by Niles Kovach
Though I noticed and recognized the Mercedes, I did not seriously believe it could be following me. I knew Vasily was interested in the icon in some way, but I assumed he had come to see Grayson, and I expected the Mercedes to park in the lot. I was surprised, then, when it was still two cars behind me at the on-ramp of the Dan Ryan as I drove to school.
Surely there is no reason to follow me, I thought. He knows where I live. I presume he knows where I go to school.
My exit was coming up. As an experiment, I drove past it, watching the rearview mirror. There was no hesitation from the Mercedes. On impulse, I crossed two lanes and took the next exit suddenly. The Mercedes was still one car behind me. I was so fixed on it that I still did not notice the small blue car between us. I was beginning to panic and did not register the anomaly of two cars following me through otherwise deserted streets in a run-down industrial area of the south side.
The tame tick-tick of my Volkswagen's engine became a wild scream as I pushed the gas pedal to the floor. I tore my eyes from the mirror and found myself heading into an abandoned warehouse area. It was a desolate place, several blocks long, bounded by scrap yards and boarded-up buildings, the only deserted and wild space for miles. You fool, I told myself. The Mercedes was moving up behind me. I took a gentle curve in the road without skill, skidding more than turning, but managing to stay on the pavement. As the road straightened, the Mercedes moved into the oncoming lane and accelerated.
The next curve defeated me, and my Volkswagen fishtailed from side to side as I struggled with the wheel, gripping it knuckle-white, almost giving myself up to wholesale panic. A flash of blue passed by my left elbow. My wing mirror was filled with a black reflection bearing down on the left rear fender. A van appeared in the oncoming lane. As the Volkswagen's rear skidded toward the right shoulder, the Mercedes clipped the front left fender, hooking it and dragging it forward and changing the direction of its spin.
The tearing metal and boom of contact were whispers compared to the roar of the van that screamed by within centimeters of my nose, its horn blaring. It took another moment for my car to stop, on the sidewalk, facing the opposite direction. I wasted no time. Shaking hands ground the starter, forcing a spark. The Mercedes was not in sight as my beetle sputtered and whined back down the road in second gear.
I drove to school and decided to collect myself at the library, hiding between two rows of shelves containing the ancient philosophers. I took Plato from a shelf and sat down with him at a small table in a private corner. Opening the book in front of me for camouflage, I put my head in my hands and tried to stop shaking and organize my thinking.
Mental organization did not help the situation. My parents' home was severely uncomfortable and my apartment was unsafe. My car was badly damaged; the left front fender was peeled back as if it had been opened with a can opener, and the wheel shimmied strangely. Even if I could find the money to fix it, which I couldn't, it would take days in any shop, days I would have to skip class.
My grades so far that term were no better than my finances. This was the buckle-down part of the term, the latest point in which I could start paying attention and maintain my A average. I did this every term. I began by doing nothing, or as near to it as I could. I studied only enough to get a maintaining grade on the mid-term, then three weeks before finals, I scrambled to catch up. By finals week I was ready, having expended no more than four weeks of effort during twelve weeks of school. Of course, the last three weeks were intense, but for some reason I had to flirt with failure in order to generate any ambition. I am not recommending this, you understand, and I hope that you have more wisdom in this area than I had.
Finals were two weeks away. Father Paul's icon had already taken more time than I had to give, and I did not think my car's left front wheel would last to the end of term. The recent possibility of physical danger receded in the face of certain academic ruin.
"I'm in over my head this time," I muttered.
"Are you?"
He was sitting in the chair across the table from me, wearing a suit this time, with a tie and vest that made him oddly out of place in an academic environment. His coat bulged open as he leaned casually back in the chair, revealing to my angle of sight the edge of something underneath, a black strap of some kind, a bulky outline. I knew what it was.
Intellectually, I knew I was in danger. Emotionally, I did not feel it. I feared finals week more than I feared the threat sitting across the table from me. Simple humility, a rare enough virtue in me, convinced me that I was not important enough to warrant the attention of anyone too dangerous. Vasily was either interested in me and harmless, which seemed unlikely, or dangerous but disinterested.
Either way, despite all I knew, despite my own rational analysis and attempts to interest myself in the possibility of running, I could not move. Maybe my body was still moribund after the energy it had consumed on the road. Perhaps my will was sapped by the prospect of academic ruin. Whatever the reason, I did not run.
I also did not properly observe the man in front of me. I mistook the accusation in his expression for indifference. I thought the irony in his words came from boredom. I ignored the bulge under his coat and chose not to see the steadiness with which he stared at me.
I surprised myself with an angry, impatient response to his question. "What's it to you?"
"It depends," he said, "on how your mistakes will affect me."
"My mistakes?" I struggled to keep my voice from shrieking. "Affect you? You have some nerve! You're responsible for it all and you that the nerve to..."
I was too enraged to notice his expression grow even colder. I was not pierced by his stare, nor did I appreciate the sneer with which he answered me.
"And how am I responsible for what you have done to yourself, little girl?"
"Done to myself?" I could not believe it. "I did not run into myself on the road, Mister. I did not chase myself and wreck my only means of transportation to school two weeks before finals. I did not do that, Mister!"
Vasily's sneer remained, but his brow furrowed, as though puzzled. Suspicion was still first in his tone, though, when he said, "Chase yourself? Are you accusing me? I did not chase you."
"I know perfectly well that you drive a black Mercedes. You nearly killed me."
"If I meant to kill you, Alex, it would not have been nearly."
I shivered. His words, his attitude, were becoming clear to me. "Why did you chase me? What do you want?"
"I did not chase you."
"It must have been you."
"Where were you and your boss going?"
"My boss? What boss? I don't work during school terms."
"Your boss. Do not lie. You went to see him. You both came out of the building, and he followed you from the parking lot."
“He-Who followed me?"
"Don't act stupid with me, Alex."
I tried but failed to understand. "I don't have a boss this term. And you're the only person I know with a Mercedes."
Vasily put one had to his forehead in a gesture of frustration. "Listen. I was in the Mercedes. Your boss was in the other car. Your boss, the man you are working for."
"What other car?"
"The blue car."
"There was a blue car?" I replayed my memory of the chase. I could not see a blue car, but sensed the presence of other traffic. But my boss? Who?
"I'm not working for anybody. Honest."
"You are trying to find an icon." He said it slowly and distinctly, the way a teacher would explain a lab procedure to a dull student.
"Do you mean Father Paul? I'm not really working for him. I...."
"You are very good, but now you are overdoing it."
"Overdoing what?"
"Pretending to be stupid."
"I'm not pretending. Believe me. I’ve never felt so stupid. I don't have the foggiest idea what you're talking about. I have six finals to take in two weeks, a car with a bent wheel and no fender, no money to fix it and no vehicle to r
eplace it, and you're going on about Father Paul in a blue car." I slammed the book down in front of me and began to get up. "I've had just about...."
Vasily's grip on my arm stopped me. It was a peculiar grasp, made with his right hand, the one that was missing the last two fingers. It should not have contained all the power of a whole hand. But it did, and it levered me irresistibly back into the chair. He leaned across the table and said, softly, carefully, "Whom did you see today?"
I saw the connection. I finally noticed the blue car in a mental replay of the afternoon jaunt-about-town. "Grayson? Brent Grayson? You were following him?" I said. "He happened to be behind me, and you were following him! Well, that's a relief." I got up again to go. I was levered back down again into the seat.
"He did not 'happen' to be behind you." Vasily released my arm, leaned back in his seat, and studied me. "He was following you, or you were leading him."
"Leading him? Where?"
Vasily did not answer.
"Look. I'd like to understand it all, but I don't have time, and it looks like it would take a very long time to explain. I don't know when to butt out, that's all. Father Paul asked me to talk to one person. I got curious and talked to another one. I hereby officially declare that I am no longer curious about any icon. I quit. Leave me out of it, OKAY?"
Again, he did not answer.
I ran my fingernail down the corner of the book, making a ratchet sound. I looked at him again, noticing for the first time how cold he was, and that he did not seem to believe me.
He broke the silence. "I'll take you home."
I did not like this idea, but he gave me no room to protest. He led me from the library with sure authority, swiftly through the front doors down the steps, and across the now darkened street. He opened the front passenger door of that black Mercedes, helped me in, and closed it behind me. I heard a lock catch. There was no light in the car when the door opened. Nor was there one when Vasily opened the back door and slid into the seat behind me. I could see the outlines of two other men in the car, one in back, the other beside me, driving, but I did not see their faces until they were illuminated by the bright lamps overhanging the northbound entrance ramp to the Dan Ryan.
"This is not the way to my apartment," I said.
CHAPTER NINE