Genti, who was riding shotgun, leaped from the van the moment Prek was able to stop. He ran after Pia, who he guessed was maybe twenty yards ahead of him, making her way toward the subway entrance. As he ran, Genti checked that the gun was secure in his jacket pocket. He wasn’t certain what he’d do if he caught up with her—should he shoot her in the street? Grab her and bring her back to the van?

He just knew the one thing he couldn’t do was lose her.

Genti watched Pia disappear from his view as she descended quickly into the station while he weaved in and out of the cars, gypsy cabs, buses, and vans on the busy corner of Broadway and 168th Street. He reached the subway entrance and rushed down the stairs but couldn’t see her. Was she catching the A train or the 1? Probably the express train, the A, he thought. He was desperately looking ahead for her, half pushing people out of the way.

“Excuse me, excuse me.” He didn’t want to get too aggressive: New Yorkers were liable to get aggressive right back at you. Genti rarely rode the subway and didn’t have a Metro card that he could swipe to get through the turnstiles, and he certainly didn’t have time to stop and buy one from a machine. Hoping there were no cops looking out for fare dodgers, he followed a schoolkid and pushed through the turnstile behind him.

Genti had to choose, the A or the 1. Changing his mind, he opted for the 1, and as he neared the giant, aging elevator that took riders to the platform deep underground, he caught a glimpse of Pia at the head of a group of passengers who’d just got on. The doors began to close. He saw she was standing to the side, ready to be first off. He raced forward.

“Hold the elevator!” he shouted. “Hold it.”

Genti reached the doors as they were almost closed and frantically tried to stop them. For a moment his hand was trapped and he was forced to pull it out quickly. He looked around. Stairs. Genti wasn’t careful anymore; he pushed past an old woman and leaped down the refuse-strewn stairs three or four at a time. He didn’t know that the platform was the equivalent of eight stories below and pressed on, dodging the few passengers walking up or down, yelling at everyone to get the fuck out of the way. He was breathless but reached the bottom only to find that the elevator had already discharged its load of descending passengers, and new ones were already boarding.