The Last Minute (21 page)

Good Lord, I thought. What did we do before blogs? Would anyone have written this up and sent it into the newspaper’s
letters’ section or stood on a tottery soapbox at the corner of the park and brayed out their thoughts about a private family
matter while still somehow making it all about themselves? Jack must’ve confided in the friend after his father’s death.

I turned my gaze back onto Mrs Ming’s building doorway. The doorman stood there, watching the rain. ‘So our Jack and Mama
Ming are not close.’

‘But he’s desperate. Truly desperate. And … ’

‘And what?’

‘If he’s turning himself into the CIA, then he’s planning to vanish. Maybe he wants his mother to go with him. Or maybe he’s
coming here to say goodbye to her. A final goodbye.’

‘I don’t know.’ I didn’t want to know this about Jack Ming. I didn’t want to know him as, you know, a
person
. I wanted to know where he stood at a certain moment and where I could kill him without getting caught. I closed my eyes.
Novem Soles was going to form me into a monster, sure as Dr Frankenstein stitching together the quilt of corpses’ castoffs
and blasting wasted vein and muscle with electricity. I didn’t know what I would be when I arose from the laboratory table,
except I hoped I’d be a father with his child back.

But I didn’t want to know about Jack Ming’s … problems. His problems were all going to go away very soon.

Jack Ming’s dad dying at his feet. It made me think of Danny. My brother, not my son.

My brother. He’d died in an awful, humiliating way, gone to Afghanistan as part of a relief team. He’d pushed past the boundaries
of common sense in his drive to help people, ventured with a college friend into the scrubby hills beyond Kandahar, gotten
grabbed. No one heard from him for three weeks and then the video flickered into monstrous life, viraled by YouTube: Danny
my brother kneeling on a dried mud floor, surrounded by balaclaved thugs who made him spout nonsense in a voice so quavering
it was hardly his own, then spoke their own sacrificial junk, then cut off his head while the camera ticked off every final
second. Then they cut his friend’s throat.

You think murder splinters a family or brings it closer together? I don’t know; depends on how thick the glue has already
been laid. But execution is a different kind of murder. When your brother is decapitated with an arm-sized knife because he
went to help people, and anyone in the free world can see his final moments courtesy of the unthinking, unblinking internet,
then it is your family’s worst nightmare made public, made entertainment, made eternal. You can never block the memory of
it; the horror is just a few clicks away.

Would you believe people emailed me the link to the video? They did. I don’t know why they would, what kink of cruelty drove
them, but they did.

‘Do you think he could turn to one of these old friends?’ I asked.

‘He’s still wanted for questioning by the FBI. So, he might not get a warm reception from a friend who doesn’t want to be
made an accessory.’

‘Those charges will go away if he gets his meet with the CIA,’ I said. ‘It’ll be part of the surrender deal, guaranteed.’

‘But surely his own mother would be the least likely person to turn him in.’

‘True. She’s a career diplomat. She has a lot to lose if he resurfaces; he could be an embarrassment.’

‘So what? We sit here and wait and scarf California rolls all day like private eyes on surveillance? He could have already
been here and gone.’ The desperation painted her voice.

‘No,’ I said. ‘We go in and, if he’s there, well, that’s done, and if he’s not, we find out where he is.’

A limo slid up to the curb. A uniformed man with a strong build got out, spoke to the doorman.

A few moments later, Sandra Ming stepped outside.

‘Where’s the rental car?’ I said.

‘Around the corner, in a garage.’

‘I want you to follow that limo, I want to know where she’s going.’

Leonie slammed the laptop shut. Mrs Ming spoke with the driver; he appeared to be showing her some sort of ID. The doorman
had taken a careful step back toward his usual perch. ‘It’ll be gone before I can catch up,’ Leonie said.

‘Just go, wheel around, she’ll still be here. I’ll make sure.’

‘I don’t know how to tail a car.’

‘Follow where it goes and don’t get caught. It’s for the children.’

‘Thanks.’ Leonie sprinted out of the sushi bar, the angry chef glaring at her like she was dodging the bill. I threw ample
dollars at the wasabi bowl.

As I came out onto 59th, into the humid curtain of the day, the limo driver closed the rear passenger door behind Mrs Ming
and ducked back behind the wheel. I had to time this as carefully as a shot. Get across the street without being hit by either
a cab or a bicycle or another car; time it so I got a word with that driver.

I pulled my phone from my pocket, placed it before my eyes, the modern electronic blinder. My thumbs scrabbled on the touchscreen
like I was writing the most urgent message in the history of humanity. I kept my gaze down, hung back from the car, trying
to move fast enough and also not veer out of
the driver’s blind spot. I risked a glance. A taxi barreled toward me, but I still had room. He was clearly expecting me to
jog, pick up the pace. New York cabbies are reincarnated kamikaze pilots and they subscribe to the inarguable theory that
it’s best that you get out of their way. It’s the food chain at work.

The limo yanked out from the curb, and I stepped right in its way. The right front fender clipped my leg, a nice hard tap
that would register not only in my pain centers but inside the limo itself. I yelped and fell, sprawling back into the street,
diving like a soccer player hoping for a red card against the opposition, and the cab stopped about a foot from my head; I
could see the reflection of my face, carnival-house bent, in the gleam of its newly washed fender.

The driver and the cabbie both burst from their cars, the limo driver saying nothing, which made him very unusual. You might
expect protestations of innocence, or of concern. The limo driver just looked at me with eyes carved from the same indifferent
chrome as the cabbie’s fender. The cabbie practically brayed at me in English, accented with a sharp Hebrew.

The doorman, though, he was golden. He bolted forward, knelt by me. ‘Sir? You okay?’

‘Ohhhh,’ I moaned. ‘My leg.’

‘You stepped out in front of me,’ the limo driver said. ‘It’s your fault. Watch where you’re walking.’ He spoke with a mild
eastern European accent.

Sandra Ming, I saw, remained in the limo.

‘You’re right,’ I said. Shakily, the doorman helped me to my feet. ‘I … I think I’m okay.’

The limo driver, the doorman, they exchanged a glance. Pure unease. The doorman’s said
I don’t think this is the kind of guy who’s gonna sue if we help him
. The driver’s said
I don’t care
. He
looked like he’d just as soon run over me as he would a speed bump.

The cabbie hovered, uncertain. ‘Good
you
were paying attention,’ I said to the cabbie. ‘Unlike some others.’

There: I threw down the gauntlet. The limo driver slid his steely stare back onto me as the doorman forced me toward the curb.
Traffic began to back up behind the cabbie, horns jeering in the infinitely patient way of New Yorkers. The cabbie saw I was
now the doorman’s problem. He started to slide back into his taxi.

And, four cars behind him, I could see Leonie, in a silver Prius. She wore an expression on her face that mixed nervousness
with the determination only a parent can have.

I staggered to the curb, waving off help. ‘I’m all right,’ I said. Normally a person might ask the driver for his license,
or his phone number, in case there was a further injury. And I thought about it, but I weighed that it might send his suspicions
soaring. I didn’t like the vibe from him at all; he was watching me in the way that the interviewers did years ago when I
applied at Special Projects. Measuring me, solely as an enemy. I didn’t know who he was and I decided it was best to play
nice now that Leonie was in position. I raised a hand. ‘It was my fault, you’re right, I wasn’t watching what I was doing.
Sorry.’ I put my phone down at my side and powered it off.

The driver inspected me with a studied glance.

‘What? What the hell now?’ I said, earning an Oscar nomination for my role as Irritated New Yorker.

The limo driver got back into the car without another word and he inched away from the curb. Other cars caught in the jam
had filtered past him, but, when he merged into the stop and start traffic, Leonie in the rented Prius was two cars behind
him.
She looked like she intended to cement herself to his bumper. I noticed she’d put on large, heavy sunglasses big and dark
enough that she could have done welding wearing them, and her lush auburn hair was pulled back and covered with a Mets baseball
cap. Something about her look was vaguely familiar.

I was nervous for her. She wasn’t trained to shadow someone, she’d been up most of the night and was running on excitement
and fear. The driver looked like a tough customer. She was clearly smart, book-smart, and if she was used to dealing with
criminals she must have developed her own toughness. She had to follow him.

‘You sure you’re all right?’ the doorman said.

‘My leg’s hurting and I think my phone’s broken. I just need to sit down for a minute.’ I was careful not to ask him to let
me inside the building. Let it be his idea.

‘Sir, come here, why don’t you sit inside for a minute. Or at least wash the grit off your hands. Is there someone I can call
for you?’

The air inside felt nice after the humid squeeze of the afternoon. The doorman pointed to a bathroom where I could rinse my
bloodied knuckles and I thanked him.

‘I’m sure I’m okay, I don’t want to be any trouble. I’ll just wash up and let myself back out.’ I limped extra hard as I walked
to the men’s room. Another resident, a heavy-set man pushing an older woman in a wheelchair, exited the elevator and the doorman
moved to open the door for them. The heavy man was busy convincing the wheelchair lady that going for an outing, even with
the chance of rain, was a good idea, his words running over the protestations of the woman like water gushing in a stream.

I washed my hands, quickly. Then I glanced out the bathroom door. The doorman was busy hailing the pair a cab. I had gotten
very few lucky breaks since my pregnant wife vanished but this was one of them. I ducked into the elevator.

Sandra Ming was on the fourth floor.

The doorman would likely look for me, or he might assume I slipped out when he was hailing cabs or providing directions to
confused tourists. So I didn’t have much time.

No answer to the knock at the Mings’ door. I dropped to my knees and brought out the lock picks. Thirty seconds later the
door was open.

I shut it behind me and listened to the hush. No one was here. I didn’t have a gun with me and I moved through the rooms.
Den, decorated with objet d’art from China, from Africa, from South America. A Mayan mask frowned at me from the wall. A kitchen.
The coffee maker was on, the scent of dark French roast a caress in the air. A length of hallway, and a master bedroom. Immaculate.
A woman’s room – it held a woman’s scent, a subtle mix of irises and Dior perfume. My wife had worn the same scent and for
a moment grief overwhelmed my caution. Nothing like a memory of your wife’s skin to bring down the avalanche. I pushed it
away.

Back down the hallway. Past a study, where I glanced into the doorway. A large desk, one with a masculine weight that didn’t
quite match the feel of the rest of the apartment.

I stepped into a bedroom, frozen in post-collegiate amber. Jack Ming’s room. A framed diploma from NYU. A collection of books,
but not textbooks: these were books he liked to read. A well-worn history of Hong Kong – had he been happy there? Biographies
about computer pioneers like Charles Babbage, Ada Lovelace and Steve Jobs. George R. R. Martin’s epic fantasies. A bound collection
of graphic novels, of Iron Man, Spider-Man, the Avengers.

From the wall Jack Ming’s face looked out at me from a scattering of party pictures, the kind taken by a pro photographer
at college events. His smile looked pained, as though the party wasn’t quite his deal. His hair was longer and his face was
fuller. His friends often had buzzed smiles and protective arms around Jack’s slender shoulders. He had a shy but sincere
grin.

He was just a kid, goddamn it, just a kid I was supposed to kill.

The apartment was cool, but a finger of humidity slid down my spine as I walked into the bathroom. I checked the tub. Droplets
still beaded the surface. The bathroom was connected to his room. No reason for anyone else to shower in here.

Jack Ming had been here. Recently. Within the past hour. I might only have missed him, arriving at my perch at the sushi bar,
by minutes.

Daniel could die because I’d missed him.

Dust, a light coating, touched his bedroom desk. It didn’t look like he’d set anything down in here. I could see the barest
indentation on the bed where he had sat.

He’d come here, he’d left. Without his mother. Had he said his goodbyes? Was she not helping him? Your wanted son reappears,
on the run, and within an hour the reunion is done and he’s fled and Mom’s in a limo with a driver who looks like he used
to train boxers for the Russian Olympic team.

What had Jack Ming needed here? Something more than saying farewell to his mother?

I went back to her bedroom and made a fast but thorough search. I found nothing of interest: Sandra Ming had stripped her
life down to the barest essentials. There was a small, elegant phone by the bedside. I picked it up and hit star-69. The phone
rang.

On the fourth ring, someone picked up. But there was only silence.

I waited. The other side waited. I could hear a soft, soft breathing.

I took a jump: ‘Yes, I’m calling on behalf of Mrs Ming.’