Khalid al-Mihdhar.
Majed Moqed.
Nawaf al-Hazmi…
He lectures himself: When we conquered Spain, we taught the infidels how to wash. And there was no steam heat in Andalusia or boilers in the basement. I would remind Mama when I was twelve or thirteen or fourteen that Islam civilized the world. Taught the filthy Christians to wash, Mama, taught them to read, taught them numbers, Mama, and architecture and music. Taught them for eight hundred years. And Mama would laugh, and say, If the Muslims were so damned civilized, why did they circumcise little girls? And why did they round up your ancestors in Africa and sell them to white folks? How is that civilized? And young Malik would say, Allah knows. Allah was testing all of us. And she would laugh. And say: Allah should get a life.
Bitch.
Now he soaps his hands over and over again, digging his nails into the Dove, soaps his hair, soaps his armpits, his ass, and his balls, grunting silently, using motion to warm him. The trickling water falls upon his shoulders and he splashes it roughly, feeling cleansed, purged, ready again for the mission, ready again to go forth as a member of the brotherhood. Ready for one final purge. Ready to die.
He turns off the shower, steps onto the cold tiled floor, and grabs a towel, the only towel, one that smells of Glorious. He feels his cock getting thicker, harder, and now wants the warmth of Glorious, Allah’s gift; wants to lie behind her, to kiss her neck, to hold her swollen tits, to feel her ass grinding against his groin, to plunge his cock into her wet cave. He takes the key from his trousers, pulls on dry socks for warmth, wraps the damp towel around his shoulders, lifts the flashlight, and pads down the hall to the bedroom. Thinking: She’ll be shocked. She has never seen me without my beard. I must be silent. I must be gentle. Above all, I must not scare her. She’s my woman. She’s carrying my son.
He unlocks the door and steps into the darkness. The room is full of a black wind. The cold is bitter. The cold is unforgiving. He switches on the flashlight. There is nobody in the bed. The covers are wild and rumpled and stained with something dark that he knows must be blood. A pillow lies on the floor. He moves the light and sees that the window is open.
No.
— Baby? You here someplace?
No answer.
He walks to the open window, the towel falling. No. He stops a foot from the window. His feet are suddenly sticky. No, please. No… The rain has ended but the wind blows harder. But now he does not shudder. He feels that his body is made of ice. No.
He steps forward, his feet making a squishy sound, and lays a free hand on the icy windowsill. His breath expels a small cloud of steam. Finally he leans forward and looks down. Four stories.
He sees the naked body of Glorious on a carpet of rubble. Her luminous brown skin glistens from the rain. She does not move. In the crook of her left arm is a tiny child. Like a doll. The child does not move either.
Malik jerks backward, then falls hard to his knees. He faces the empty sky, and begins to howl.
2:29 a.m. Sandra Gordon. Her apartment.
She’s awake again, out on the balcony, high above the glistening street. The plants are all dead, or dozing through winter. She’s wearing the heavy down coat that Myles Compton bought her that cold spring day a few years back, explaining that it was to keep her Jamaican blood at room temperature. She laughed then. Jamaican blood. Why not New York blood? she said. I’ve been here longer than I ever lived in Jamaica. Longer than you, Myles, ever lived here either.
Now he’s gone, lugging his credit default swaps and his derivatives or whatever the hell he was into. Gone. A fugitive now like ten thousand other rich grifters. He won’t call me, she thinks. He won’t e-mail. He won’t do anything that will help them track him down. For sure, she thinks, the people on his trail will be listening to me too. Gotta change this number. The e-mail address too. They’ll catch him anyway. The Feds. Interpol. The Bulgarians. Whoever. Ah, Myles.
Where are you, Myles? She turns and slips back into the dark living room, sliding the balcony door shut. She unzips the coat and drops it on the carpet.
Thinking: I can’t ever do this again.
2:31 a.m. Ali Watson. Patchin Place, Greenwich Village.
He turns left off Sixth Avenue onto Greenwich and sees an open spot along the curb on the right. When he was young and tending bar in a joint called Asher’s, the summer after he took the cops’ test, he often walked past this spot when the little park was one of the saddest buildings in the city: the Women’s House of Detention. Day and night, women in the House of D. would yell down from their cells to young men or older women who were holding babies for them to see. Most of the women in the cells were caught hooking or dealing drugs. Their mothers were scolding them from Sixth Avenue. Many men on the sidewalks were really only older kids. You take care a’ him, Buddy. Feed him good, Momma. No crap now, JoJo…
The building is now gone: replaced by a park, and on an angle through the wet leafless trees Ali Watson can see two fire engines, three police cars, a gathering of people in black silhouette. He can see the helmets of firemen bobbing in and out of the handheld lights. He pulls down the sun-blind mirror, with its NYPD placard facing the street side, clamps his badge on the top of his coat collar, gets out, pats his cell phone, locks the doors. Thinking: Jesus fucking Christ.
The rain has stopped now but the street is wet and glassy, reflecting a garish mixture of red lights and brights. And there in front of him is Patchin Place, a gated dead-end street between Greenwich and 10th Street, where he has so often dropped Mary Lou or picked her up to go home. The iron gates are open, hoses on the ground. Other residents of the small dead-end street are outside the gates, flanking the entrance, coats pulled tightly over nightgowns and pajamas, drinking coffee, smoking. All alone, a fat bare-legged white guy with a coat on top of a bathrobe seems to be eating a bowl of cereal. Watching. In a separate cluster, men and women aim cameras or cell phones, scribble notes: the reporters. Ali’s breath is coming in tiny gasps. The front door of the house is open. Hoses snake from fire hydrants up the few steps into the Harding house. Three windows are open on the top floor. Lamps move in jerky patterns inside all floors. The air is gritty with smoke and ash.
Oh, Mary Lou. Let them tell me you’re at St. Vincent’s. Let me know that you’re okay.
He walks to the front gate. He sees that each corner of the short street is blocked by a squad car with its red dome light turning. A lieutenant from the Sixth Precinct, a guy named Brennan, spots him. And comes up to him, taking his arm.
— Hey, Ali, he says softly.
— How bad is it, Joe?
— Pretty bad.
Mary Lou. Mary Lou. Let me drive you home now.
— Exactly how bad?
— Two dead. Then the fire after.
— Is—
— Yeah.
Brennan hugs Ali, tries to move him away from the house. Ali sags, then stiffens. The reporters, some street cops, an old lady in a man’s overcoat: all are now watching. Tiny orange digital lights flicker like eyes. Ali gives Brennan a soft push and starts for the steps.