Page 79 of Exit Party

“I’d love to, if you can make it early?”

The exit visa case was nearing a conclusion. In the early afternoon I checked a Service car out of Automotive and drove to East Hollywood, to observe the first arrest. The exit visa operation was being run out of a warehouse filled with slabs of stone for kitchen counters. At one p.m., Latika’s ex emerged blinking from the front door. The ex kept a clockwork schedule. He turned right, toward my car and his preferred sandwich shop, but had walked no more than a few feet before another man came up alongside him, walking in a casual way, and a moment later a third man joined them, so that the target was flanked on both sides, and now a black van was cruising almost silently down the block. The van’s side door opened. The three men disappeared into the interior, the van glided away and turned the corner, and it was as if the ex had never existed. There were other people on the sidewalk, but they were careful not to notice what had just occurred. A second van was moving up the block, in anticipation of another lunch break, but I didn’t stay for the next arrest. These men were out of my hands now.

I met Anton at a restaurant on the east side, a half-hour on the light rail from Harbor City. I’d been here before, but not for years, and I wished now I’d come here more often. The dining room was a courtyard between former bungalows on a hillside, shaded by palms and canvas sails. Anton was fifteen minutes late, as usual.

I watched him come in, sharply dressed and at ease in his suit, the blank moment of searching, the way he brightened when he saw me. I told myself not to think of Ari, but this only brought her more vividly to mind.

“I’m glad to see you,” I said. “How long’s it been?”

“Eight months? Nine? I’m glad you were free.”

“Me too. It’s good to see you.” He’s safe, I told myself, we are here and he’s safe in a version of reality where I didn’t arrange to have him killed.

“Your mom says hi,” he said. “She and your dad came over to my parents’ place for dinner last night.”

“What do you think of my mom’s new haircut?”

“It’s bold,” Anton said. “The pink suits her. She said you got promoted?”

I went still for just a moment, a stutter in time, and recovered. Was my mother Service? I could think of no other way she could know about my promotion.

“Still doing urban planning,” I said. “Just a promotion at the firm.”

“You ever miss Fillmore?”

“Sometimes.” I was thinking for the first time in a while of my little grove of orange and lemon trees in the Fillmore backyard, the metal table in the shade, Nico looking up at me from the chaise longue when I dropped my glasses. “But sometimes you just want a new life. Have you ever felt that?”

“You ever just want a new state?” He was looking past me. “A new state of being, I mean, obviously.”

“Careful,” I said absently. How had Ari done it? No, not Ari. Ari’s hit man. The human body is so fragile. My gaze wandered to Anton’s neck, to the soft place where his pulse beat.

Anton raised his glass, exposing his inner wrist. “It’s good to see you,” he said.

I clinked my glass against his. “You too. I’m glad you’re here.” In the other world, had he been strangled? Stabbed? Shot? But I was remembering something, which was that Kareem had said that Ari had taken out a hit on her cousin, not that that hit had necessarily succeeded. He himself had said that he didn’t know if the charge was murder or attempted murder. With a fervency that approached prayer, I thought, I hope you survived me. I hope you got away.

“I really thought you’d stay in Fillmore forever.”

I smiled. “I loved academia until I didn’t. Sometimes you just reach an inflection point.” The conversation moved on. The food arrived. It was possible to forget what the Kareem from the other world had told me. Anton was talking about his family now, his wife and twin daughters in New York, and he didn’t ask what the inflection point had been. I knew it was absurd to feel disappointed at this, but who doesn’t wish to be seen? The broken glasses with the silver tape were in a drawer in my kitchen.

“Anton,” I said, “do you ever imagine different lives you could’ve led?”

He blinked at me. “What are you, a poet?”

“Not at all. It’s a thought experiment.”

“Okay.” He thought about it while he swirled wine around in his glass. “I don’t know, I love my wife and kids. I like my job. Water systems are still interesting to me, even after all these years.”

“Well, that’s good.” I was thinking of Ari again. But maybe the question wasn’t whether I personally had the capacity for murder. Perhaps it was more a question of whether anyone didn’t have the capacity for murder, given the correct sequence of misfortune and circumstance. But Anton? Of all people. Who in this world did I care about more than him?

“What are you thinking about?” Anton asked.

My phone vibrated in my handbag. The call display read HARBOR IMPORTS.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “it’s work. I’ll be right back.” I placed my hand over my phone screen as I walked out of the restaurant—the phone clicked softly as it registered my handprint—then looked directly into the camera to unlock the call. “Hello, this is Ibari.”

“Ibari,” Alberto said. “Could you be in my office in an hour?”

“Of course.” We both knew I had no choice, but I appreciated the performance of courtesy. “I’ll see you in an hour.”