The elevator. The hallway. The key. The shot.

I jerk awake. Well, my fragmented consciousness.

Can’t say it’s not predictable.

I’ve been dozing for some time, must have, cause it’s midafternoon. I look over at the women in bed with me.

Iveta fucking Shapsko.

The job has taken on a life of its own, an intelligence. It’s sprouted legs, up and gone run off.

Ease myself to a seated position. I’m in a pair of underwear. My legs and stomach are a Jackson Pollock of cuts, bruises, welts, and old scars. My android’s kneecap. My midsection is wrapped tight. Breathing hurts.

Push off from the bed, move toward the window. I’m looking at a bird’s-eye of the Freedom site. My stomach drops instinctively.

I must be in the Millennium Hotel. A slick ebony binder on the leather-padded desk confirms this.

Heading to the bathroom. I pause and look at Iveta as she sleeps, sleeping hard, her mouth open and mashed against the pillow. Communicating something to me, communicating surrender, communicating complete trust. Trust I certainly have not earned, quite the opposite.

And yet, here she lies.

She’s so many steps ahead of me in this particular game. I need to know what she knows, that she can release herself so completely.

How long has it been since I’ve shared a bed with anyone? Couldn’t even say. Have I shared a bed with someone who recently shot me? Not lately.

I hobble into the bathroom, feeling like somebody’s stabbing me in the liver … There’s a half-full bottle of rubbing alcohol next to the free soaps, as well as some iodine. Fresh rolls of gauze.

My green box cutter is in a drinking glass with the hotel logo on it, soaking in pinkish liquid. I wince at the sight, but retrieve the box cutter.

Iveta’s clothes are in a heap on the floor. Jeans, a Tshirt and light black cardigan, sensible bra and white underpants. A pair of New Balance sneakers.

Under normal circumstances, New Balance running shoes would be a dealbreaker for me, on a lady. Yeah, I’m snobby like that. But in Iveta’s case, it somehow makes her all that much … more. Like she doesn’t even need to try.

Take a piss and wash my face, scrub it with the alcohol. I look exhumed. Both eyes are black, likely my nose is broken, as well as a cheekbone. Bandages and tape cover my ears. I don’t study this in detail. And I’m wearing a gauze turban where my hat should be.

Speaking of turbans, I contemplate this particular hotel for a second. Nowadays, the Millennium is reserved for the legion of workers involved with the Freedom Tower project, which of course saw a setback last February when it was, well, blown up. The upper floors, where we seem to be, judging by my look out the window, are reserved for the money guys, the sheiks, the Saudis.

The original Freedom Tower project, by the way, included repairs to the Islamic center and that massive mosque, so nobody could say the money people were taking sides.

As we learned, it was never that simple anyway.

The Saudis, who also own the Millennium itself, have been undeterred by the disaster, and are pressing forward. Of all construction sites and crews, they seem to be the best funded, are making swift progress; and beyond that I know nothing about them. Except that they’re working with private money and aren’t part of the federal Great Reconstruction program.

The only reason I can recount even that much is that there was a brief media to-do where a prominent (Republican, natch) senator tried to get the plug pulled on the project, her point being something like it was Saudi money and Saudi men who helmed those planes, way back in September 2001, so how could we in good conscience allow them to take ownership of this property, etc. But nobody seemed comfortable with that kind of thing, this type of thinking being out of vogue; and anyway, it was soon overshadowed by bigger stories.

Why I can remember trivia like this and cannot conjure up simple facts about my own life, this is beyond my understanding.

Regardless. I limp out of the bathroom, clock Iveta’s black Reebok sports bag … and my briefcase, phew … and my suit jacket, sitting with the bloody towels. It’s pretty well fucked, to say nothing of the pants, which are unspeakably screwed. My heart in my throat, I plunge my hand into the front pants pocket. Okay, the key is where it should be. For now I hold it in my fist.

Goddamn, this was my last suit.

I sigh and shake down the jacket, hearing the dulcet percussion of pills hitting plastic bottle. At least I had that much foresight, put the pills in my pocket … Can you imagine, had I not?

Retrieving these babies, I take one, cupping my hands under the water faucet and drinking. Again I douse my hands with the rubbing alcohol.

I go back out and take another gander: briefcase, check. Shoes, check. Kevi vest, check. My hat. Fantastic.

Iveta must’ve gone over the car pretty thoroughly. My shoulder holster is on the floor, complete with guns. All good news.

I register the keycard, sitting on the desk, a pair of cards. I grab one. Then I pick up the severed leg-bracelet, pull another fluffy bathrobe out of the closet near the door, and slide into it. I’m lost in the thing, it dwarfs me. I pull the sash tight, gasping in pain as I constrict my rib area. I loosen it and drop the key in the robe pocket, making a mental note to not leave it behind.

Exit as quietly as possible so as not to wake Iveta. The Do Not Disturb sign is already hanging off the exterior handle.

I’m back in less than ten minutes.

Recalling the fact that the hotel has an open-air restaurant, I took the stairs down to the twelfth floor. Walked straight through the place, head held high, Central American staff gawking but nobody saying shit. I tried to vibe Saudi. Got to the edge of the balcony and threw the ankle bracelet as far as I could manage. It cleared the fence and landed within the construction site near some yahoos in hard hats standing around bullshitting. I ducked out before they could look up. Back to the stairwell, decided I just couldn’t do it, actually hailed the elevator, took a deep breath, and rode it back to our floor.

Baby steps. I’m working on it.

Iveta is up when I get back to the room. Sitting in bed, smoking, the TV is on BBC with the sound muted. It’s a rerun, they’re all reruns, the G20 meeting is happening in Toronto. When was that, 2010?

“Just now, I ordered coffee for both of us,” she says, smiling at me and closing her robe tighter.

“That sounds perfect.” My voice is hoarse as hell, did I get kicked in the throat? Not that I recall.

Where do I begin? “I’m rather amazed,” I say.

“About what?”

“You worked hard to keep me alive here. Could’ve left me for dead, I would have understood.”

She shrugs.“Only fair. Consider what you did for me.”

“What are you talking about?”

She puts out her cigarette, has another poised and ready. “I know at least two people who want me to disappear. Maybe three. And I know you have been in contact with all of them. I can assume only you have been protecting me.”

“How do you figure that?”

“You knew my location, you did not come after me, and you must have misdirect others so I could not be found.”

I think: is that really what I did? Maybe a little bit.

“That’s perceptive. I hadn’t thought about it but I reckon you’re on the right track.”

She tilts her head. “What are reasons for this? I’m sure these men told you terrible, nasty things I have done. That I am this dangerous person. I don’t know what they said. But why not believe them?”

“I don’t know what to believe. Also, I was, I am, curious. About you.”

Iveta lights the new cigarette, waves the match out and drops it in the ashtray. “Curious, curious how?”

I lower myself into the sofa chair. “When people come to me and want to … okay, disappear someone, I want to know why. Just generally. And I want to know why it is that they can’t just do it themselves. If they have solid reasoning, that they can demonstrate, then that’s one thing. If not, well …”

I shift in my seat, trying and failing to get remotely comfortable. My ass hurts. And sometimes honesty … well. Hurts too.

“You know, I may come off like a psychopath but I do have a System, a kind of moral code.”

Iveta smokes, looking past me out the window. “I shot you.”

“In the knee. It was a tactical move. You could have gone for a kill shot, you would have been well within your rights, you know that. I can tell you have training.”

She lifts her shoulders in a noncommittal gesture.

“And I did break into your house and threaten you and your son …”

“True,” she says.

“Which makes me think, where is the kid? Where’s Dmitri?”

“London. Rather, in transit. Stay with my sister, it’s better. Don’t want him in the middle, be used like hostage.”

“How could you have possibly gotten him on a trans-Atlantic flight?”

“I have a friend in D.C., working at the embassy for Latvia. I call her, it’s easy.”

“And you didn’t go with him.”

“Are you disappointed?” She smiles. “No. I have no travel documents, you see, so I cannot get anywhere. Everything is with Yakiv … Lucky, I had Dmitri’s papers at this house in Queens.” She takes a drag, lets it out slow. “Besides. So much to do here.”

“Yeah?” I say.

There’s a soft knock at the door.

“That’s coffee,” says Iveta. “Do you mind?”