I tried to yank the chain away. Mistake: he pulled in the other direction and used the counterforce to find his balance. His left foot was forward now, a few inches from my right, our bodies mirror images attached by the short length of chain. He took a half-step in with his right foot, and a left sidekick blurred into my ribs. The impact knocked the wind out of me and plowed me backward into the bike. Only my grip on the chain kept me from going over.

He still had the knife in his right hand, close to his body. I felt what he was about to do: shuffle step in, engage me with his left hand, stab with his right. And my side was wide open.

I reached back with my left hand. He shot forward off his left leg, the right foot trailing, closing the distance, the knife coming into range. My groping fingers closed around the bike frame. His weight was carrying him forward now, the momentum channeled through his legs and into his knife hand. Supercharged with fear and adrenaline, I swung the bike around like a discus thrower, getting it between us just as he closed and went for my guts with the knife. His hand punched through the wheel spokes and I twisted away a half-inch from the blade.

He froze there for a split second, his left hand still gripping the chain, his right caught in the bike wheel, trying to process these novel circumstances. I didn’t know what kind of training he had, but it was a safe bet getting a bicycle wrapped around you wasn’t part of the curriculum. Plunge forward? Jerk back? Let go of the chain? So many options, so few neurons…

I didn’t give him time to come up with something effective. I sacrificed my hold on the chain and grabbed the bike wheel with both hands, twisting and rotating it to my left. His elbow was pushed into his body, and his hand cranked past his shoulder. He howled in pain, his fingers came open, and he lost the knife. I twisted harder, and he bent sideways at the waist to keep his elbow from being broken. His right knee was torqued at almost ninety and twisted in, and he had too much weight on it to get it out of the way. I rotated counterclockwise, raised my right foot, and stomped down through the back of his knee, breaking it. He howled again and as he collapsed over his ruined leg, I twisted the wheel harder, and his elbow snapped, too.

I let go of the wheel and he went down on his back, the bike on top of him. He made a hell of an effort to scramble out from under it, but he was short two functioning limbs and his progress was minimal. I stepped wide of him, my eyes scanning the ground. There, the knife. I scooped it up, a distant part of my brain registering from the distinctive logo on the blade that it was an Emerson, the recurve edge making it the Commander model, one of Dox’s favorites.

Mr. Blond managed to sit up. He took hold of the bike frame with his left hand and jerked his ruined arm out of the spokes, screaming with the effort. He stared at me, panting, his nostrils flaring with exertion, his face glistening with sweat. He pushed the bike forward as though to shield himself, but he had only one good arm and his mobility was destroyed.

“One chance,” I said. “Tell me where Dox is and I’ll let you live.”

“Jakarta,” he said, through clenched teeth.

No. They wouldn’t keep the boat in the same place after a call. He was lying.

Then again, so was I.

I feinted left and he overreacted, and I stepped easily behind him. He dropped the bike and tried to spin, but I stepped in close and shoved a knee in his back, rotating with him as he frantically continued to try to turn and face me. I covered his eyes with my left hand and cut his throat with my right.

The cut was deep but fast, and I had my hand out of the way just ahead of the geyser that followed. A horrible gurgling sound poured forth, an interrupted, bubbling scream. He fell to his side and turtled his chin in and clasped his neck with his good hand, blood pouring through his fingers. I stepped back, but that hot, acrid smell filled the air and invaded my senses, enrapturing me for an instant in the insane killing joy I had first felt in Vietnam, that almost orgasmic rush that only comes from killing a man who has just been trying his hardest to do the same to you.

I stood there for a moment, the iceman propitiated, exulting, watching as Mr. Blond struggled to get up, his legs kicking, a pool of blood spreading on the sidewalk all around him. Then the kicking slowed and his hands fell away. A long, burbling sigh issued forth, his head dropped to the pavement, and the tension drained out of his limbs. One foot continued to scrape slowly back and forth, back and forth, whether reflex or the body’s last, futile efforts to fight I couldn’t say and didn’t care.

I glanced around. A dozen bystanders stood rooted, mouths agape, shocked, not comprehending, struggling to come to grips with the evidence of their own senses. They were all twenty-and thirtysomethings with fashionable bags and trimmed goatees who’d come here for an upscale lunch of Moroccan couscous or to acquire a fabulous pair of Italian platform shoes. A safe bet none of them had ever even witnessed a dead body, let alone one newly created with a knife before their very eyes. I saw no immediate problems, neither accomplices nor anyone who looked the least bit likely to try to intervene. I would have expected more than one, but…Dox had said four people on the boat. Maybe Hilger couldn’t spare more than Mr. Blond.

I badly wanted to check for ID, but there were too many people, and not enough time. Besides, it was almost certain he was traveling sterile. I closed the knife and pocketed it, threw the chain over my head, and picked up the box. I righted the bike and almost got on, but looked down at the front wheel in time. It was too badly bent to rotate cleanly through the metal struts on either side of it. Shit.

I laid the bike down flat and stomped on the wheel, truing it sufficiently to turn. I could have just jettisoned it, and the box, too, but I preferred to leave nothing behind. And besides, I could create more distance faster on the bike.

In my peripheral vision, I saw people taking out cell phones now, snapping pictures, shooting video, and I was glad for the balaclava, helmet, and sunglasses. Keeping my head down, I got on the bike and pedaled away north on Mott, against traffic so no one in a car could try to follow me. The front wheel wobbled but it held.

I made a right on Houston, rode as fast as I could four blocks to Forsyth, then made another right, again against traffic. There was a dumpster at the northeast end of Sara D. Roosevelt Park and I stopped next to it. I used Mr. Blond’s knife to open the box and upended it into the dumpster, spilling out the styrofoam peanuts. Then I sliced open the box’s other end, folded it flat, and threw it into the dumpster, too. Witnesses would describe the box the bike messenger had been carrying, and doubtless it had been captured on some cell phone cameras, too. It couldn’t be traced back to me, but there was no advantage to making it easy to find, either. Layers of defense. Always layers.

I cut east on Stanton. Two blocks further on, I paused just long enough to dump the knife and the bike chain in a sewer. I pedaled south on Allen until I found another dumpster, this one for the bike helmet and side-view mirror. When I reached Canal, I got off the bike and leaned it against a building, confident someone would appropriate it inside fifteen minutes. Even if no one did, and the police picked it up, it was sterile. The serial number was gone, I’d paid cash when I bought it, and I’d wiped it down completely for prints before setting off that morning. More layers.

On foot now, I headed west on Canal, then north on Eldridge, then west again on Hester and into the park. As I walked, I pulled off the balaclava and the shades and stripped off the peacoat. Underneath, I was wearing my new shirt, sport jacket, and tie. Shorn of the bulky coat, my build now appeared considerably slimmer. I carried myself differently, too, imagining myself as a professional, a man who wore a tie and jacket every day and worked in an office. Anyone looking for a bike messenger now would go right by me. I took the gloves off last, and left everything on the ground near a trash can. There were homeless men in the park, and I expected the remnants of my bike messenger persona would disappear no less quickly than the bike itself.