The line, though, seemed to have lost its elasticity since the last time Simon had been here, sagging now irregularly southward. As he walked down a block of sooty tenements from which a ten-story glass tower protruded like a flipped bird, he decided he was going to set this situation with Maria right, deliver to DaSilva another two viable pairs, and then get the hell out. He didn’t like how exposed he suddenly felt. Maria, Lenny, Cheryl, Crewes, now the staff at Abraham—it was his face and name they’d point to if shit really hit the fan, if DaSilva ever blew the whole thing up. And he didn’t like the way DaSilva was shifting the responsibility for Maria’s situation so squarely onto his shoulders. Okay, he’d fucked up by not checking in with Grodoff sooner, and maybe he should’ve told DaSilva about the doctor’s call right away. But how was he supposed to know Maria would lie like that? It had ambushed both of them, and it was a problem they should be solving together. Instead, DaSilva was isolating him, boxing him in.
