"Where is everyone? Is everyone in the building gone?"
This elicits a second, even less committal, shrug.
"Is this a fire drill? No? Is it the storm? Hello?"
Nathan heads for the elevators. The doors about to close, a pudgy hand wedges them open and Krivit enters. His overcoat is dry.
They watch the floor numbers pass. Krivit's breath whistles through his nose.
The elevator car passes ten. "It feels like everyone's left town," Nathan says.
It's every man for himself."
"Well, I hope you weren't waiting long."
"I heard you got out."
"You had nothing to do with that, of course."
“You worry about you."
Nathan nods. "Words to live by."
"Don't fuck with me," Krivit says sharply. "Not after last night." Out comes his hanky. His forehead has beaded with sweat. "Where is the writ?"
"It's all upstairs," Nathan assures him, listening to himself almost in surprise. As if it really were done and by his own efforts the little Russian weasel, the little Pushkin, will only hours from now be free to roam Brighton Beach, eat a knish then whack the kids who sold him out then fly home and be king.
The elevator car passes twenty.
Nathan says, quietly, as if not to offend, "You know of course what you've done."
Krivit hits the button for twenty-one and the elevator halts, the doors open. Nathan expects something dramatic in the hallway, as in the movies, a crowd, a gun, a clue. But nothing at all is there.
Krivit braces the doors as if shoring up the world, no mere middleman now but something much more dangerous, someone much farther toward one end, someone in general command. Nathan remembers what Santos said yesterday morning, that he didn't trust Krivit. But it's not that simple. Trust, what is that? He knows his father doesn't trust the fat middleman but he sees now that that doesn't much matter. Krivit is a beautiful thing. Nathan hasn't, over the years, given Krivit enough credit. Not enough credit at all.
"You have one hour to get to court," Krivit says. "They've already postponed twice."
Nathan is sweating again. The air breathes hot, as nightmares will. And the buzz in his ears, the roar lingering from the subway, he'd thought, is instead steadily approaching, getting closer. "You know of course they'll want to talk to you about Isabel."
Krivit's upper lip begins to quiver, as a dog's does at the first evidence of something to defend against, or devour.
But Nathan goes on. "I saw you there Saturday night. I saw your car. I haven't told anyone."
The bag man is holding it in, tolerating him as he would a child.
"Just tell me why," Nathan says, "and who? You wouldn't have done it without orders. Or would you?"
"Just get to court," Krivit snaps, and, as if at the climax of a magic trick, abruptly claps his hands and holds up his quilted palms, scrubbed and empty, setting free the birds. "That, my friend, is you."
Nathan looks upward, away; nothing there, tricked. "That's me."
"I've delivered the message. You're on your own now, buddy boy.
Nathan shrugs. "Like you said. Every man for himself."
Krivit steps back and the doors shut and Nathan, alone, proceeds one flight up, where, whistling, he strolls down the empty and half-lit hallway. The writ in his throat like a wedged lozenge. Swallowing, working it down, he can feel it actually drop, in with the other refuse, the false assurances, the vows disregarded as they were made, dissolving in their juices, adding to his blood the nutrients of his efforts: the money, the blow jobs, the occasional hug of deep thanks, once a declaration of love, one with possibilities – from Claire, who only wanted groceries to whip up her modest recipe for happiness: occasional affection, loyalty, new small life fluttering in their hands, the curbing of his unacceptable pleasures. Was it so much to ask?
The office door of Stein & Stein is locked.
"Hello?" he calls to the presswood veneer, but the door doesn't reply. "Anyone here?" he meekly asks the floor. He pokes at the lock one key after another, achieving, he thinks, success, then leans in with his shoulder, once again breaking into a place he knows and to which he presumably belongs.
The lights are off. Except one. His, he believes, down the hall, the empty fluorescent white splashing out of the open doorway across the floor and up the opposite wall. Two o'clock Monday afternoon, the biggest week in the short, happyish life of Stein Stein and the twenty-second-floor office is vacant, abandoned, it seems-as does the entire building-for even higher ground.
Nathan pauses inside his office. Etched into his windows he finds himself, and he is alone, an outline scribbled in with patches of blazer but otherwise blank. Beyond him, despite the hour, hovers inky night. Sheets of rain coat the glass. Three fingers of lightning split the sky into a map of white rivers, and for a long moment the sky and office and he himself vanish in white flame.
Reluctantly, he opens his eyes. At his feet Baron is draped like a sphinx over his $500 portmanteau, icicles of drool melting on the burgundy leather, his long leash wound twice around the desk. A parking stub for the lot around the block is wedged into the collar, along with a note saying only: He has been fed. A message spike blooming like a flower with little pink slips has fallen to the floor. In the air, the rancid odor of fresh piss. Baron's goopy, sad-sack eyes stare back at Nathan, as if to say, What did you expect?
Nathan drops to his knees to praise and pat the dog, who cocks his massive, purebred head in confusion. Nathan slips him some Cheez-lts bought downstairs then turns to his stereo and calmly, as if he has all the time in the world, contemplates his office music collection, his mood inversely proportional to the chaos outside. He has chosen for this moment Monteverdi. Angelic lamentations bridged by long silences. Bending to address his messages, he peels the papers one sheet at a time, peeking at the names. The paper shivers in his grip, which means his hands must be shaking, too. He's now been two days without sleep, or is it three?
There must be thirty messages, dutifully scribed in impeccable, acquiescent penmanship, obviously by one of Chang's cadre. The usual suspects: Clarido twice, Schreck once, as if he could have forgotten where Nathan was-unless, of course, he knew he'd be back. Amparo called three times; her last message reads: Left me here to rot. Called brother. Look over your shoulder. Look again. Look forever.
Despite himself, Nathan does look, and sees: empty hallway. A spectacular refrain of conflicted violins and cellos reaches his ears.
Another message: Errol Santos. Friend, foe. Curious, Nathan fishes out his beeper: There is Errol Santos, in fact, three more times.
He considers all his messages, voice mail, beeper, answering service: who takes them down? Nathan wonders. Someone on the other end, someone alive. The innocuous, neutral answering service has the power to concoct one's entire life, a life out of reach, telling you who your friends are, who your enemies are. Who called? Who cared? Who didn't? Who won't? It's up to those operators, his message-makers. They are his window out, conspiring with someone or by themselves to paint the view.
He snatches the phone and punches in Serena's number in the Bronx. The phone is picked up instantly. A man barks, "Yeah."
Nathan scrolls through the men in Serena's life, brothers, father-mad, stupid, and dead, he knows them all. Briefly, he attempts to conjure Serena herself but can come up only with general island features, raven-black hair, eyes as black as undreamt night. He seems to recall pink panties. Lately she's been nothing but a miniature readout. Giddily-another joke at his expense – he wonders if this man, this gruff voice, could be Serena, if Serena exists at all.
Nathan hangs up, dials again, this time his 900 number. "This is Nathan Stein and you have fifteen seconds to terminate this call before being charged $99.99." He will pay this bill. He will owe himself. All of him collecting in this one container.