The Missing Person by Alix Ohlin

Irina reached into the sling, somewhere underneath her baby’s butt, and pulled out a folded, creased piece of paper.
    â€œWhat’s going on?” I asked, and was conspicuously ignored. Sledge came over and sadly licked my ankle. I found a shallow dish in the kitchen and gave him some water, which he drank in great sloppy mouthfuls. Then I spent a while nosing through the cupboards, which were stocked with neatly labeled plastic containers: rice, dried beans, lentils, oatmeal. There was enough food to keep a group going for weeks, as long as they didn’t mind eating the bomb-shelter diet. I remembered Wylie badgering our dad for more Nilla wafers when we were hiking, which in an attempt to guarantee good behavior were withheld until the last possible moment. I guessed he’d put Nilla wafers behind him by now.
    I wandered into the bedroom, where Irina had been napping. At least this room held ordinary signs of habitation. A single cot draped with a sleeping bag sat against the back wall, underneath a window whose blinds were drawn. On the foot was a supply of cloth diapers, a jar of talcum powder, a box of baby wipes. The air smelled of baby: part dirty diaper, part No More Tears shampoo. I pulled up the blinds and looked into the backyard of another apartment complex, where a motorcycle was leaning on a rusty kickstand underneath a green archway that made it look like some kind of shrine; morning glories composed the arch, their blossoms twisted and closed, all the vines sagging in the afternoon heat, everything drooping and listless and dry. I turned from the window and opened the closet, which was empty. There were no pictures anywhere on the walls, no clothes thrown in the closet or on the floor, no tracts or manifestos, even. Aside from the traces of Irina and Psyche the apartment was desiccated, stripped of the invisible currents that people bring to a place they live. It was clear that Wylie didn’t live here anymore—at least not in the way that I defined living.
    Back in the living room, Angus and Irina were sitting cross-legged on the floor, examining maps and muttering like spies.
    â€œAre they metal or plastic?”
    â€œMetal.”
    â€œPop-ups or shrub?”
    â€œPop-ups.”
    This went on for some time. I stood behind Angus and peered over his curved back at a diagram that showed a long pipe with a spring curling around it, housed in some larger casing. The parts weren’t labeled, and I had no idea whether the thing was a carburetor or a bomb.
    â€œWhat’s the earliest we can go?” Angus said.
    â€œGerald would know.”
    â€œWho
is
Gerald, exactly?” I said.
    â€œA friend of ours,” Irina said. She was crouching on the floor with her bent knees splayed out to either side, the baby asleep on her chest, her face inexplicably radiant. I couldn’t believe she was actually comfortable.
    â€œStan and Berto were supposed to be here already with his information,” Angus said.
    â€œWho are Stan and Berto?” I said.
    â€œFriends of ours,” Irina answered sweetly.
    I sighed. “You guys have a lot of friends.”
    Without saying anything Angus reached behind his back and wrapped his hand around the bare skin of my right ankle. It was so quick that I actually gasped a little bit. I could feel his dry palm, even the calluses, and as he peered over his shoulder I met his light-blue eyes. Then he broke into another wide smile and said, “We’re friendly people.”
    The door opened and two guys walked in without knocking or even saying hello. They both looked familiar, so I must have seen them at the meeting. One looked like a wide receiver, with a muscular hairy chest he was flaunting under a tight white tank top. The other was short and older, a gaunt, gray-faced man whose shorts hung slackly on his skinny hips.
    I stepped in front of Angus and Irina and stuck out my hand. “Hi, how’s it going? I’m