Killing Deke, I realize, could solve a lot of my problems. Finally I would have a clean getaway. Not the one I wanted— I’m broke and crippled and utterly alone—but a clean getaway all the same. I can take all the money Deke has on him now, cash in the title to the boat, and go to Pennsylvania. I would never have to worry about him finding me. Or finding Charlie. I could be an amnesiac Amish guy with means, and I’d still have no memory of any of it. Shooting Deke could make all this happen.

I don’t shoot Deke.

The World I Know Nothing About

The World I Know Nothing About

The grisogonol I inject into Deke’s bloodstream makes his body go limp and peaceful, but I still stand guard over him while his consciousness sips out. When I’m confident that his breathing and heart rate are stabilized, I change out of the hospital gown and into some clothes that escaped most of the scissoring. In the bathroom I wash my head under the faucet and look at my face in the mirror. My eyes are gouged and unknowing, the whites clotted and red. The reflection looks like someone else. I unwrap the gauze from my head and splash my face with cold water but I don’t like it any better.

With the ring, the title, and the GPS button in one pocket and $1,300 of Deke’s money making a bricklike bulge in another, I head down to Waverly and fire up the Reliant. Then I cut it off, write a note that says FREE, stick it under a windshield wiper with the keys, and start heading to the Clinton / Washington G stop. I am contemplating a list of Amishy surnames for myself when a cab pulls up next to me.

“You’ll never make it on your own.”

“Go away, Jagjeet.”

“There’s an APB on you.”

“I don’t see any cops around here.”

“You will. Right now they are all over your address on Orchard. They’ll figure out their mistake soon enough.”

My file—it still lists my Lower East Side address. He is right; Nunes will realize this quickly.

I keep limping toward the G.

“There are cops in the subway, too, you know.”

“They don’t know what I look like.”

“Everyone knows what you look like.”

“I’ll keep my head down.”

“Can you keep your limp down, too?”

That stops me. I look around wishfully, as if there might be a solution to everything double-parked on Lafayette. There isn’t.

“Get in,” he says. “You’ve got nowhere else to go.” He’s right. Even if he weren’t he could induce me into the cab by force. And besides, what am I going to do? Pogo my way to freedom? I get in.

“You don’t understand what’s happening,” he says as we cruise past Classon.