‘A what?’
‘You know, a super?’
‘Oh, yes. Sweet guy. Lives down in the basement.’
‘Do you know him? Please tell me he has a soft spot for you.’
‘Kind of. Why? What are you thinking?’
‘You’ll see. Pack up everything you might need.’
‘Might need for what?’
‘For a night away from here. I don’t think we can risk coming back.’
Planning their exit, Will made one hurried call, then rounded up TC’s scattered Post-it notes, his mobile and BlackBerry and shoved them all into the voluminous pockets of his coat. He could hear TC rifling through drawers.
At the open front door they surveyed the apartment one last time. Out of habit TC reached for the light switch; Will gripped her forearm just in time.
‘We don’t want to advertise our departure, do we?’
That gave him an idea. Like plenty of security-conscious New Yorkers, TC had several time-switch gadgets attached to her light fittings. Most people used them when they were away, timing them to act as phantom occupants, turning on lights in the evening and off in the morning. Now, without asking, Will found the one in the living room and set it to go off at midnight. No, too neat. Ten to midnight. Next, he went into TC’s bedroom – taking care not to look around too closely – and set the light to go on in there five minutes earlier and then to go off again twenty minutes later. With any luck, the peeping tom outside would conclude that Will and his female friend had turned in for the night.
With that done, they headed for the basement. Overheated and marked by a series of handleless doors, it seemed an inhuman place to live. But this was home to Mr Pugachov, the Russian super. TC knocked lightly on the door, from behind which, Will was delighted to note, floated the sounds of late-night TV. Finally the door creaked open.
To Will’s surprise, the super was not some crabby old man in a holed cardigan and worn-out slippers like the school caretakers of Will’s youth. Instead Mr Pugachov was a handsome man in his thirties bearing an uncanny resemblance to the onetime chess champion Garry Kasparov. And given the migration patterns from the former Soviet Union, it would be no great shock if this man, whose job was to sign for daytime deliveries of mail and fix busted water pipes, turned out to be a grandmaster.
‘Miss TC!’ Though Pugachov’s expression flicked from pleasure to disappointment the moment he caught sight of Will.
‘Hello, Mr P.’
Flirtatious, thought Will. Good.
‘What can I doing for you?’
‘Well, it’s a funny situation, Mr P. My friend and I have been planning a lovely surprise for his wife’s birthday.’
Nice touch, establishing that I’m not the boyfriend.
‘Which is due to begin,’ TC made a show of looking at her watch, ‘any minute now, in fact. At midnight!’ She was sounding breathless, too eager.
‘So the thing is,’ Will said, taking over. ‘We need to leave here without her seeing us. We left her outside the building you see. Now, I know this is going to sound crazy but I wondered if there might be a way for you to somehow hide us in, oh I don’t know, some kind of wagon or trolley and take us out the back way.’
Will could see that the chess champion was stumped. He was staring, baffled, at both of them. TC was laying on a smile you could have seen from space, but it was no good. The super was utterly confused. Will decided to speak the international language.
‘Here’s fifty dollars. Take us out of here in one of those trash cans.’ He pointed at a row of oversized plastic bins on wheels lined up just outside the back door.
‘You want me to put Miss TC in dumpster?’
‘No, Mr P. I want you to put both of us in there and just wheel us down the street. One hundred dollars. OK?’
Will decided the negotiation was over. He stuffed the money in the super’s hand and headed over to the back door. Still shaking his head, Mr P opened up. Will pointed at the blue bin marked ‘Newspapers’, gesturing for the janitor to wheel that as close to the door as he could. It was too risky to step outside: he might be seen. Next, Will reached out, grabbed the handle and tilted the bin, flipping open its lid and emptying its contents onto the floor. Magazines, listings guides and free inserts selling home computers came tumbling out, spreading themselves on the ground. When he saw the janitor’s face fold into a grimace, Will dug into his pocket and took out another twenty.
Once he had got the bin almost horizontal, its top resting on the stoop, it was not too hard to crawl in. Will did it in a crouch, as if entering a tunnel. Then he curled himself up, lay on his side and gestured for TC to follow until the pair of them sat like two halves of a walnut, in a blue plastic shell.
Will gave the nod and Garry Kasparov closed the lid. Then, with a mighty effort and a deep, low grunt, he lifted the bin so that it was vertical, tilted it and began to push. With panic, Will realized they had never discussed either a route or a destination.
Inside, TC and Will rattled and bounced, but knew better than to let out even a squeal. Their knees were touching and their faces were just an inch apart and, as they tossed upwards when Mr P hit a rut in the alleyway, the urge to giggle was strong. Their situation was so ridiculous. But the smile only had to form in Will’s mind for his plight to come pressing back in. Beth.
They could feel themselves slowing down; Mr P was obviously tiring. Will lightly tapped on the side. The bin tilted back down, allowing them to creep out. The janitor had done a good job: he had covered nearly three blocks, staying with the narrow alleyway behind the apartment buildings. They were surely unseen.
They said goodbye, TC giving Mr P a brief hug which, Will suspected, was more valuable than twice his cash fee. They watched him lope back, a Russian émigré pushing an empty wheelie bin through the streets of New York at midnight. That was the beauty of a big city: nothing was ever out of the ordinary so nobody paid attention.
‘OK,’ Will said, looking around and getting his bearings. ‘Now all we need to do is head north about six blocks. We should jog.’ And off he went.
Finally, TC had a chance to speak. ‘What the hell is going on here, Will? You see a guy in a baseball cap and suddenly we’re shoving ourselves in a trash can? And now we’re running? What is this?’
‘I’ve seen that guy before. Outside the Times building.’
‘You’re sure? How could you tell from six flights up? You only saw him for a second.’
‘TC, believe me. It was the same man.’ He was about to explain his posture theory, but realized it would sound unhinged. And take up too much oxygen. ‘His clothes were the same. He was there to watch me. Or us.’
‘You reckon the Hassidim sent him?’
‘Sure. He might even be one of them. All he’d have to do is change clothes, then he could pass for normal.’
TC shot him a look.
‘You know what I mean. He could disappear into the crowd. What I saw at Crown Heights last week – Christ, it was only yesterday. What I saw yesterday is that plenty of these blokes were born into ordinary American backgrounds.’ He was beginning to pant. ‘It wouldn’t be hard for them to shed all the garb and go right back into it, if that’s what the mission required.’
They had arrived at their destination: Penn Station, and had only five minutes to wait for what Will called the ‘milk train’, a Britishism referring to the sleepy services that ran after midnight. They had the carriage all to themselves, but for an unshaven man apparently snoozing into his neck, obliviously drunk.
‘This is