Flicking

by Lukas Oberhuber

window in front of the pylon next to her seat against the window just past her seat. One point if ahead of the pylon, and minus a point if the car with the missing headlight passed the pylon before she spotted it.

  When headlights weren’t on, she’d play punch buggy, punching the seat in front of her every time she saw a VW beetle, twice if it was an old one. Of course it required her to glare at the unfortunate soul who would look back over the seat in dismay.

  At one stop she picked up a deck of cards from the grimy convenience store in the terminal and spent hours playing various games against herself, or against the constant variety of people who would get on for a few stops and get off again. No one seemed to be using this mode of transit to cross the country, not even the drivers, who changed every six hours or so.

  Sometimes she would make up stories about the people on the bus. An older women with dyed reddish hair sat next to a younger blond woman, the first fashionable, the second pretty. Their story, according to Andrea, was a tragic one. The two had both been married to the same man, living less than a block away from each other in a small mid-western town. But suddenly, their (same) husband had died while on duty as a long distance trucker, crashing his vehicle into the concrete piling of a railway bridge, apparently due to sleep deprivation—sometimes the circumstances of Andreas stories mirrored her situation more than others—as he struggled to support two families. Now, unbeknownst to each other, the two women, keeping their grief hidden under layers of false friendliness, were sitting, their heads bent close together, chatting about knitting and the latest episode of Everybody Loves Raymond, little realizing that they would meet again in a few hours time at the site of the funeral. Andrea pictured the pandemonium next to the crudely dug up clods of dirt, the accusations, the weeping, the stares.

  Sooner or later, these musings would cause Andrea to burst out laughing, a trait she suspected labeled her as a crazy to the other passengers. Fuck ‘em, she’d say to herself, and laugh even louder, the real laughs soon descending into fake chuckles.

  What were Code and she really going to be able to do? She’d be showing up, without information, just what was still in her head, and what did he have? A theory? Or worse, would he be dead the same way squelch was, by the time she got there?

  She wished the bus to arrive in New York, and tried to crunch her eyes shut and drift off to sleep.

  The bus pulled into Grand Central Station in New York at eleven forty-eight pm, the night before the Big Meeting, the diesel engine rumbling in the dark tunnels. Andrea stumbled out, almost not believing the endless journey had finished. This was it. She’d done it, the long way. New York! New York! The flow of people pushed her through grimy corridors and soon forced her out to the street. She guessed she needed to find a hotel. And, after a few minutes of searching, she did find one. Not a nice hotel, not a friendly hotel Andrea felt instantly, but, in truth, it had a bed, and a shower, and they even did overnight laundry, and that was good enough. Within ten minutes of entering her room, she was doing something she had no idea she did: snoring loudly.

  Going

  Andrea jumped out of bed, momentarily fearful she’d gotten up too late. This was one appointment she couldn’t miss. No, it was only nine-thirty. She bounded across the carpet and stepped into the shower, suddenly giggling because she was hopping like a bunny. Bunny does the bunny hop.

  The heat from the water soaked through her hair, over her eyes, permeating her body. This, my dear Andrea, is the most important day of your life. And if you fuck up, may be the last. She wanted to call her mother, she realized. But she simply couldn’t risk it. She turned up the hot to block the shiver that started at her toes and tingled up to her scalp. If I turn up dead, I hope you believe I wasn’t a murderer.

  She gathered everything she needed to bring to the rendezvous, which amounted to her purse wrapped around a solid metal object. Now was the time to be packin’. She ignored the restaurant in the lobby and went straight to the bank of computers around the corner.

  She pulled up Google Maps and searched the location of the Blue Water Grill, switching once or twice between the street view, and the satellite view, trying to spot escape routes from the restaurant. Fuck, she should have picked a place she knew, instead of some random restaurant some friend once mentioned. Too late now. And, honestly, what back streets did she know in New York? Ha. She took the GPS coordinates of the restaurant and hacked into the New York City department of public works, a break-in she’d done years earlier, through a hole that clearly had never been patched. Soon she found the detailed street plans for the area, including building floor plans, locations of manhole covers—how the hell will I lift those?—and underground passages, not that any looked promising. She furrowed her brow as she committed the complex maps to memory, hoping that she’d gotten the cryptic indications right.

  Time to go. She logged off, stood up and headed for the door.

  “Look Tara,” Dorian said to her dismissive wave. “Tara, I’m serious. Turn around or I’m just leaving.”

  “Ok, fine.” Her face creased with worry. Her hands clenched.

  “I’m going now. The meeting is at eleven-thirty. I don’t want you anywhere near there until three. Ok?”

  “But I want to come.”

  “How many times do I have to say ‘no’?”

  She threw her hands in the air.

  Dorian continued. “I’m going to be at Ono. When I get there, we’re deciding where to go next. I’ll call you and tell you exactly where. So be here or you won’t find me, ok?”

  “Yes. Fine.” Tara removed the jacket she’d already put on, and threw it onto the bed. “You don’t trust me.”

  “I trust you. Really, I do. I don’t want you to be in the line of fire. You’ve gotten involved in something you had nothing to do with.” She just refused to understand the danger, Dorian thought.

  “You keep saying that.”

  “It’s important.” He kissed her on the forehead. “I want to see you again.”

  “Where’s Ono?”

  “You’ll find it.” He sighed. “But it doesn’t matter, we’re not staying there. Ok?”

  Dorian made a little sign of the cross, and walked out the door. God help him. No, god help all of them.

  “He’s on the move. He’s on the move,” Lieut nearly shouted into the phone he’d pressed to his ear. “I just got the call from our man at the hotel.”

  “Cool it,” said Colonel’s deep voice from the other end.

  “I’m in position, exactly where he’s going. Not to worry. We’ve got him. Get here as soon as possible.”

  “Let me be clear. You do not have operational authority to intervene. Wait until I arrive. He doesn’t know either of us so there is no risk.”

  “Yes, but when will you arrive?”

  “I told you. Another hour, max. There’s some sort of jam on the Holland Tunnel. And these fucking airlines don’t know shit about being on-time anymore. Not like the old days.”

  Why hadn’t his boss flown in the day before? Lieut wondered. Idiot!

  Dorian came out of the subway at Union Square, where he walked around the far side of the park before going through towards the Blue Water Grill. Trying to be subtle, he glanced around looking for signs of pursuit. The trees towered over him, their leaves a brilliant orange and fading yellow. On the ground, the leaves left a carpet of shellacked brown, the color having faded away. Dorian didn’t know what to feel. Relief? Fear? His feet insisted on walking slower and slower, reluctant to move forward so it began to feel like he’d never get there. He covered the last fifty yards to the restaurant in a rigid shuffle, finally entering into the darkness of the restaurant. As if the change from light to dark had been caused by a shot of electricity, Dorian switched from slow to fast. His feet carried him throughout the restaurant, up into the back area, so heedless he nearly tripped on the stairs. Then down again and into the basement, through the bathrooms, both Men’s and Women’s. His eyes darted into every corner he c
ould find, seeking the unusual, the strange. Briefly he tested the pay phone before ascending to the ground floor where he picked a booth in the corner. He could easily see the door from there. He wedged himself into the seat, and waited. Five minutes to spare. His senses prickled.

  Andrea climbed to the surface at the 6th Avenue – 14th Street subway stop, nearly four blocks from her destination. Her destiny, she thought, better unexpected than lame. She walked the blocks slowly, looking between each building, into each alley, hoping to confirm the memorized schematics and maps. When she got to the block around the Grill, she circled it one extra time, to make sure she could see nothing strange. Making damn certain the escape paths were there. Finally she stepped out of the grating sun and into the dark inside. Quickly she moved out of the doorway, picturing herself like a cowboy who walks into a saloon, cutting a silhouette against the door, then instantly leaping aside as the bullets begin to fly. In her case, instead of bullets, a Hispanic girl in black tights and a short black dress said, “May I help you?”

  “I’m here to meet someone.”

  “Yes. He’s over there.” And the girl pointed a lacquered finger to the right side of the restaurant. “First date?”

  Andrea made a face. Guess he wasn’t exactly a spy.

  “Well, he’s extremely nervous,” said