Agent Anne,” I say, making eye contact in the mirror. “It’s a distinct pleasure.”

“Look.” She’s projecting a much deadlier aura than during our previous run-in. “I’d prefer we just make this fast and simple. No static.”

“All right, let’s relax. I’m always happy to be of service to the Bureau,” I say.

She caught me as I was getting the papers out of my coat, my hand is still half in my jacket. I shift my reach, slow, and get a hold of the Beretta.

Anne smacks the butt of her Glock against my bad ear. I lurch to the right, hearing pink noise, and a wall of pain rushes up and tackles me.

Swearing through her teeth, she reaches around and yanks out my Beretta, throws it next to her on the backseat, then retrieves the Sig and does the same. And she hits me sideways again, on the other side of my head. I’m momentarily deaf.

She’s talking, drilling her pistol into the base of my skull. “… fuckwad, so you need to turn down the smart-ass, turn it way, way down. Don’t even speak.”

Finding it hard to focus, I try nodding to indicate I understand but my muscles won’t cooperate. I think she did some permanent damage. Try to tell her I missed the first part of her rap but the action is lost somewhere between synapses.

“I know your type and I have no patience for you, so let’s cut right to it.”

I bring my hands up to either side of my head.

“One: you stole an item out of the Do Rite office. I want you to give it to me and I want you to do this now. And two: you know the location of a woman named Iveta Shapsko. I want that information, pronto.”

My palms come away bloody. Nowhere to wipe them. I manage, “Don’t have any idea what you mean, Anne, on either count.”

“Okay, lean forward, hands behind your back.”

I try to cooperate. Really, I do. I sense her seriousness of purpose and I’m not going to play with that. Rest my head on the steering wheel. I hear the rustle of metal on metal, and feel cuffs placed on my wrists, the ratchet of the lock engaging. She’s got them on tight.

I hear her open the back door, slam it. I glance at the power lock button, make a move for it, but the cuffs prevent me. Anne pulls open the driver’s-side door, grabs me by the arm.

“Out.”

Bump my noggin on the roof, get to my feet unsteadily. Anne pulls the chain on the cuffs high. My sphincter spasms for a second and I let out a little hiss. She steers me around the vehicle in this excruciating yoga position, yanks the car key out of my pocket, pulls open the passenger’s door, and shoves my bony self in.

Damn, this girl is strong. I misread her completely. Probably by design on her part. I blame myself 100 percent for not paying more attention. This scene is completely off the third rail and I can’t find a soft spot to go for.

“I’m FBI and I’m taking this man into custody, no need, under control …” Calling back to the soldiers in front of the Tower, presumably in response to a question. She’s got her badge out, holding it high as she circles back around the side of the car.

Anne slides into the driver’s seat. Punches me in the jaw, hard. My temple cracks against the passenger’sside window, and my hat falls off and lands at my feet.

She keys the ignition, reverses out, tires screech as she guns it up Central Park West.

My mouth is filling up with warm liquid, and I spit blood on the dash. A tooth. Try to speak. “Anne …”

Blowing through blinking yellow lights, accelerating … 63rd Street, hello, goodbye.

I slide against Anne’s shoulder as she cuts a haphazard right onto the 65th Street park throughway. She breaks hard, and I’m flung forward, head-butting the windshield. The drive is cut off with police tape, piles of rock, and a fallen telephone pole.

“Shit,” says Anne, then throws the car into reverse and starts backing up.

I look at the dashboard, finding blood, mucous, and the word I want to see: Airbag. Swinging my leg over, I bring my foot down on top of hers with all of my remaining strength, and together we press the gas pedal to the floor.

Anne screams wordlessly in my ear, tries to bite me. I bring my head up hard against her mouth and nose, hearing something crack. We careen backward across Central Park West, she’s trying to pull the wheel left but loses her grip. The Volt jumps the curb and slams into a building at approximately thirty miles per hour.

There’s a lull, relative quiet, joined by a new sound. Dry rubber on glass.

Think I’ve been blinded. I work my head to the left, see a mop of thick dark hair resting on a big gray balloon. The wipers are on.

I struggle to sit up … Air bags, the air bags activated. As advertised. Having borrowed that maneuver from some movie I saw on a plane ages and ages ago. Remember thinking, yeah right, no fucking way that’d work for anybody.

So I’m pretty pleased it panned out. Jah be praised.

My door has been bent and forced partially open, the entire car jackknifed. I start pushing on it with my upper arm. Apparently Anne is awake, because she grabs a handful of my hair. I shake her off and slide out the door onto the pavement, landing on my shoulder.

I think about the briefcase in the trunk.

Struggling up, I turn to see Anne has her gun out and is fighting with her door.

Fuck me, it’s hard to stand up with a bad knee and no use of your arms. But I make it happen. No choice. I need to beat a retreat. I aim for the park, my hands completely numb, blood cut off by the cuffs.

Her first shot goes slightly wide, kicking up a chunk of asphalt just to the right in front of me. I don’t turn around. And I doubt she’ll miss twice so I just charge headlong toward the low wall next to the 65th Street transverse.

I hear the next shot as I’m flipping myself over the wall and onto a steep, muddy embankment. I slide perhaps ten feet, leaves and dirt fill my mouth, and my fall is broken abruptly as I collide with a tree trunk. I’m winded, I wheeze, sucking at the air as if through a dandelion stem.

Anne comes over the wall, skids, and collapses backward, landing on her tailbone, her skirt riding up over her midsection. She’s lost a heel, kicks off the other shoe, and scoots toward me, rather gracefully, on her butt. Catches an adjacent tree, steadies herself, and trains the gun on me. Her mouth is contorted, a red messy wreck.

I spit out leaves, blood, pebbles. We’re both panting. Can’t seem to straighten my eyes out, pretty sure I’m concussed.

“Asshole. You broke my nose,” she says, nasal.

I try to regain control of my lungs, whisper-croak: “Sorry.”

“The box,” says Anne, spits. “And the woman. Spill.” She looks demonic; my vision is dimmed but her eyes and bloody teeth remain bright. “Woman’s back at the Trump, right? And the box, it’s in the car? Yeah? Am I right?”

My head lolls back, but I can speak. “Who you working for, Anne?”

She laughs. “Fuck you. Who are YOU working for, mister? Cause nobody can tell. Hey, you think anybody can get by on a government salary? I’ve got a six-yearold girl and student loans straight up my ass. Harvard fucking Law. Brian pays me triple. I’m still FBI but I freelance. Like you, Decimal. So fucking what.”

I had started to slip away, but I drag my head back. All I can think is, I’ll never get the dirt out of my mouth. Insects, hookworms, tapeworms. Potential tenants for my small intestine.

Try to get back to the thread of the conversation. “Freelance, yeah …”

“Decimal. Look. Look at me.”

To the best of my ability I look at her. I think of Kali, goddess of annihilation. Maybe that’s racist, just cause she’s part Indian or Pakistani or whatever.

“You’re about to die right here, unless you tell me where the box and the girl are.”

I don’t remember why I shouldn’t tell her. So I do. Well, half of it anyway.

“The box. The one with the haunted-house hand in it? It’s in the trunk. In, in my briefcase. Just take it. The woman is at my place, the Main Branch Public Library. Don’t want any more trouble out of you all, do what you have to do.”

She stares at me. Kali the Destroyer. “I believe you.” She aims the .45 at my face and cocks the hammer.

Nothing I can do about it. I prepare to get shot. Keep my eyes open at least. Fuck her, fuck you, and fuck everything.

The gunshot comes from above and to the right.

Anne whips her head to the left, then forward, plop, straight into the dirt.

It takes me a moment or two, but it becomes clear that Anne has been shot, not me. Blood snakes out the side of her head, darker and brighter than her hair.

I’m not making connections as quickly as I’d like, having just had my skull pounded on. I’m very tired. Reach in my pocket. Thank God, the key’s still there.

Someone or something is coming down the embankment, I sense this but the curtain is falling. The last thing I’m aware of is being lifted up, and a familiar voice. I get the notion that I have permission to black out.

So I black out.