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  “You have the number of Immigration? Thought I’d give them a call.”

  Mohan spit on the ground, but not too close to Jarvis. “I am legal, pig. You cannot harm me.”

  Jarvis laughed, the absurdity of the comment making even the trembling girl pay attention. Talking to the girl but looking at Mohan, “go into the hall. Don’t go past the stairs.” He left the safety off the gun and walked backwards to the door as the girl scurried out.

  “See you again, I hope.”

  Mohan couldn’t answer. He half-growled something in Arabic but didn’t move. Jarvis pulled the door closed as he left and half carried the girl out to the street.

  It was three years later now and the building looked exactly the same, except for three more years of grime and neglect. The address on the sheet he’d gotten in Racine was the same building, but different apartment. Maybe Mohan was moving up in the world. Standing outside, Jarvis pushed in the door at the top of a half dozen red stone steps, cracked and littered with wrappers. The buzzer system had long ago stopped being repaired after frequent breakins. A dingy foyer held a couple dozen scarred metal mailboxes set in the wall. Green and white striped tile, dirty and stained, covered the rest of the corridor. There were stairs immediately to his right. A heavy black banister was shiny from use, not cleaning. It was silent and empty. Jarvis took out the .38 and held it to his side. It was a different gun, but the similarity of the make and the surroundings generated a surprising hint of nostalgia. He suppressed it and moved down the stairs. Mohan’s new unit was in the basement.

  The walls were slick and in the dim light thrown by the couple remaining bulbs they looked wet. Urine stung his nostrils. Jarvis passed two doors on his right. Both had scratch marks and brand new locks. The first door on the left was padlocked, a sheriff’s notice taped over the peephole. Mohan’s place was the last apartment on the left. A trash bag that looked like it had been used more than once spilled over. Jarvis approached with his back against the wall, sliding the last few feet, knowing he’d have to dry clean the shirt. He raised the gun so it was pointing up, ready to swing forward quickly. With his left hand, he knocked on the door three times, loudly. In addition to the knob with a lock in it, there were at least two deadbolts visible. Probably a metal bar on the inside, too. He’d have better luck taking off the hinges than trying to knock down the door. But there was no window, no back exit. He’d checked, circling the building before. No escape. Completely illegal; ridiculously common in the city. He knocked again.

  There was rustling behind the door. Papers shuffled and something banged against wood. Jarvis relaxed his grip on the gun, settling into the combat attitude he’d learned years earlier. The sound of a door handle squeaking mixed with the distinct meow of a cat. He was confused for a moment, the sounds overlapping but somehow wrong. He sorted them out and realized a cat was in the apartment but the sound of a door opening was coming from behind, where he had just been. Someone was coming in the front door of the building. He froze, taking deep, slow breaths, and listened for the steps. If they faded away, he would resume knocking. They didn’t fade. Instead there was the squeak of a rubber sole on linoleum and the crackle of grocery bags rubbing against one another. The sound started to come closer and Jarvis could see a shadow at the top of the short staircase leading to the corridor he occupied. It was probably an old woman doing her shopping, or a drug addict tenant coming back from his morning score. There were five apartment doors in the hallway; eighty percent chance at least that it was someone other than Mohan. Legs appeared and the figure slowly descended, reluctantly. Both hands that emerged carried a couple of plastic bags from Fairway Markets, the orange emblem familiar to Jarvis. He lowered the gun, tucking it behind his leg and against the wall. The approaching man’s head cleared the top and Jarvis could see a clean-shaven and gaunt Mohan. He raised the gun and aimed it at him for the second time in three years, before Mohan’s eyes could adjust to the gloom and his brain sort out the scene in front of him. When it did, he was already on the bottom step. Mohan gasped. Instead of dropping the bags, he began to backpedal up the steps, rapidly but ineffectively. Almost tripping, he turned and scrambled, which was also ineffective because he hadn’t let go of his bags. To Jarvis’ eye, it was almost funny. Not quite, under the circumstances, but he couldn’t help but think of a cartoon character spinning his legs like wheels trying to get out of a mess.

  “Hold it, Mohan, I just want to have a chat.” The gun belied the intent. Mohan was up the stairs in three strides and halfway through the front door. Jarvis wanted to chase him down, gun blazing, and take him out with a diving tackle and the applause of pedestrians. Instead, he holstered his gun and sprinted after Mohan.

  It didn’t take much effort. Mohan got only half a block before his wheezing and Jarvis’ oft-exercised lungs were within a couple feet of one another. Jarvis could have jumped the last few steps for effect, but he decided it might mess up his knee. He gave Mohan a hard push from behind and the spindly legs couldn’t keep up with the sudden and unintentional acceleration. Mohan fell forward and turned his shoulder inward to break his fall. The timing was perfect; half a dozen plastic garbage cans lining the brick wall broke his fall. It was still early, for Greenwich Village, and no heads turned as Jarvis straddled his quarry and put a gun to Mohan’s temple.

  “Nice to see you. Not sure you’re so glad to see me, though.”

  “Fuck you! This is America you shit! You can’t do this to…”

  Jarvis hit him abruptly on the crown of the head. The gun made a dull thud. It would hurt like hell and leave a bump but not knock him unconscious. “Yeah, America. Land of the free and home of the terrorists.”

  Mohan didn’t hear, the explosion in his head blotting out any sights and sounds for half a minute. He moaned and curled up in a ball until the wave of pain passed slowly, like an ice cream-induced headache. Jarvis put the gun away and waited. When the moaning stopped he grabbed Mohan by the back of the neck and dragged him into a sitting position.

  “I’ll shoot you right here, in the knee, and drag you back. Or you can man up and walk.” Mohan looked up at Jarvis and any protestations disappeared. He struggled to stand, keeping his hands on the swelling spot on his head. Staggering like a drunk, he headed back to his apartment as Jarvis gave periodic encouraging pushes. A few people were on the street now and watched the two men walking. No one said anything. It wasn’t that unusual a scene.

  They made it to the apartment without incident, other than Mohan stumbling into the trash bag outside his front door and expanding the scope and eclecticism of the crap spilling out. Jarvis took the keys from Mohan’s fumbling hands and opened the door, but pushed his captive through first. Just in case. The room was worse than the hole Mohan had lived in before. It only qualified as a studio rather than a closet because there was a tiny bathroom to the left and on the right a built-in stove and miniature counter. The smell was reminiscent of an alley in summertime when the trash hadn’t been picked up for a week. The only thing missing was the scent of human excrement. Wait, there it was. Jarvis pushed Mohan toward a sagging brown object that resembled a couch. He chose to stand. Ebola lurked on every surface. Mohan seemed unperturbed as he plopped onto the cushions. A puff of dust or something less innocuous wafted up. Jarvis held his breath until it settled.

  “Been doing pretty well for yourself, huh?”

  Mohan glared at him. He opened his mouth but before he could form a word, Jarvis interrupted.

  “Yeah, I know, ‘go fuck yourself.’ You need to expand your comeback repertoire.” Mohan didn’t laugh appreciatively. “Let’s cut to the chase. It’ll save you some pain and me some time. What’s up with Wisconsin?”

  It sounded like a quiz show question but it made Mohan sit bolt upright, his headache forgotten. Whatever fear had been on his face before was just a warm-up. He looked instinctively toward the kitchen area, at a small refrigerator that barely deserved the name. Jarvis followed his gaze and when Mohan saw, he j
umped up. The .38 was pointing at his groin before he had could take a step.

  “Get on your knees.” In Mohan’s world, that was a precursor to a bullet in the head. Jarvis just wanted to keep him from leaping the handful of steps to the closet where there was probably a gun or two. He walked sideways to the kitchen area, not taking his eyes off Mohan who had gone down one knee at a time and clearly wasn’t sure whether to be more afraid of Jarvis’ pistol or what he imagined his handlers would do when they found out he’d been caught. Jarvis opened the tiny refrigerator door and flicked his eyes back and forth between the man in the center of the room, genuflecting, and the contents of the fridge. A Styrofoam container, Orange Crush, hummus, a very old lemon, and a very fancy silver cylinder, eight inches tall and outclassing anything else in the apartment or within a hundred feet. It looked like a high-tech nuclear device component. Jarvis switched the gun to his left hand and took out the metal container. It was surprisingly light. Mohan moaned, as if he’d held out some hope that Jarvis wouldn’t find his secret in the sparsely populated second shelf. Looking at the container gave Jarvis a sick feeling in his stomach. He walked over to Mohan and handed it to him.

  “Open it.” Mohan looked at him as if opportunity had been presented suddenly. “If you spill what I think is in it, your blood will be mixed with it two seconds later.”

  Mohan twisted the top and bottom in opposite directions simultaneously. The cylinder was threaded but came apart quickly. The top pulled away to reveal a glass tube nestled tightly in a wrap of spongy foam. A drop from twenty feet would probably not have affected the glass. There was a lightly yellow liquid sloshing in the partly filled tube. The sight of it turned Jarvis’ sick feeling to anger. He pictured Brin sipping a cup of coffee laced with the stuff. He wanted to make Mohan crack open the vial and drink deeply. Instead he raised the gun to eye level and walked menacingly toward him.

  “Who’s running this? It isn’t the guy in Wisconsin. He’s a distribution point.” Jarvis’ voice was steady but strained. He was just a foot away from a quivering Mohan. He stopped and pulled back the hammer. “Who?”

  Mohan’s hands began to shake and the liquid sloshed. He was summoning up courage but it was like grabbing at drops of water as they faded into hot desert sand. He looked down at the vial and up at Jarvis. “I…no, no…don’t shoot…but I can’t…” His accent got heavier as he become more agitated.

  Jarvis took the last step to close the distance between them. He put the gun to the man’s forehead and could feel the tip of the barrel slip slightly on sweat. Mohan looked away and down. He began to mumble, maybe a prayer or maybe a pleading to be left alone.

  “I’m going to stop all this. I’ve already got the list of everyone else, all the assholes like you who want to pretend to be martyrs. Killing civilians. But I need to know who’s behind this – who has an antidote.” Mohan looked up when he heard that. “That’s right, moron. You think your handlers wouldn’t have an antidote in case they needed it for themselves because one of you dumb shits decided to use it against each other? Now give me a goddamn name…” His voice was no longer strained. It was dead and it held no mercy. Jarvis knew Mohan was nothing more than a wannabe, a reluctant soldier trying to squirm ahead. He wasn’t a leader or a believer.

  Mohan’s quivering stopped. He looked past the gun and into Jarvis’ eyes. He saw the calm, the certainty, and it gave him strength over the fear. He opened his mouth as though to give Jarvis an answer. And then he cracked the vial open with his hands, spilling some of the poison on the ground and cutting his fingers on the glass. Before Jarvis could knock it from his hands, Mohan brought it to his open mouth and shoved the end onto his tongue. The jagged glass cut and the poison flowed over the gashes and down his throat. It was oily and tasteless. Jarvis was pushing the cylinder and broken glass away, grunting and knocking Mohan down and onto his side to get the liquid to come out of his mouth. But it was too late. Mohan smiled and tried to form words as the pain hit his gut and Jarvis’ arms surrounded him in an attempt to squeeze the poison from his system.

  Mohan silently mouthed “fuck you” but died halfway through, his body convulsing and a heavy foam mixed with blood coming out of his throat and onto the carpet. Jarvis stood and looked down at the body, his gun still in his hand, and he closed his eyes.

  “Goddammit. Goddammit!” He fought the urge to kick Mohan, to pummel him, to beat him back to life. “Goddamn son of a…”

  There was liquid from the vial on his hand and blood and sputum on his wrist from the dead man. He put the gun in his belt and washed off in the filthy sink.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The street was busier now. Early browsers of the antique clothing stores mixed with tourists and guys with suits heading to a bank building two blocks away. Jarvis stood on the top step and surveyed the scene. The FBI was tracking down their list of poisoners and Jarvis still had half a dozen names on his stolen sheet. But by now most or all had probably destroyed any connection to whoever was behind the attacks or they had gone underground. More people would die when they spun the operation back up. Brin would be one of them. He watched a young couple strolling the sidewalk, ignoring the bustle around them. She hung on his arm and he pretended to be too cool to care, but he beamed. Jarvis followed them with his eyes as they passed, his mind on the FBI agent, on the man in Racine, on Brin in the hospital. And his thoughts flew upstairs to Mohan, another dead body that was a dead end. The couple was further down the street now and they kissed without stopping. Jarvis watched and his eyes widened. He turned and pushed the front door of the apartment building in so hard it crashed against the wall and the couple on the street turned, startled. Jarvis was already inside, taking the steps two at a time and pushing open the door behind which Mohan still lay motionless and dead on the floor. Jarvis closed the door and strode quickly the few steps to the body. He bent and grabbed Mohan’s right arm. The limb moved like a heavy piece of rope. Jarvis turned the arm so the left hand flopped open. He didn’t need to touch the hand. He could see the gold band on the third finger. Mohan had married. Maybe that’s what had given him the courage to be a martyr.

  Jarvis looked around the room again, with fresh eyes. The closet where a gun no doubt hid had a long coat, a scarf, and a man’s hat. He pushed aside the coat and there it was – next to the shotgun a woman’s raincoat. He looked across the room to the one piece of furniture that wasn’t the couch, the formica table, or the two chairs. He went across and pulled open the top two drawers of the dresser. The one on the right held unattractive, modest women’s underwear. Mohan was married, and she lived here. Either she was his inspiration or his handler. Whichever it was, she would know something. Jarvis went to the front door and made sure it was properly closed and undisturbed. He took one of the folding chairs and put it to the left of the front door and across the small room. Anyone coming in would see him second, after the body on the floor. He settled into the chair, gun loosely in his lap, and waited.

  It was three hours and fourteen minutes before he heard shuffling outside in the hallway. Jarvis didn’t move as the walking stopped and the sound of grocery bags settling onto the ground crept under the open space at the bottom of the door. He waited until a key entered the lock and rattled a few seconds before catching, then he stood quietly and timed his crossing the room to coincide with the door swinging open. He let it hit him gently on the shoulder as he stood against the wall and waited for her to pick up the bags and come in. He saw her shoulder as she entered and stopped. She saw the body and read the scene immediately. The grocery bags dropped and she took a step forward, hand to her mouth in a silent scream. Jarvis swung the door shut behind her and she did not notice right away.

  “Mohan! Mohan!” It was desperate, but not forlorn or shocked. She was angry. “Mohan! What have you done! You stupid…” She sensed even in her surprise she was not the only breathing person in the room. She whipped around, hands in a protective gesture.

  Jarvis raised the g
un to her just as he had done hours earlier to her husband. “Sit.” He nodded to the chair he’d waited in for hours. “Now.”

  He felt none of the sympathy he might for a woman who’d lost her love. The venom in her face was meant for him, Jarvis, and it was undiluted with grief. She’d been a manipulator and Jarvis would treat her like the enemy. She glared but did as she was told. There was no recognition in her face. Jarvis was a stranger to her, unlike the reaction he’d gotten from the dead kid in Tarzana or the distributor in Racine.

  “What do you want, pig, are you here to steal from us? Do we look like we have riches?” Her voice was husky, like it had been dry and raspy for years. The accent was distinctly Afghan, though Jarvis couldn’t place the region. His ear was not as good as Rini’s. “Did you think we had diamonds hidden in that?” She pointed disdainfully to the body on the floor and the cylinder still in Mohan’s grasp. She might have been pointing at a safe in an otherwise unoccupied room. Despite the accent, her English was excellent, better than her American-born neighbors probably, and she was educated. Her clothes did not match her haughtiness. Faded jeans that did not flatter a generally unflattering figure. Hair in a worn scarf. Blouse difficult to describe because it was forgettable. She still wore her heavy brown coat, which may have been expensive before its first owner donated it to Good Will.

  Jarvis didn’t trust that the coat pockets were completely empty. His gun didn’t waver as he instructed her to remove the coat and toss it on the ground in front of him. Her eyes widened for a moment as the idea flitted across her mind that the intruder had some sick sexual intention, but she abandoned the thought immediately. Jarvis was intent and angry, not bent on inflicting rape. She complied. He kicked it aside and his foot hit something heavy and metal within the fabric.

  “Why are you here, bastard?” There were gutturals in her vowels and almost a trill on the “d” in bastard. She had none of the demureness that comes from years of wearing the habib. Mid-thirties, angry, confident; Mohan would have been putty.