The Ninth Step Read Online Free Page A

it deep into a trash can. Americans did not do things like this, he thought, throwing clothes away in public trash receptacles. He had straightened up and looked around wildly, but no one paid him any mind.
    Now he walked farther into the aquarium’s dark interior, past a tank full of gliding manta rays. They circled through the cool blue depths. Why had he come here now? He didn’t know; he had simply seen the bus coming and gotten on, had sat there in a daze while it moved down Coney Island Avenue, all the way to the shore. He had gravitated like an automaton toward a familiar place, a place of comfort, where he could be inside, away from public view, in the dark.
    He wanted a cigarette, desperately, but knew he wouldn’t be allowed to smoke inside the aquarium. He also needed to relieve himself. He saw a sign for a men’s bathroom and went inside. A man was holding his little son up over a urinal.
    As Nadim zipped up his fly, he noticed—to his horror—that several flecks of dried blood still dotted the back of his right hand. He hurried over to the sink, turned to make sure the stranger was not watching, and scrubbed the blood away. It reconstituted under the water, bright red, like some terrible magic potion, then swirled away down the drain.
    He hurried out of the bathroom and made his way out into the aquarium’s center courtyard. After the dim interior, the morning sunlight blazed harsh overhead. With no particular destination in mind, he stumbled along a path between a series of outdoor pools: seals, walruses, penguins. … He groaned and punched himself in the thigh. What had he done? In one crazed, impulsive moment, he had ruined everything. He had spoiled the entire plan.
    Across the way, a roar of applause went up from the arena for the sea lion show. The noise grated on him, and the thought of all the spectators; he ducked through another door, waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, and descended a flight of steps, thankful for the quiet. A floor-to-ceiling picture window afforded a side view into the penguin tank. Aboveground the creatures looked comical as they waddled along, but underwater they were transformed into startlingly graceful little torpedoes. Nadim watched for a few minutes, kneading his hands together. Enny had loved the penguins. But her favorites had been the jellyfish, those diaphanous, glowing pink and orange umbrellas, pulsing open and closed as they floated through the depths. His daughter had loved to watch the creatures, and Nadim had loved to watch her little face as she looked on, bathed in the blue light of their subterranean tanks.
    He shook his head. The last thing he needed was to get lost in memories, but he couldn’t seem to focus on what he needed to do now. Could he go back home? Would he ever be able to return home, after what he had done?
    Light from the viewing windows rippled and shimmied against the dark walls. Nadim moved on to the next room, where he could see into the walrus pool. The big tank was filled with waving seaweed. A huge bull swooped down from the sunlit surface. It zoomed up until its whiskered face was just an inch from the glass, flipped over, and zoomed away.
    Suddenly Nadim saw before him the face of the big man in the deli, his rough, hard-hammered face, his odd little snapping-turtle mouth. He heard the man’s gruff voice. Nadim looked down: his hands were shaking again. He sat on a bench in the middle of the dark room and tucked them underneath his thighs. His heart was thumping and he had to wait several minutes before it finally slowed.
    A woman came in, holding the hand of a little boy. The child squirmed away from her, ran over to the window, and pressed his face to the glass. He gasped as the walrus swam right up and stared at him. Nadim wondered if it might give the child nightmares. Enny had had powerful bad dreams, perhaps because the other children teased her at school. Nadim remembered how he and his wife would rise in the