HAVEN AVENUE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER
NEW YORK CITY
MARCH 25, 2011, 6:59 P.M.

George had not meant to fall asleep, but he had. It was a legacy from the soporific lecture. There was also the fact that he hadn’t been sleeping as well as usual with everything that was going on. Not only was he asleep, he was in the deepest stages such that he didn’t hear his cell phone emit its cricket chirping. The phone was on his desk not ten feet away. He didn’t hear it again when it chirped fifteen minutes later. But that call brought him up from where he’d been such that when the phone chirped a third time, he got up and answered: “Hello.”

“George, it’s Grandma. I tried you before, but I missed you. How are you?”

George was suddenly wide awake. He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep, and he fumbled for his watch, checking the time. It was almost seven, and he panicked. Where the hell was Pia?

“Grandma, I’m good, but I’ll have to call you back, okay?”

“Oh, okay, George. Make sure you do now. We haven’t talked in a while. Is everything good?”

“Everything’s good. I’ll call soon! Gotta go!”

George saw he’d missed two calls and listened to the message Pia left the first time. He checked his watch. Shit, she’d been waiting fourteen minutes. As he pulled on a pair of shoes, he tried calling her but got her voice mail. He then raced out into the hall, heading for the elevators.

Prek and Genti sat in the front of the van anxiously scanning passersby through the windshield. Neri was perched uncomfortably on the milk crate, just a little behind and between them. What had been easy earlier, checking out the students as they passed, was now much more difficult. There was a streetlamp at the corner of Fort Washington and Haven, but it was far enough away not to be of much help. It was still raining and much darker. They had been there long enough to be stiff and sore, and in foul moods.

“Where the fuck is she?” Prek questioned morosely. He didn’t expect an answer and didn’t get one. “This is turning into a bitch.”