back into my eight-hundred dollar Aeron chair, the images from the prior days began to fade away and there was a heaviness in my veins. If I could just relax a little further, it would all go away, if only for a while. I let out a few deep breaths and was gone.
30
Because I was sleeping so hard, I didn’t hear it at first. In fact, I didn’t hear the jingling of burglar tools or the clicking of moving metal parts until the lock popped open and the door swung back. I opened my eyes and sat forward in a daze, as surprised to see a cleaning guy in his long blue coveralls as the cleaning guy was to see me.
We stared at each other for a moment. The realization slowly came over me as my sleep receded. I recognized the bald head and moustache. It was Gary Rollins, right there in my office. I started to get up, but he was quicker to react and he bounded into the room, drew an automatic pistol, and closed the door behind him.
“You little son of a bitch,” he said, quiet but forceful. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“What the hell do you want, Gary? Or is it Ray?” I stuck my hands up, instinctively, and spoke loudly — although the answer was obvious. I knew what he wanted.
“Don’t bother, everyone on your side of the building is gone. But if you keep it up, you’ll end up just like your newspaper buddy.” His eyes darted around the room, he clearly hadn’t planned for me to be there and was busy formulating a Plan B. He saw the chest on the floor, lifted the lid with his foot and peeked inside, only taking his eyes off me for half a second. A grin broke out on his face.
He said, “You just leave everything out in the open, don’t you kid?” Then he pointed with the gun. “Pick it up. We’re going for a ride.”
“Hey man,” I tried to reason. “Just take it and walk out, I don’t want any part of this.”
Gary put the gun in my face. “You think this is a fuckin’ game?” He reached over with his free hand and grabbed my shoulder, tossing me forward and out of the chair. He forced my face down onto the desk, his free hand twisting my arm up behind my back and the other hand jamming the gun into my neck. His thick body was strong and uncompromising. There was no chance I could overpower him. Gary leaned in close and his foul breath hit my face as he spoke.
“Listen up. You and I are going to walk out of here with that box. If we run into someone you know, you brush them off and keep going. I want to make it out of here quietly, but don’t think for a second I won’t gut you from balls to brains if you do anything, and I mean anything, out of line. I’ll kill every motherfucker in this place if I have to.”
He backed off, pulled me up and pushed me forward toward the chest. “Now pick it up and walk slow.”
We saw no one in the hall. We met no one in the elevator. When the elevator doors opened in the lobby, Gary whispered, “Quiet and slow. Through the doors and into the parking garage.” I went out of the elevator and thought briefly about bolting, but the floor was slick and the corridor created by the elevator banks was too long. I’d take three slugs in the back before I made it to the corner. But would he really shoot? Ed Snyder’s severed head flashed in front of my eyes and answered the question.
I saw the black car four spaces down from the doorway when we entered the garage. Where were all these fucking cops Wilson had been talking about? The guy they were looking for walked right into my office. Jendrek had once joked that the safest place to commit a crime was in the parking lot of the police station. No one looked in the obvious places. So here I was, in my own building with a gun in my back.
I walked to the black Taurus without being directed. Gary unlocked it and I set the chest in the backseat. Then he tossed the keys at me. I didn’t see them coming and they bounced off my chest and fell to the ground.