“Do you think this DiLawopizda has any connection with last night?” Vuk said, reluctantly moving their talk back from the past to the present.

“Could be,” Ivo said. “But even if she is, she seems gone for the holiday, just like everyone else around here.”

All they’d seen in their many hours on watch were a few children with their nannies. Vuk had checked in twice with the East Hampton house to report that nothing was happening, hoping they’d be called back. Instead they’d been instructed to stay right where they were.

“We’re wasting our time,” Vuk said.

“You got us into this.”

“Me? How?”

“You had to identify the man on the video.” He mimicked Vuk’s voice: “ ‘I know him. He’s the one we chased off the beach.’ You never know when to shut up.”

Vuk had turned, ready to give Ivo hell, when he saw him straighten in his seat.

A delivery truck with no markings had turned into Sutton Square. It rattled toward them, then angled sharply toward the curb.

“He must be lost,” Ivo said, easing back into his seat.

Vuk agreed. The truck might have been white once, but now it was so dented and scraped and covered with grime he could only guess at the original color. The driver had a thick white beard and wore a baseball cap pulled low over his forehead. His features were blurry through the windshield. Vuk watched him pull out a map and look at it.

Dumb, Vuk thought. How do you get lost in a city where the streets and avenues are all numbered?

But the driver apparently found what he was looking for, because he began moving again, pulling head-on into the opposite curb. As the truck began backing into the second leg of a three-point turn, Vuk noticed that its rear loading platform was lowered and riding about two feet off the ground. But instead of stopping or even slowing when it had reversed to the middle of the street, the truck picked up speed and kept coming.

Vuk leaned on the horn and pressed back in the seat as he saw the rear corner of the truck angle around and loom larger and larger in the windshield.

“He’s going to hit us!” Ivo shouted.

Vuk covered his eyes and braced himself. The impact jarred him forward but wasn’t as bad as he’d expected. When he opened his eyes he realized that the corner of the lift platform had punched into the grille. Their car had been spared the full impact of the truck itself.

“Sranje!” Vuk shouted.

Ivo too was cursing a blue streak as they pushed open their doors. This idiot driver was going to wish he’d never turned in here.

But the truck was moving again. This time forward.

“He’s taking off!” Ivo shouted.

Vuk sprinted after it, but it was picking up speed too quickly. He motioned Ivo back into the car. The truck ran the red light across Sutton Place and headed up Fifty-eighth—wrong way against the traffic.