I wasn't about to begrudge him a minute. I handed him the money and got out of the car. He yelled, "Good night," after me as I rushed to Sima's building and up the stairs to her floor. I had glanced up at her window from the street below and saw a light burning behind the curtains. A disturbing mental image of Sima in the arms of a client flashed through my mind and I shoved it away.
I tried her door. It was locked. I pounded on it. My heart was hammering a nasty beat in my chest. The locked door was a good sign, I decided. Maybe I was in time.
Or maybe Charlie Buzaglo's men were inside, hurting Sima as I stood there like an idiot.
I got out my knife, flicked it open, and got myself ready to fight.
A key was turning on the inside of the door. I adjusted my grip on the knife. But it was only Sima, looking lovely in a white-and-red checked dress that went to her ankles. She was grinning at me, her eyes glinting with mischievous triumph.
"I wasn't expecting you so soon, Adam. Don't tell me you ran all the way here."
Then her eyes caught the knife, and her face changed to that of a frightened child. She stepped back from the door, and I said, "Don't worry. I'm not here to hurt you."
She said nothing and took another step backward. I folded the knife and tossed it to her. "Here," I said. "Now you're the one with the power over me."
I entered her apartment and shut the door behind me. There was no one else present but me and her. Sima was looking at me strangely, clutching the folded knife to her chest. She wasn't trembling or gathering her breath to scream. Giving her the knife had broken the initial fear, morphing it into anxious bewilderment.
I explained the situation as succinctly as I could: I'd been followed last night to her apartment by a man working for Charlie Buzaglo. Now three of his men were coming here, to where they thought I lived, to kill me. They could be there at any moment. She had to leave. Right now.
I'd expected a scene. A blunt refusal to leave her home, or recriminations, at the very least. But there was nothing. Just a pause the length of two heartbeats as she took in the information. Wordlessly, Sima handed me my knife back and went down the hall into another room. She came back out in less than a minute. She had pulled back her hair and secured it in place with a clip and slipped on a light black coat and comfortable-looking shoes. A large black bag hung over her shoulder.
"I'm ready," she said.
I stared at her. She didn't have time to pack anything, no clothes or toiletries of any kind. The only way that bag contained what she would need for a few days away from home was if she had packed it in advance. And then I recalled the story she told me yesterday, about the young Sima Vaaknin driven from her home in Hebron and later having to run away from another home, only to land in the clutches of a pimp. Sima Vaaknin had learned that life was unstable and unpredictable, that trouble might come knocking on her door at any moment, that she needed to be ready to run when it did. And I was the cause of this current escape. I had brought danger to her door. The thought made my gorge rise.
"Come," I said, and she exited the apartment without a backward glance.
We made our way down the stairs, me in front, holding the now open knife by my right thigh. With a hand gesture I told her to stop when we reached the entrance hall. There was no car idling at the curb, no headlights shining brighter as they drew nearer to where we stood.
"Let's go," I said, and we crossed the small front yard with quick, light steps. There was a waist-high stone fence at the edge of the yard, and we got down low behind it when we heard footfalls and talking voices approaching on the other side of the street. Sima kept her head down as I peeked over the fence, and I could hear her breathing short, shallow breaths. She was scared. She was trying to hide it, but her rapid breathing gave her emotions away.
The voices belonged to three men, and I tensed as I waited for them to cross over toward us. I would have to jump them, try to get one immediately with a killing slash, and hope that the other two weren't good enough fighters.
But the three men just kept on walking, and when I heard one of them let out a loud, braying sort of laughter, I realized they were just three random guys shooting the breeze, passing the time.
Sima and I got up and started walking down the sidewalk when a pair of headlight beams swung in a wide arc toward us as the car they belonged to turned onto Sima's street.
I grabbed Sima's hand, and we ran hunched over into a neighboring yard. It was also bordered by a fence, and we squatted behind it. The car was coming in slow, like the driver was checking out the building numbers, and I was filled with the certainty that this was them, Buzaglo's men. I peered over the fence and saw that the car was a black Skoda 1101, with its flat, truncated back and its long, snout-like front. The front passenger seat was taken and there were the shadows of two passengers in the backseat.
So there were four men, not three. Buzaglo was taking no chances.
The Skoda, inching along now, was coming up on where Sima and I hid. I was struck by a sudden fear that they might have gotten the number of the building wrong, either last night or right now, and the four of them would come into the yard where Sima and I were.
Sima was crouched beside me, her back to the fence, her bag on the ground at her feet. Her side was touching mine, and I felt a tremor where our bodies connected. I couldn't say who was shaking, me or her, and I kept my eyes firmly on the car. I could hear my breathing now, and it seemed loud and strident. My mind was amplifying the sound, I knew, but it still made me nervous, like the men in the car would be able to hear me over the grumble of the motor.
But the Skoda crept by, coming to a stop just outside Sima's building. The doors flew open and all four men got out. They were all young, two tall and two of average height. One of them held a pistol in his hand, and he quietly jacked a round into its chamber. I could only make out two of their faces by the glow of the nearest streetlight, and I committed them to memory. Their heads turned this way and that as they scanned the street, and I ducked my head, not wanting to risk being spotted. I heard them exchange a few barely audible words—final instructions, I imagined—and then the thud of their shoes on the stone path cutting across the yard of Sima's building.
The sound of their footsteps faded, and I dared another peek. All four men were gone, having climbed the stairs to Sima's apartment. In a moment, they would discover an empty apartment, and then they'd come down. What would happen then was unclear. Either they would go back to Buzaglo to report their failure to find me, or they'd stake out the apartment and street, hoping I'd show up. I expected them to do the latter. If I was right, and we stayed where we were, Sima and I would be unable to leave our hidden position for the rest of the night.
It was time to go.
"We have to move," I said, grabbing her forearm and pulling her to her feet. I took the bag from her, and we ran across the street, through a dark yard, where we roused a few angry cats, who hurled screeches after us that sounded as loud as cannons.
We didn't pause when we reached the parallel street, but crossed it as well, and through another yard to the next street south. There I allowed us to slow to a walk, and we made our way west, both of us gasping for breath.
A few minutes later we came upon a tiny playground with a couple of swings, half a dozen trees, and three benches. We sat on one and I wiped the sweat off my face. Sima alternated between looking at me and at the street, as if sure the four men would suddenly appear there.
"I'm sorry, Sima," I said. "I got you involved in all of this."
"I was already involved," she said. "The moment I took Maryam home with me. And I don't regret it. I would do it again." Her fathomless eyes latched onto mine, and I was stunned to see her lips twitching with the onset of a smile. "I would do it all again, Adam."