E
IGHT
Right in front of me, is a giant building from a science fiction film.
Twisted glass and metal, bent into the shape of a double helix, with trees that look like they’re growing all over its sides. It doesn’t look like it should be able to stand up.
Charles hands me my camera. He must have picked it up after I got hauled out of the doughnut shop.
For true, the sight of it makes me weep with joy.
He says, Ready to work?
I say, Right now?
I feel the reassuring weight of the camera in my hands, the smooth action of the focus ring.
Sure, I say.
He starts walking. I follow. He goes around the building, stops at a big metal gate – one of those drop-down jobs – and swipes a little black disc at a pad on the wall. The gate clunks open slow. We duck under and head inside.
The concrete ground slopes down for a bit, and when it levels off we’re surrounded by gleaming, streamlined metal.
Rows of Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Maseratis, like a twelve-year-old boy’s dream car collection. In the hands of rich, fully grown owners, it reeks of neediness.
Not like Charles here. When we got to his car, it was an old Audi from the eighties, its black exterior cleaned and polished like it was brand new off the factory floor. Inside was the same – pristine black leather and a cool alpine smell.
He’d taken a cassette tape from the glove box and put it into the deck as he drove us away from the police station – dreamy piano music cascading out of the car speakers.
Debussy, he said.
The car, the music, it was all exactly like him – perfectly understated.
We reach a door, which has another pad next to it on the wall. Through that, and we’re in a lobby. Shiny, dark marble floors, big chandelier.
This building is no hotel – there’s no reception desk – so I figure it must house a bunch of fancy apartments. To our left, a security desk, and beyond that, four lifts – two each on opposite walls.
The guard at the desk looks up from the little grey Mario running and jumping his way across the green screen of his Game Boy. Mario collects a mushroom, and I hear the rising arpeggio bleep as he gets bigger.
Good evening, Benny, says Charles.
Evening, sir, replies Benny, pausing his game, although there’s no sign of recognition on his face.
He gives his attention back to Mario, and we walk towards the lifts. There’s one with its doors already open, so we step in. Charles waves the black disc again and presses the top button. P is for Penthouse.
New security guard? I ask.
I don’t know, says Charles. This is the first time I’ve been in the building.
I watch the numbers on the display climb.
Charles looks at the numbers too, clasping his hands in front of him. We don’t say anything else.
When we get to floor 88, I feel the lift stop. The doors open onto a corridor.
A deep red carpet with a gold, floral pattern.
When we step out the lift, it’s like we’ve just walked into space; there’s no sound.
We walk towards the floor-to-ceiling window at the end of the corridor, passing a large oil painting on the wall. I stop to look at it.
One of those giant canvases, inside an elaborate golden frame. An old-time admiral standing on the decks of a naval warship, posing with his chin up as his hand rests on the hilt of his sword. Corners of the mouth upturned in a sneer.
Charles has carried on walking without me, so I run to catch up with him.
We walk in silence for a little while. The window stretches further away, the walls warp and narrow.
I look down, stomp my feet on the carpet to figure out why I can’t hear anything, and then smack my head on something hard.
The window.
Charles makes a left around the corner, and stops outside the first door we come to.
It’s black, too heavy for an apartment door – more like the kind you’d find on one of those Victorian town houses in Kensington. It even has four rectangular panels, a gold lion for a knocker and a gold letter box.
88, says the number on the top of the door.
Inside, we stand in the dark for a moment. No one’s in.
