Three days passed; John didn't return from his "meeting". At first I was afraid something had happened to him – but if that were true, I doubted that The Man In Sunglasses would still be lurking across the street. I had to assume that they didn't know he was gone – and that they'd come for him eventually.
I wasn't sure which I wanted more: for him to come back, or for him to stay gone. Part of me wished for a chance to say a real goodbye, to share another smoke with my one real friend.
But an equal part of me wanted to be able to tell them "I don't know where he is" when they came – and to be telling the truth.
I'd figured they – whoever they were – would come in the middle of the night, feet like thunder on the stairs, roughly hammering on the doors of the building and rousing people out of bed with shouted commands.
I was wrong. They came for him in broad daylight.
I'd gone out to buy cigarettes; coming back, I noticed that the Man In Sunglasses wasn't on the street. I'd thought about little else in the past days, and his absence made me nervous – nervous enough that I lit up a smoke as I entered the building, not waiting to reach the balcony.
The Man In Sunglasses was there – without sunglasses this time, dressed instead in Army fatigues and accompanied by a knot of men carrying guns. They were grouped around the door of the Chens' second-floor apartment, scowling and asking brusque questions about someone named "Smith", while Mister Chen's daughters stood in a frightened huddle just inside the door and Chen shook his head emphatically, repeating "No English, no English" over and over in response.
My chest went cold with a nameless emotion as I edged up the stairs past them, eyeing the guns, reflecting distantly that Mister Chen spoke perfect English every other day of the year and wondering if I would faint before or after they stopped me.
They didn't stop me, although I figured that only meant they were working their way up from the ground floor. They'd catch up soon enough.
I wondered what I'd tell them.
My hands were shaking by the time I reached my landing – and stopped short, realizing that the door to John's apartment was wide open.
John himself was on the balcony, eyeing the drop to the ground with a calculating manner. He was dressed in painter's coveralls, a duffel bag clenched in one hand, and he turned with a whip-fast motion when he heard my foot hit the squeaky board near the balcony door.
We stared at each other for a long, tense moment, him with a cagey look in his eyes, me with questions roiling in my gut.
There were a thousand things I wanted to ask him, but there wasn't time. There were bootsteps thundering on the stairs . . .
And I still didn't know what I'd tell them.
TBC