Reamde

“Thank you,” Csongor said.

“I am Marlon,” said the other.

“I am Csongor.” They shook hands in a curiously stiff, formal way.

“What happened?” Marlon wanted to know.

Csongor, not fully trusting their ability to communicate in English, shrugged to indicate he hadn’t the faintest idea.

Not far away, someone had been honking a car horn. First it had been a series of long blasts, and now it was a long string of random taps, culminating in “shave and a haircut, two bits.” The neighborhood afforded many distractions at this time, but finally Csongor turned to look and noticed the van sitting there about ten meters away. Projecting below the open driver’s-side door was a pair of blue boots. Yuxia’s head poked up in the vacant window frame, to see if she had gotten their attention yet.

“Would you like a ride?” Csongor asked, extending one hand toward the van, like a limo driver welcoming a movie star at the airport.

Marlon shrugged and grinned. “Okay.”

As they drew closer, Yuxia ran out from behind the door and got in front of the van, crouched, and grabbed a snarled length of rusty rebar that was torquing up into the air in front of the bumper. It was rooted in a sizable chunk of busted-up concrete that was preventing the van from moving forward and that was too heavy for her to move alone. Marlon and Csongor helped her drag this obstruction out of the way, then climbed into the back of the vehicle as Yuxia got into the driver’s seat. She put it in gear and started to rumble forward over smaller debris that, while it made for a bumpy ride, didn’t prevent the wheels from rolling. Marlon and Csongor busied themselves for a few moments pushing the concrete lintel out the side door. The door wouldn’t latch because the entire frame of the van had been distorted by impact, and so Csongor just held it shut. Marlon lay on his back in the wreckage of the seat, got his feet braced against the punched-in roof, and pushed up with all his might, shoving the sheet metal up quite a distance, partly sealing the hole in the roof and greatly increasing the amount of space inside the van. Beyond that, his strength did not suffice to move the metal any farther, and so he and Csongor both ended up on their backs kicking at the ceiling, pounding the metal up like blacksmiths. It gave them something to do and it took their mind off the way Yuxia was driving, which, had they paid attention to it, might have been the most frightening thing they had seen all day.

“Where are we going?” Csongor finally thought to ask. For he could not make sense of Yuxia’s decisions.

“To the same place as that taxi,” she answered, nodding indistinctly at a mote in the sea of people and traffic ahead of them.

“Why?”

“Because my girlfriend is in it,” Yuxia answered. She turned to fix him with a look. “My girlfriend, and yours.”

“I wish!” Csongor remarked, before he could haul the remark back.

“Then don’t you want to know where she is going?”

SOKOLOV REACHED THE ground floor, ejected the clip from his rifle, cleared its chamber, and threw it down the stairwell. He stepped into the hall that led to the building’s main entrance and broke into a run. When he reached the lobby, he slowed to a brisk walk, pushed through a pair of inner doors, strode across the entryway, and shouldered his way through one of the outer doors.

Just in time to watch the van drive away. Like a horse dropping a turd, it disgorged a large piece of concrete as it accelerated.

There seemed little point now in wondering how the Chinese girl had managed to start the engine. Sokolov swiveled his head to left and right, checking the sidewalk, then withdrew into the lobby to consider his options. A number of people had taken cover beneath the shelter of the scaffolding, and all of them had been far too interested in events across the street to take any note of Sokolov. Even so, he preferred not to stand out in the open any longer than he had to.

He had seen something, though. Off to the right.

He pushed the left-hand door open with his foot. Its window was cracked but still hanging together in the frame. At first he could see his own reflection in it, but as he shoved it open, the angle changed and the reflection careered around. When he got it open about forty-five degrees, he was able to see down the sidewalk to his right and verify what he had noticed moments earlier: at the corner of the building, one of those cart-pulling guys had taken shelter under the very end of the scaffolding. Sokolov could practically read the man’s mind. He had been caught in the middle of the disaster and had run to a place where he could get some shelter. Now the worst was over, police vehicles and fire trucks were loudly and rapidly converging on the neighborhood, and he smelled an opportunity to make some money. Because a hell of a lot of shit was going to have to be carted out of here.