The city sits in every direction, lit and loud and indifferent to what happens inside buildings with no signs on the door.
I stand in the cold and think, briefly, about a woman in Queens with a document package sitting in her bag that she has told herself she will read tonight. She won’t read it tonight. People who have been managing alone long enough are tired in the evenings in a way that erodes their intentions. She will get home, check on her sister, eat something, and convince herself that tomorrow is soon enough.
She’ll read it in three days.
On day three, she’ll find page fourteen.
I take out a cigarette, light it, and smoke it down without tasting it.
Alexei calls on the ride back uptown. Roman’s eyes move to the mirror and back to the road. I pick up.
Alexei is sixty-one and has been on the council since before I assumed control.
“The Friday dinner,” he says. “The matter will be raised again.”
“It usually is.”
“Zane, we’ve had this conversation before.” He pauses. “You know what they’re watching for. You’ve always known. A man in your position with no one beside him is an invitation. That is not my opinion. That’s thirty years of watching this formula play over and over again.”
“I know what it reads as.”
“Then you understand why it keeps being brought to the table.”
The city moves past the window. I think of the lobby this afternoon. Four seconds. The way she squared her shoulders before she spoke.
“You won’t need to raise it on Friday,” I tell him.
A pause. The careful kind. “You’ve made arrangements.”
“The conversation is closed, Alexei.”
“Zane.” His voice shifts, the patience thinning into something more direct. “Do you have someone in place?”
Roman keeps his eyes on the road. Two blocks pass.
“I do,” I say. “I have a wife now.”
I end the call.
Roman drives another full block before he speaks.
“Does she know that?”
I put the phone in my jacket pocket and watch the city move.
“Not yet.”
3
CELINE
Lena is fine.
That’s what I keep telling myself all weekend, despite the call I received on Friday afternoon. She was fine when I got home. She’s fine now. I’ve decided this is the version of events I am operating with because the alternative is a permanent state of low-grade terror, and I cannot afford that on top of everything else.
Two days into this job, and I’m already behind on learning the calendar system.
Volkov Holdings runs on a proprietary scheduling software that Oliver described to me on my first morning with the enthusiasm of someone explaining a religion they recently converted to.
