Page 101 of The Game

“Where is she?”

“In Russia with them.”

“Holy shit! Is she okay?”

“I don’t know.”

“Just be careful if you’re going into his apartment.”

“Yeah, that’s a good call. Perhaps I need Fabian with me.”

“I’ll tell Kate to send him.”

In minutes, an Uber has accepted my trip on the app and I’m on the street waiting, tapping my phone against my leg. Late at night is so blissfully quiet in New York, and a minute later a gray Hyundai appears and we’re speeding toward the Meatpacking District.

My phone vibrates in my hand. Fabian.

“Hi, Fab.”

“I’m on my way. Don’t go in without me,” he growls. “I mean it, Janus. Who knows what shit they’ll have done if they got to him?”

“Oh, fuck. I should have brought some tools.”

“I’m on it,” he says, and hangs up.

By some miracle, he arrives at Adam’s place not long after me. Kate’s with him, talking to someone on the phone.

Fabian surveys the intercom and presses an apartment button. “Come on, come on,” he says, pushing it several times.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to get in.”

“Can’t you pick the lock?”

“This’ll be faster,” he says.

I lean forward to examine the name on the buzzer, and it saysJESUSin bright red lettering.

“What the fuck!” A loud voice suddenly reverberates out of the speaker right next to my ear.

Fabian pushes me out of the way. “Jesus, it’s Fabian and Janus. We’re friends of Adam’s. We think someone might have …”

“You pricks!” he shouts. “You can’t leave him alone even in the middle of the night?”

Fuck.

“No man, look at your camera. It’s not the press. It’s Fabian. You remember me, we met about five years ago, shared some K I was experimenting with at the time. We wouldn’t be here if something wasn’t wrong, Jesus. Adam’s in danger. Serious danger. Let us in.”

There’s silence. “What kind of danger?”

“We think some Russians got to him. Let us in, man.”

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” comes back muttered through the intercom. The door finally clicks as Kate finishes her conversation.

She shakes her head. “No record of an Adam Miller at any of the New York hospitals,” she says as Fabian vaults for the stairs, and Kate and I bound up behind him.

By the time we hit the fifth floor none of us can breathe, but we get to Adam’s studio apartment, and a guy, who I take to be Jesus, mainly because he’s in his pajamas with his hair standing on end and doesn’t look like a member of the FSB, is outside the door with a key in his hand.

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