But each step also increased his anxiety about his daughter. He had already lost her mother; losing Borya, too, was far beyond what he could bear.
Gravity and heat eventually won. By the time he got to the police barricades a few blocks from the Common, Tolevi’s pace had fallen to something between a jog and a fast walk. Practically heaving, he pleaded with one of the policemen to let him through.
“I gotta — get my daugh-ter she — needs—”
“What are you sayin’?” asked the cop.
“Daugh-ter. Meds. Med-cine.”
He added the idea of her needing medicine on the spur of the moment. It worked.
“Your daughter’s down there?” said the officer. It was clear from the man’s face that he had a daughter as well. “Where?”
“Near the river.”
“All right. Stay away from the Patriot Hotel.”
“Got it.”
Tolevi started to run again; energized by the encounter, he entered the Common at a half trot. But he didn’t get far before he came to another policeman, who yelled at him to stop and explain what he was doing. Tolevi tried the same tactic, but this time it didn’t work: he was shunted to a holding area the police had set up near the Soldiers and Sailors Monument. Several dozen people milled around on the path and the circle; a good hundred or more were sitting or lying on the grass nearby.
“How do we get out of here?” Tolevi asked the first man he came to, a man in his late twenties. He had a bit of a hipster look to him, with a goatee, pale skin, and engineer boots.
“We wait until the police say it’s safe to go.”
Tolevi moved on. People had their cell phones out, listening to or watching reports. As he moved closer to the west end of the park and approached a police barrier, he decided he would adopt an old but solid tactic — simply walk, eyes straight ahead, a man on a mission.
It didn’t work.
“Hey, you — stop,” shouted a policeman as he passed.
Tolevi pretended he didn’t hear, but there was no way to avoid the two National Guardsmen who turned around near the troop truck ahead.
“You have to go back, sir; I’m sorry,” said one of the soldiers.
“What is this, a police state?”
“Don’t be givin’ anybody a hard time,” said a man with a badge swinging from his neck. His Southie accent marked him as a Boston local, though on closer inspection, the badge marked him as a federal marshal. “Get your ass back over with the rest.”
Tolevi took a hard right, feinting in the direction of the crowd until he figured he wasn’t being watched anymore. He walked along the edge of the crowd until he found a place with only one policeman near the barricade. This time he tried a little subterfuge.
“The Bureau guy with the Guardsman back there wants to talk to you about frequencies or something,” he said as he approached. He pulled his wallet out, quickly flipping it as if showing a badge. “I’m with the Marshals Service.”
“What about?” asked the policeman, his eyes trailing Tolevi’s hand as he slipped his wallet back into his pants.
“The fuck I know. The Bureau people think they are the hottest shit going. I only came down here to help, you know? It’s my day off. Hell, I’m supposed to be watching the game by now. I’ll take your spot, but come back quick. I need to take a leak ASAP.”
Luckily for Tolevi, the officer nodded rather than asking what ball game he was talking about. “Just don’t let anybody through, right?”
“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry.”
Tolevi took off as soon as the man was twenty yards away. Within minutes he was hugging the brick wall of a building on Bruce Place — an alley more than a street — slinking toward his destination.
With downtown and the center of the city mostly cordoned off, the side streets here were empty, doors and windows were locked tight. Tolevi walked head down, full man-on-a-mission stride; no one who saw him would stop him, or so he thought.
He was on Derne Street, approaching Temple, when he saw two young men duck into the deli on the corner. Surprised that a store was open, he suddenly realized he could do something about his thirst. He went in and hunted for the cooler, still in man-on-a-mission mode; it wasn’t until he was taking an iced tea from the shelf that he realized he had clipped all of his cash to the windshield wiper of the car.
He started to put the bottle back when he heard a woman say something in Russian.
The words weren’t clear — she was on the phone with someone and hanging up to deal with a customer. But he thought maybe if he spoke to her in Russian, she’d let him come back with the money later. So he took the bottle and started for the cash register. It was only as he turned the corner of the aisle that he realized the two young men he’d seen enter were now robbing the place.
Tolevi reacted instinctively: he threw his right hand forward, smashing the man with the gun in the neck and side of the head so hard with the iced tea that the glass bottle shattered in his hand. As the man went down, Tolevi grabbed his wrist and with a sharp jerk snapped the gun from his hand. It clattered to the floor as its owner rebounded into his compatriot.
For a moment, neither the would-be robbers nor Tolevi moved. Then all three moved as quickly as they could — the robbers scrambling to leave, Tolevi scooping up the gun. But they were faster: by the time he rose, they were gone. He went to the door; not seeing them, he went back to the counter and examined the pistol.
Cheap Chinese knockoff. Sheesh.
“Babushka,” Tolevi called in Russian, not seeing the woman. “Grandma, where are you? It’s all right — they’re gone.”
“Oh, my God, my God, my God,” she answered, crawling out from under the counter on her hands and knees. She had armed herself with a sawed-off baseball bat.
Tolevi went around and helped her up.
“Are you all right?” he asked, still speaking Russian.
“Yes, those thieves — you are Russian?”
It was easier to say yes than explain that he was actually a mix.
“You are a good boy,” said the woman. Then, with some alarm, she added, “You are bleeding!”
He glanced at his hand. The glass had cut into the palm. It was barely a scratch, but the woman pulled him toward a sink behind the counter and made him rinse it off. He took a wad of paper towels and pressed it against his palm.
“What do you want?” asked the woman, switching to heavily accented English. “Anything!”
“I came in to get something to drink, but—”
“Whatever you want! Free! Take! Take! Wait until my son comes. He will give you a reward.”
“I don’t need a reward,” said Tolevi. “Thanks.”
“Don’t go. Wait!”
“I have to find my daughter,” he told her. “There are terrorists — didn’t you hear?”
“I heard, I heard. Go, get your daughter. Go.”
“Why don’t you hold on to this,” he told the old lady, giving her the gun. “Just in case those bastards come back. You know how to use it?”
She mimed the action of pointing a pistol with her hand. “Between the eyes,” she said. “Bam.”
“Good.”
“Then I kick them in the nuts,” she added in vulgar Russian. “To be sure.”
He gave her a thumbs-up as he left the store.
That’s my kind of grandma, Tolevi thought. I wonder if she’s available for babysitting.
16
Massina watched the SWAT officers getting ready to make their assault. There had already been shooting inside the hotel; they were taking too long.