“And the shooting range and everything. Why did he teach me to shoot? Why would he switch places with me on the Nakamura job?”

“He wanted you to shoot the Rat Burglar.”

“Then why would he fix the comps so I didn’t get the job?”

“He didn’t.”

“You mean I really was outscored by Schermer?”

Jagjeet shrugs. “Once you were off the Nakamura job he had to get you back on it. Breaking into the apartment and planting the K’plua would get Schermer arrested and you back on the job. Your fingerprints showing up later would seal Nunes’s case against you.”

“Why would he want me to kill the Rat Burglar?”

“He wanted you in prison for being a mang. Murder was a backup plan.”

“Murder,” I say, just to hear the word.

“The gun he gave you will be traced to a murder committed in Miami last June.”

“I had a job in Miami last June.”

“Of course. It’s part of the setup.”

The windows of the cab are calcined with solidified dirt and hardened grease. It makes the world I glimpse through them an oily netherworld of crime and deceit. I know it always has been, but I thought I was fighting against it. Now I see I am just a part of it.

“He was never trying to help me. He didn’t care. I told him everything. He wasn’t...” I sniffle shamefully. “He was the only friend I had.”

“I’m sorry,” Jagjeet says.

There’s nothing in the backseat to touch or cling to except the seat belt. I pull it out, wrap it around my arms, and nuzzle the buckle passionately with my face. I drizzle on it. I whisper to it. I hug that seat belt for all I’m worth.

A few minutes later I say, “Why set me up? Why not just kill me?”

“Azar’s strict orders.”

“And the Nix?”

“Azar’s orders.”

“But why, though? Why me?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Pull over. Pull the fucking cab over. Let me out.”

He heads down some cobblestoned West Village side street. He pulls behind a van, throws it in park, regards me with a look that is at once pharaoh-stern and tender—he is trying to determine my risk as a runner; he also seems to feel sorry for me—and opens the door.

Scraping my numb leg behind me, I pull myself out of the cab. The afternoon Manhattan fever of hydrocarbons and trash pushes heavily on me.

“Explain it,” I say.

“Two years ago you put away Frankie Nickels and Tony ‘Kong’ Mavrogordo.”

“I know that.”

“Frankie Nickels is Azar’s cousin.”

“What?”

“Azar has had it in for you ever since.”

“Cousin...,” I say, amazed that I didn’t know this. That Janus didn’t.

“Azar didn’t want to kill you. He wanted revenge. He wanted to do to you what you did to his cousin. He wanted you—”