“All right. And he’s still expected to show up?”
“As far as we know. They’ve still got an escort planned for him out of LaGuardia on Friday morning. Anyway, it’s his kid. He’s big on these things, he’s made that clear every step of the way. Any time he signs up for something – private, government, it doesn’t matter – there’s always language in the contract for time off to go see his boy. Friday is parents’ day. He’ll be there.”
Jacob nodded. He knew all of this already, knew it as well as he knew the code that controlled the auto-defibrillator he had modified to kill the Gun, but he liked to hear it repeated back to him. He liked to be sure.
“Talk to me about the secondary.”
The Organizer hesitated again. “For Tuesday, you mean.”
“Of course that’s what I mean. That’s what I said to you. Tuesday is not a term that requires interpretation, is it?”
“No. But the Planner is having difficulty. The target won’t be there on Tuesday. Without understanding the objective, the Planner can’t – ”
“The objective is the same,” Jacob interrupted. He sounded annoyed. “Tell the Planner to stop worrying about when you think the target will be there. I’m telling you to have a plan for Tuesday, the exact same plan, except instead of for Friday, make it for Tuesday. That doesn’t seem complicated to me. Are the bus schedules dramatically different that day or something? I’m telling you to be ready for a secondary contingency. That order is based on information that I have, information saying that we might need to go earlier. You don’t have that information and neither does your Planner, but I don’t care. You don’t need it. Do what I’m telling you. Clear?”
“Absolutely. We’ll get it done.”
“That’s what you said yesterday. This time, do it.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Jacob leaned forward and ended the call. Then he sat back and sighed. God, he was tired. He wondered how much longer he would have to keep this up. He wanted to rest, to be able to relax and know that the job was done.
Tuesday or Friday?
It would be his own decision when to proceed, but this gave him no comfort. Either way he would be taking a chance. There was no other information of course, but this was how you covered your bases. With an operation this important, you threw as much crap into the wind as you could get away with, in case someone was around the corner with his nose in the air.
In case someone was just as busy as you were yourself.
Busy getting ready.
And then, if necessary, you could change things up altogether. You could make the bullshit the real shit.
Because no one would be ready for that. No matter how hard they tried.
Cristiana In Your Hands
Alexi took Kevin way uptown, to an area of the city where the buildings and the neighborhood were not quite as clean, not quite as prosperous-looking. The structures were squat and brick and utilitarian, and the stores veered toward pawn shops and liquor rather than to retail and books and fruit stands. But inside one of the short, all-brick tenements, there was a special place. A secret place. Alexi led Kevin down a flight of stairs into the basement, down a long hall, then around a corner before unlocking a heavy door with a set of keys that appeared from his pocket as though he were a magician; the door opened to reveal a clean, brightly lit, preposterously large room with good wooden floors and a wall of mirrors along one side.
“Not bad, right?” Alexi said.
Kevin nodded silently, standing and looking in wonder.
“It was a laundry,” Alexi explained.
“Okay,” Kevin said, and in another moment he planted his feet as if preparing to absorb a blow to the face from a boxer. “Let’s go.”
Alexi laughed his hooting laugh, and he shook his head. “No, okay. This is good. If I can teach someone with your accent to dance like a Brazilian, then I will know. I will know I’m a genius.”
“You are,” Kevin said encouragingly. “You can.”
Alexi turned to the wall and put on some music. “Here we go,” he said.
It was not what Kevin expected. Alexi had him stand on his own for ten minutes first, doing nothing. Listening. A song was playing from speakers hung from racks in the two back corners, something slow and bouncing that Kevin couldn’t identify. “Move your weight onto your toes,” Alexi commanded. He put the song on again, then a third time, until Kevin could feel the beat nudging him, shifting him from side to side. It was irresistible. “Now watch me,” Alexi said.
He stood a few feet to Kevin’s side and began to move. He smiled patiently, waiting for this large, fit, and unforgivably heavy-footed American to come up to speed. “On your toes,” was all he said.
Kevin watched him in the mirror, imitated the steps, and after a few minutes he was there. They were moving together, both of them still facing the mirror.
“Good, now hands up,” Alexi said. “Like this. Don’t stop.” He glided back to the stereo system to start the song again, never losing the rhythm even when the music was silent between repetitions of the song. “Up here,” Alexi said again, his arms and hands forming a brace and a bridge to an invisible partner. “Yes. And put out your chest. No, okay. Maybe too much. Five more minutes like that and we’re ready to start.”
“We haven’t started?”
“This is the prelude,” Alexi said. “This is the warm up. Many instructors, they start you right away with a partner. But that’s being impatient. Before putting Cristiana in your hands, you should be ready, no?”
Kevin nodded almost as a reflex. The need for preparation, for readiness, was now so deeply etched into his system that the very mention of it made him stand up straighter. He felt as though Alexi had touched him, very gently, with an exceedingly sharp stick in a very tender spot. “Who’s Cristiana?”
Alexi shook his head. “Wait. Get ready.”
The sharp stick poked him again, and Kevin focused even more intently on Alexi’s movements in the mirror. The man had his hands up, connecting and supporting. Weight on his toes, shifting forward and back, his midsection impossibly stable through it all. Kevin mimicked him as best he could.
“Good,” Alexi said. “Keep moving.” He leaned as though he were being pulled by a sudden change in the music, and all at once he was at the door. He opened it and there was a small woman standing there, waiting with her shoulders back and her arms at her sides as if she had been standing there for half an hour, as if she always stood there, ready to be called upon when a student was ready. She was young and slim and Mediterranean-looking, with jet-black hair tied into a neat braid behind her head; she wore a simple white t-shirt and shorts. On her feet were a pair of high-heeled shoes that appeared at odds with her otherwise casual Saturday morning attire, but as soon as she took a step into the room it seemed to Kevin as though these shoes were surely the most comfortable thing she could have worn, they were the most comfortable shoes anywhere in the world. Alexi smiled at her and took her hand and led her toward Kevin, and the woman seemed to float over the wooden floor, her steps were so light and quick that Kevin’s first thought, immediately suppressed, was to ask if her soles had been treated with some sort of special dancing grease. “Cristiana,” Alexi said simply, and he guided the woman into Kevin’s hands as though sliding a custom-designed machine part expertly into place. “Kevin,” the storekeeper said to Cristiana, who nodded once and said nothing. Kevin managed to keep moving during this procedure, managed to stay with the rhythm he had been practicing without interruption for the last fifteen minutes, and he realized all at once that he was dancing now, that Cristiana’s hand was in one of his hands, that the small of her back was in the other, and that she was moving with him in the same pattern, doing it so easily that Kevin wondered for a moment how anyone could ever claim that dancing was difficult. How anyone could think it was awkward.
It was effortless.
Cristiana looked up at him with a prim, businesslike expression, with dark pretty eyes an
d a half-smile that said you are an oaf, a stumbling, over-muscled oaf, but you are not without potential; you are less clumsy than you look.
“Wonderful,” Alexi said, and he began circling them like a boxing referee, dipping and dodging in a way that was a dance of its own. He made tiny adjustments as he moved, touching Kevin’s elbow and then his forearm and then, standing for a moment on tip-toe as if reaching to fix a crooked light, Kevin’s chin. “Level,” Alexi said sharply. “Here.”
Kevin incorporated the changes and kept going. He didn’t step on Cristiana even once, and for this he was proud. After one more round of the song Alexi seemed satisfied, and he put a hand up to stop them. The music was still playing, and Kevin felt like a sailor stepping onto dry land for the first time after a long voyage. The beat was still going, still pulling him. It seemed unnatural to stand in one place.
“So now Cristiana will let you do the work,” Alexi said.
“What work? What was she doing before?”
Cristiana’s laugh, high and musical, lit up the room. “My God,” she said, in perfect English. “Where did you learn to speak Portuguese? Your accent – ”
Alexi shushed her impatiently, and he then he turned back to Kevin. “Listen. She will pretend now that she has never done the dance. She knows nothing, okay? You must lead her.”
Kevin glanced at Cristiana, whose hand was now demurely covering her mouth. Her eyes were lowered, hiding the laughter that was still welling up inside her. He spoke to Alexi. “Before, wasn’t I – ”
“Your girl,” Alexi said, cutting him off. “The girl. The one you are chasing. She will not know the steps. She will be unsteady at first, uneasy. Wondering if you know what to do, or if you will make her look like a fool. If you can’t lead right, the dance becomes an argument, a struggle in which no one can decide who should be in charge. Then it’s a tug of war, and this helps no one.” He made a whirling motion with one hand. “So start again on your own. Now it’s you.”
Alexi stood back and waited, and Kevin realized Cristiana was waiting too. She was back in his grasp, her head up, her smile gone. Watching him with that prim look again, but this time with a hint of apprehension. Try not to break both my ankles.
The music was still playing.
Kevin listened, letting himself return to the rhythm of it, letting the push and pull come over him. Then he moved with decision, pulling Cristiana along.
Too hard.
The little woman went spinning away from him as though she were a top Kevin had tried to fling out of the room, and he winced in anticipation. She was going to hit the near wall. But she was a born dancer, she had handled men just as strong – and far less coordinated – than this strangely-accented oaf, and she leaned and turned as though she were on skates, grazing the far wall with an outstretched hand, flirting with it, before completing the turn and presenting herself before Kevin like a partner who had just arrived. Her expression now was stern.
“How much do you think I weigh?” she asked, in clipped Portuguese. Instruction, it seemed, was more naturally dispensed in the mother tongue.
Kevin considered. “I would say – ”
“Never answer that question,” Cristiana cut in sharply. “Less than you,” she added, with a little shake of her head. “Far less, and that’s all that matters. You know a lot of women who are your height, like this?” She put her hand up to the sky, as if to remind Kevin of his 6-foot-3 stature. “And two hundred pounds?”
“Two-twenty,” Kevin corrected her.
Cristiana rolled her eyes. “Right, so the answer is no. Every girl is going to be smaller.”
“Right.”
“Right. So let’s move easy, okay?”
“I got it.”
Alexi walked to the back of the room and started the music over. Kevin waited again for the beat to make itself clear. And then he moved, but much more gently this time. He treated Cristiana as if she were made of something breakable.
It was better. He was better. It was still not like before, not like the first time when they had seemed to be moving with a single, instinctively shared purpose of grace and serenity, but at least he was taking the right steps. At least she was still with him, still securely in his hands. Her expression returned to its former state of businesslike semi-approval, and that seemed like a victory.
“Now we’re moving,” Alexi said, and he resumed his circling and adjusting. “Small signals,” he advised. “The gentlest pull on her waist, the lightest pressure on her hand. You can move her, you see? And the easier you go, the easier it becomes.”
Kevin tried to relax, tried to do everything with the barest impulse from his arms, from subtle shifts in his midsection, and of course Alexi was right. So much easier. So much more fluid.
After another five minutes Alexi called for a break. He congratulated Kevin. “You are not hopeless.”
Kevin smiled gratefully. He felt pleasantly exhausted, spent by all the focus this process required. They rested briefly, but then Alexi was up again. He put on new music. A different beat, a different dance. At which point Kevin had to start all over again, standing first on his own, then copying Alexi in the mirror, then taking tentative steps with Cristiana doing much of the work, and so on. But it all came together in the same way. He practiced it, he had it, and they moved on. To another beat and another dance. Then another, and another. And finally, when Kevin worried that he was coming to the point of asking – of pleading – for a rest to get some food or water or just a chance to sit down for a half hour to massage his feet, Alexi abruptly brought the lesson to an end.
“Good!” he said decisively. Kevin came to a halt, releasing Cristiana. She stepped back to join Alexi. The two Brazilians glanced at each other, and then they assessed their pupil with arms crossed, as if he were a freshly painted room.
“He can take a girl onto the floor,” Alexi declared.
Cristiana said nothing. She tapped her foot twice and shrugged. Then she took a step forward, clapped Kevin on the hip with surprising force, and gave him a little grin. “You’re too big,” she said, returning to English. “But you’ll do fine. She’ll be happy.” Her serious expression returned. “Go easy,” she reminded him.
“Easy,” Kevin repeated. “I promise.”
“You should get some rest now,” Alexi suggested.
“I will. And what about you?”
“I get my rest in the afternoon.”
“Sure you do.”
Alexi put up his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Everybody’s busy,” he said, and he went to the back wall to turn off the music. “Everybody’s got something they have to do.”
They Fell On Him Like Dogs
Kevin thanked the two of them again, and then he walked slowly back the way he had come, around the corner and down the hall and up the stairs before emerging finally onto the street. It was bright outside, the middle of the day, and he wondered how long they had been dancing. Several hours, at least. And his legs felt heavy. Dead.
I didn’t get enough rest last night.
He stood for a minute on the corner, enjoying the feel of the sun on his face as he let the last few hours play themselves back in his head. He could remember it all, every scene as if it were something he had read in a book, except that this was a visceral, deeply physical memory; he could feel his legs and body wanting to move, wanting to rock and shift as he lived through the music and steps again in his mind. There was silence around him now as the traffic paused for a light, and he could feel a slowdown occurring. He took in the scenery around him as if noticing it for the first time. A tired-looking dog with no collar sat on the curb nearest him, its attention fixed on three pigeons scrounging for crumbs on the sidewalk; the woman across the street was caught in the act of peering down the avenue, perhaps looking for an approaching bus; the three men crossing the street toward him were glaring at him, had their hands raised and were pointing angrily at him, why hadn’t he noticed them before, he had been thinking about da
ncing, they were coming right for him, and about to shout –
“Hey! You don’t hear me, man?”
“Get off our corner, faggot.”
“That’s our corner, okay?”
They were yelling separately, together, apart and as one with a single message that was clear enough, and their shouting pierced the silence and shoved the world forward. Suddenly time was moving at normal speed, at double speed, and Kevin was about to say yes, of course, your corner, absolutely, I’m just on my way home, when he realized that these men were not waiting for a response. Their shouts had only been a way of announcing themselves, a way to blow off steam for the five seconds necessary to get across the street, and as soon as they reached their corner, as soon as they reached this big, thick-headed guy trying to move in on their space with whatever he was pushing, they were going to show him what happened to people who didn’t respect the well-established territory lines of 120th and 2nd Avenue.
Undetectable (Great Minds Thriller) Page 23
