she could open her door there was a query from the back seat. It was Emily.

“Mom?”

Abby turned around. Both girls had the earbuds out of their ears, and their iPods turned off. How did they learn these things so quickly?

“Yes, sweetie?”

“Who was that boy?”

Abby had to laugh. Boy.

God she loved her girls.

THE CITY WAS EVERY photograph he had ever seen, every film, every song, every postcard. Aleks had taken a cab from JFK Airport to a section of midtown Manhattan called Murray Hill.

If he had been a tourist, he could see himself taking in the wonders of New York for a week or more. He looked at the booklet. The UN Building, Grand Central Station, the Statue of Liberty, Central Park, the Flatiron Building, the Guggenheim Museum. There was much to see.

But he was not a tourist. He had business here. The most important business of his life.

THE SENZAI HOTEL WAS located at East Thirty-Eighth Street and Park Avenue. The pictures on the website had not done the place justice. The floor was marble, the ceilings were high, the brass appointments were subdued. Before leaving Tallinn, Aleks had had his hair cut at the airport salon. He knew that all styles were served in a city like New York, and it would take something pretty outrageous to stand out, but he did not want to take any chances. At just over six-foot three, with shoulder-length sandy hair, dressed all in black, he might attract some attention. So now he looked like a tall European businessman in town for a meeting. In many ways, this was true.

He checked in. The girl behind the desk was Japanese, about twenty-five. She had small streaks of gold in her lustrous black hair.

She greeted him warmly, moved with grace and efficiency, an attention to detail Aleks had not only anticipated but expected. It was one of the many he things he admired about Japanese culture, another being how much was expressed in a non-verbal way. He sometimes lived in silence for weeks at a time, and he appreciated this.

After running his credit card, she asked after his immediate needs. In his best Japanese – which was quite meager, the product of a brief study he had made before visiting Tokyo on R & R in the federal army – he told her he was fine for the moment. She smiled again, pushed forward his electronic key. He took it with a slight bow, which was returned, and headed toward the elevators. Before he had taken two steps the concierge approached and told him that a FedEx package had arrived for him, and that it would soon be brought up to his room. He tipped the man, and took the elevator to the eighth floor, slid his electronic key into the lock, and entered his suite.

The room was small, but tastefully appointed. In the closet were slippers, a pair of terry cloth robes, an umbrella. He had selected the hotel for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that it featured a rooftop garden.

After he unpacked, there was a knock at the door. A bellman handed him his package.

Aleks tipped the young man, locked and chained the door. He flipped on the television – it seemed to be some sort of show where people were locked in a house with each other, people who seemed to hate each other – and opened the box. Everything was intact. He removed the pair of passports, the cash, the Barhydt from its bubble-wrap cocoon.

After a shower, he dressed for the day, then took the elevator to the roof.

Although far from the tallest building in sight, the view was nonetheless exhilarating. He had been in a number of cities, but was never inclined to follow the tourist route, visiting the observation decks of the Eiffel Tower or the Triumph-Palace in Moscow or Frankfurt’s Commerzbank Tower. The view from above did not interest him. It was the view into a man’s eyes that told him everything he needed to know.

Stepping to the edge of the roof, a rush of warm air greeted him. Below the traffic on Park Avenue hummed. To the left was the massive Grand Central Station, a legendary place about which he had read and heard his whole life. So far, New York seemed rife with legend.

He glanced around the rooftop and, seeing he was alone, opened his flute case, lifted the instrument to his lips, and began to play “Mereschitsja” from Rimsky-Korsakov’s Kashchey the Immortal, pianissimo at first, then building to a crescendo. The notes lifted into the morning air, and drifted over the rooftops. When finished, he returned the instrument to its leather case, glanced around the rooftop once more. He was still alone. He took out the Barhydt, touched the razor-sharp tip of the blade to his right forefinger. A glossy drop of blood appeared.

Aleks tilted his finger just as the breeze died down. The drop of blood fell toward the street, disappearing into the rushing city below, forever marking this place as one with him. It was his ritual, to stain the battlefield with his blood. He knew that, in this place, some were going to die. He owed them this, to mingle his blood with theirs.

“I will find you, my hearts,” he said, closing the knife. “I am here.”

THE STOP & SHOP on Tall Pines Boulevard was crowded with locals stocking up for the long weekend. As always, the girls insisted on pushing the cart. They lined up, each grabbing a portion of the handle and, as Abby watched them roll down the produce aisle, she realized that it wasn’t so long ago that they couldn’t even move the cart a foot without help. Now they did it with ease.

Abby clicked off the items on her list, with Charlotte and Emily on point, gathering things from the lower shelves.

As they waited at the deli counter, Abby noticed that both girls were humming a song, a song that sounded vaguely familiar. Was it a classical theme? Was it on the audiobooks they were listening to? She couldn’t put her finger on the tune, but it sounded so melancholy, so wistful, that she suddenly felt a chilly shiver of disquiet. It seemed a portent to something, although she had no idea what.