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I made it to the 87th Street exit before the left front wheel fell off. Still several miles from my apartment, I started walking. After an hour, both shoulders ached from alternately carrying the book-filled purse. My feet hurt and I was hungry. I stopped on a busy street corner, well lit and bustling, hoping for some sign of a bus stop. I found one, but the last bus had run fifteen minutes before.

  My aching feet and shoulders did not concern me as much as the fact that I was about to enter an unwholesome neighborhood, alone, at night, carrying fifty thousand dollars in a brown paper bag. When Vasily pulled up in front of me, then, I was not faced with a choice between safety and danger, but between dangers known and unknown.

  I looked at him. He did not look sinister sitting alone in a small boxy red car. I looked past the street lights at the dark avenue stretching before me. He had never actually threatened me, had he? I was probably imagining things when I thought there was a gun under his coat. Frank's words receded in a hazy recollection of some marvelous wine. Didn't I still have a date with this guy for Saturday? He was my first date and I was afraid to get in a car with him?

  "Get in," he said.

  I got in.

  The car was new. It smelled new. Everything on it glittered. There was a sticker in the window.

  "New car?" I asked.

  "Yes. Do you like it?"

  "It's nice."

  He looked at me as we waited for the traffic light to change. "You don't like it," he said.

  "I do," I insisted. "It's just, well, it's not you, is it?"

  "Isn't it?"

  "No. It's a girl's car." I glanced at him as the light changed and we began to roll forward. "Is it your girlfriend's?"

  He did not answer for a moment. I could not tell if it was because he was deciding what to say or was too busy trying to find the next gear. He was obviously unfamiliar with the car. "Look in the glove box," he said.

  The temporary registration was in my name. My name, my address, my social security number, my driver's license number, my date of birth, my height, weight, color hair, color eyes, all typed in neatly, accurately, precisely.

  "You forgot my hobbies, dreams, aspirations, and what I did in the second grade," I said as I put it away and turned off the map light.

  "Pardon me?"

  "Nothing."

  "This is to replace the car you say I destroyed."

  "Thank you. But I can't accept it, you know."

  "It is your car. You must accept."

  "I can't."

  "Why?"

  Because ladies do not accept expensive presents from men. Because it's a form of selling oneself. But he hadn't asked for myself. It seemed a bit presumptuous to think that he would. He had wrecked my car, and this car was registered to me. It wasn't as if I could walk away from it without anyone noticing.

  "How do you know so much about me?"

  "I only know the surface things."

  "Isn't that enough?"

  "We'll see."

  He was semi-communicative. I risked another question. "How did you get into my apartment the other day?"

  "I told you."

  "You told me a lie." I surprised myself with this little spark of courage.

  He was surprised, too. "How did you know?"

  "I don't forget things. I don't lose my keys, and I always lock my door. It's a talent of mine. So how did you get in?" I persisted.

  "Louis taught me how to open locks. Yours is ridiculously easy. I had no trouble."

  "Louis opens locks?"

  "He can open anything."

  "Sounds like he's very talented."

  "We are all very talented in some way, Alex."

  "What's your talent, Vasily?"

  I did not expect an answer to this question and I did not get one.

  He pulled up in front of my apartment building and set the parking brake.

  I could see his face in the street light and decided to risk one more question, to see his reaction. There are times I can't resist doing things like this. In school, I had a furious urge to pull the fire alarm, just to see what would happen. I finally pulled it one day in the fourth grade. I learned my lesson about fire alarms, but I still pull them figuratively now and then.

  "What's Misha's talent?" I asked.

  "That is not a name you are privileged to use," said Vasily.

  "I don't know him by any other name," I answered.

  "You don't know him," he said.

  "Then what should I call him when I refer to him?"

  "You should not refer to him." He looked at me intently. "Or me, or Louis." He climbed out with difficulty and walked to my side of the car, opening my door for me. He was such a gentleman.

  I looked him in the eye defiantly.

  "You are reckless," he said.

  "You don't have to walk me to my door. I know the way."

  "Don't be silly."

  As we entered the building, I could smell somebody's dinner cooking. The aroma reminded me how hungry I was. I struggled up the stairs with my purse and bag of money, considering how to get rid of Vasily and the money quickly enough to attack some leftover pizza in the refrigerator. I turned to him at the door with my key in my hand and a rehearsed speech on my lips. He knocked softly on the door. It opened, and he ushered (pushed) me in.

  Vasily locked the door behind me as I stood mutely staring at my one-room apartment. Louis stood at the tiny stove, cooking. Misha sat on the sofa with a paperback. The stereo was on - Sibelius. Both men had their coats off, guns in full view. They looked very much at home.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN