The Finder: A Novel Read Free

smell.
    She hurries up to the car and pulls on the doors just to be sure they are locked. Does she see movement inside, a hand flailing through the dark liquid against the glass? She looks around for something to break the window and flies over to the edge of the lot, where she frantically scrabbles around in the grass, her hands raking through plastic bags, old newspapers, beer cans, anything but what she needs. Suddenly she finds a heavy chunk of asphalt. Too much time has gone by! Right? How could anyone—? She awkwardly carries the asphalt back to the car and after three tries breaks the front passenger window. Wet, thick muck streams out, spatters her, the smell horrific. Fecal gases. Fetid urine. She gags, bile burning her throat. She hits the safety glass again and again to make a hole large enough to reach through. Finally. She drops the asphalt and thrusts her arm into the cold, lumpy wetness and feels around for the door lock, the broken glass rasping against her wrist. She finds the lock, pops it up, pulls on the door—it flies open, a great thick black tongue of filth spewing out across the lot.
    "Come on!" Jin Li shrieks in Chinese. The stench is sickening, burns her eyes. She reaches in and finds one of the girls. No movement! Too much time has gone by! Seven or eight or even nine minutes! She pulls an arm, and the body of the girl falls limply out to the pavement, covered in muck. Jin Li wipes at the girl's face. Her mouth is filled, black hair tangled and wet with the stuff. She is not breathing. Jin Li rolls her over, clears the mouth, pushes on the back. Nothing! She runs to the other side of the car, breaks the glass there, soaking herself, opens that door, the sewage gurgling as it empties from the car.The girl is dead weight, slumped against the steering wheel, but Jin Li pulls her free and tries to get her breathing. She doesn't respond. Jin Li is weeping in fear and frustration. Come on, come on! she says, pushing on the girl's back, wiping the stuff out of her mouth. Nothing. Jin Li can't even look at her eyes, which are mudded over with gunk. The girls were scared, they hyperventilated, they inhaled the wet muck deep into their lungs. As they lost consciousness, the stuff oozed down their throats, suffocating them. Same as being held underwater for long minutes. Now the girls both lie on their stomachs on the pavement, still as death while the tongue of filth spreads across the parking lot as the car empties, the rain faster now and forming rivulets that travel toward the storm drains at the end of the lot.
    Jin Li hears a woman's voice talking excitedly in Spanish, and she freezes. Who? She looks at the girls. But the girls appear to be—yes—
dead,
bodies already sinking softly into themselves. Yes, it's true, she tells herself. Dead! Now comes Latino dance music. The radio is still on in the car and the muck has drained below the dashboard speakers.
"Yo te voy a amar hasta el fin de tiempo!"
wails a singer's voice.
    The first light of day is on the horizon, showing the rain gusting across the lot.
    Jin Li understands now. Someone knows. Someone knows what she was doing. They saw her get into the car in Manhattan and followed. They wanted
her.
    She runs. Fleeing over the pavement, wet black hair streaming behind her, eyes wide, she runs for her life.

2
     
     
    The seats directly behind home plate in Yankee Stadium are so close to the field that the usual metaphysics of baseball spectatorship are warped by reality. What was distant becomes near. What was giant becomes life-size. What was fantasy is observable fact. You are so close that you can see the calm face of Alex Rodriguez as he steps up to home plate. You can watch the clay fall off Derek Jeter's spikes as he taps them with his bat. You can see Jorge Posada, the great Yankee catcher, tighten his meaty fingers around the handle as the pitcher begins his windup. An aisle rises from field level directly behind home plate, perfectly