Twenty Years Later(86)

“Change of plans,” the man said, staring straight ahead.

When the train stopped this time, the man stood abruptly. Before she could ask a question, he was up and through the sliding doors as soon as they opened. She watched through the window as the man pulled the backpack over his shoulders, walked through the turnstiles, and jogged up the stairs. Avery waited for the train to start moving before she picked up the envelope. It was not sealed. She slid the index card from within and read it.



9/11 memorial. North reflecting pool. Wait for me there.

—André





Avery looked around the train wondering what was happening. The image of her making a fast exchange with André on the front porch of his brownstone was replaced now with images of her being arrested and placed in the back of a police cruiser, hands cuffed behind her. She looked up at the map to see where she was. The financial district was two stops away. She thought of calling the whole thing off and ending this nonsense. Of exiting the subway on the next stop and hailing a cab back to the Lowell. But that would mean ending the plan before it had a chance to work.

The train slowed and stopped. She stayed seated and watched the faces of the passengers exiting and entering the car. The doors closed and the train took off. Her right foot tapped away to expel her anxiety. When the doors opened at Fulton Street, she was up and out of her seat and hurrying out of the subway. She walked up the steps of the platform. The empty sidewalks she had known over the weekend were, indeed, gone, replaced now by hundreds of commuters and tourists.

She walked west on Fulton for three blocks, looking over her shoulder as she did, until she came to the 9/11 memorial. She passed the white oak trees that populated the memorial grounds. She stopped when she made it to the north reflecting pool, which occupied the footprint where the North Tower once stood. In its place was now a square hole in the ground lined by granite. Water cascaded elegantly down each side of the memorial and Avery took a moment to listen to its soft murmur. It was easy to hear because, despite the size of the crowd around her, everyone was silent. The tourists were overcome by a natural tendency for calm and respect at this sacred place where so many lives were lost.

Avery ran her finger across the names engraved on bronze parapets that rimmed the top of the reflecting pools. She moved along the perimeter, following the list of names. They were not in alphabetical order, she knew, but instead grouped together to represent whom the victims might have been with when they died. It took a few minutes before she found Victoria Ford’s name. Avery traced her finger across the engraving and thought of all she had learned about the woman in the last couple of weeks. Lost for a moment in her thoughts, Avery did not notice the man standing next to her until he spoke.

“There’s a food truck on Greenwich Street, one block over,” the man said. “Order a Ruben with extra slaw, exactly that way.”

The man wore sunglasses and a golf shirt tucked into jeans. He looked like any of the hundreds of other tourists taking in the sights.

“What’s going on? Where’s André?”

“Ruben with extra slaw. Got it?”

Avery nodded and the man was gone before she could speak another word. She wanted to follow after him, chase him down, figure out what was wrong. Was something wrong, or was this just how André did business? But instead she stayed where she was and continued to stare down into the reflecting pool. Her gaze moved back to Victoria Ford’s name etched in the bronze. She slowly counted to sixty before she moved. Why sixty and not a hundred? Why wait at all and not just run to the food truck? So far out of her element, she had no idea the answer to any of these questions, only an instinct that told her something was desperately wrong.

After a minute, she casually walked to Greenwich Street and found the food truck. She was fourth in line. The service was painfully slow and with each passing minute she felt her pulse rising. Her forehead and neck became beaded with perspiration. When she made it to the window, a man stood with a pencil at the ready, hovering it over a pad of paper.

“Ruben with extra slaw.”

The man in the truck didn’t hesitate. He wore a white apron. Reading glasses hung on the end of his nose. “Fries?”

“Uh, no,” Avery said.

“Something to drink?”

“Just the sandwich. Ruben with extra slaw.” She spoke the words slowly for the man to hear each syllable.

“Ten-fifty,” he said, never once peering over his cheaters.

Avery hesitated before she paid the man, moved to the side, and waited for her order. A few minutes later, a plastic bag was dropped onto the shelf outside the second window of the food truck.

“Ruben, extra slaw,” a woman yelled.

Avery walked over and retrieved her sandwich. She looked inside, just a quick glance. It was all that was needed. An envelope accompanied her Ruben. It took all her discipline to stop from reaching into the bag to grab it. Instead, she walked another block and sat on a bench before she opened the bag. She pulled out the envelope and opened it. Another index card.



Old St. Pat’s Church. Walk. No subway. No cab.

—André





Avery looked up from the note. Her gaze moved around the sidewalk and street. No one, it seemed, was paying her any attention. Despite this observation, she still felt terribly exposed, as if unseen eyes were watching her. With her heart rate spiking and the perspiration rolling down to the small of her back, she stood from the bench and headed east on Fulton Street. When she reached Broadway, she turned left and started the two-mile trek north to Old St. Pat’s Cathedral. It took thirty minutes.