Go to the Beginning of the story
Chapter 2: Tuesday (cont.)
“In here?
Are you sure?” Phineas was skeptical as he stared up at the fifty story
skyscraper. “Why would he live here?”
“You can
ask him when we see him.” Higgs led the way into the lobby of the once palatial
hotel. The old marble floors were chipped and uneven, the product of years of
attempted looting. Spiders lurked in the corners and around fluorescent lights
that hadn’t shone for decades. The windows to the city outside were tinted,
dimming the late afternoon sunlight. A lobby like this was never meant to exist
in a world without electricity.
Higgs
nearly tripped over the rubble of a destroyed wooden desk. He suspected it was
the old concierge desk or something like that. Places like this became obsolete
after the Traditionalist Revolution. At the time it was built, the occupants
didn’t realize how much they depended on electricity. Without it, you couldn’t
turn on the lights, run the elevators, or pump water to the upper floors. The
sealed windows couldn’t be opened, so the building couldn’t be heated or
cooled. Nobody would take the stairs to an upper floor where they would
alternately freeze and swelter in a dark room. Many of these buildings were
torn down. Still others were simply abandoned; the owners, having long since
written them off, didn’t want to spend the money to demolish them.
From the
outside, it wouldn’t appear that the building was occupied. Even here in the
lobby, it didn’t appear that anybody lived here. Appearances can often be
deceiving. In truth, these buildings attracted the kind of people who didn’t
fit in elsewhere. Some couldn’t afford to live elsewhere; others preferred the
anonymity of an unofficial existence. Most of the city’s residents just ignored
these buildings and went about their lives as if they weren’t here.
“What
floor is he on?” Phineas asked. He took off his overcoat as small beads of
sweat were forming on his brow. The air in this building was damp and hot; it
didn’t seem to move at all and carried the odor of hundreds of unwashed bodies.
He pulled his small pollution mask from his pocket and put it over his nose and
mouth.
“Thirty-nine.”
Higgs said matter-of-factly before walking toward the stairwell.
“No way.
I’m not climbing thirty-nine flights of stairs. Not in this heat. This suit
wasn’t free you know.”
“Fine.
Don’t.” Higgs started climbing the stairs without looking back at Phineas.
“Aww,
Higgs. C’mon. Can’t you get him to come down here or something?” Phineas stood
for a moment. When Higgs didn’t reply, he started following the other man up
the stairs.
After
three flights, Higgs got out of the stairwell and headed down a hallway. He
clicked on his kerosene flashlight, shining it around as he walked. Phineas
wasn’t far behind, breathing heavy from the exertion of three floors’ worth of
stairs. Between deep breaths, Phineas asked, “Where are we going? I thought you
said it was thirty-nine floors?”
Higgs
looked back over his shoulder. “You can walk if you want, but I’m going to take
the elevator.” He pulled a lever next to the old kitchen elevator at the end of
the hall. The doors slid open and he walked into the elevator car. “They keep
it on the fourth floor. It keeps the authorities from inspecting. Nobody really
wants to climb those stairs.”
Higgs
flipped a lever back and the doors slid shut. He grabbed a rope that stretched
from a hole in the ceiling down through a corresponding hole in the floor. He
began feeding the rope down from ceiling to floor and slowly the elevator moved
upward. “Wanna give me a hand, Phineas? It’ll go a lot faster.”
Phineas
began to pull on the rope along with Higgs. He was surprised at how easily it
pulled. They pulled a lot of rope for the distance they were travelling. He
guessed there were quite a few pulleys used to get it to a reasonable ratio.
Progress wasn’t quick, but it sure beat the stairs. After about ten minutes of
pulling, the 39 marker on the rope fed through the ceiling. Higgs pulled the
lever and the elevator locked itself in place.
The pair
exited the door and headed out into the hallway. It was dark like every other
place in this building. Somehow it seemed even more squalid and run-down than
the lower floors had. The difference here was that the hallway ended a short
distance from the elevator. A makeshift wall had been erected in the hallway so
that there was only one door on this floor. Higgs knocked on the one door and
waited for a response.
After
waiting several minutes, Phineas was ready to leave and said so. Higgs put up a
hand. He noticed that the faint light in the peephole had darkened half a
minute earlier. Someone was watching them from the other side of the door.
Higgs spoke loudly through the door, “Kostas Stavraki?”
A muffled
voice could be heard through the door. “What do you want?”
“We have a
job offer for you. Can you please let us come in to talk?”
Higgs and
Phineas continued to wait outside the door. Finally, he heard a series of
latches and locks moving. The door swung open slowly, and a pair of eyes peeked
around the edge of the door. They sized up the two men in the hall. A quiet
voice came from behind the door. “Ok.”
The door
opened the rest of the way and Higgs and Phineas walked into the apartment. It
was much bigger than expected. It seemed that Kostas had knocked down every
wall on the level to make one huge apartment. Despite the size of the room, all
of his belongings were clustered into one interior corner. The rest of the room
was scattered with random pieces of junk and trash. In one area was a pile of
doors that had presumably been removed from the other rooms on the floor. In
another, a chain of padlocks was strung in a bizarre mimic of Christmas tinsel.
A group of large tables was clustered in the area furthest from the living
space. On it rested dozens of vials, sticks of explosives, various clockwork
devices and a handful of books. On the whole, the room felt very similar to Dr.
Montebanque’s lab. The exception was that rather than everything looking like
it would blow up, Phineas was relatively certain that things actually would
explode in here.
Curtains,
leftovers from the former life of this building, were tightly shut, keeping the
room hidden from prying eyes. The air was permeated with the smell of sulfur
and kerosene. Around the room, a series of oil lamps lit the space with dim
flickering light. Higgs imagined that there was quite a view of the city from
this height, but Kostas didn’t seem like the type to relish a view. In fact, he
seemed to not relish having people in his apartment either. He was pacing
nervously around his living area, as if waiting for Higgs or Phineas to speak
or leave.
Kostas
himself was a perfect fit for this sort of room. He wore a tattered white shirt
under an unbuttoned black vest. His pants were frayed around the ankles and
riddled with small rips and tears. His mostly bald head was ringed with a layer
of thick, dark hair that hung off the sides of his head in wavy, matted
strands. His skin was a pale olive that showed he hadn’t seen much daylight
recently. He carried himself with little confidence, like a man who wasn’t used
to interacting with people, especially strangers, and most certainly not in his
home.
Higgs
started the conversation. “Kostas, we’re sorry to bother you in your home. I
got your name from a mutual friend. I’m led to understand that you’re the best
safecracker in the business. We’re in need of a safecracker, and I want nothing
but the best.”
The
compliment seemed to make Kostas relax a bit. He stopped pacing the room and
stood before a small countertop in the corner. He opened a paper carton that
was one of dozens scattered across the makeshift kitchen. “Baklava?”
“Excuse
me?” Higgs asked, unsure if he just couldn’t understand what Kostas had said.
“Is best
baklava in city.” Kostas said in a heavily accented voice.
He tore a
square of paper from a box and brought it to the small table where Higgs and
Phineas were sitting. He set the paper down in front of the two. There were two
squares of a sticky flaky pastry on the scrap. Higgs and Phineas looked at each
other, unsure if it was safe to eat. Kostas took a bite out of his own square,
so Higgs decided it was probably safe. He picked up one of the sticky squares
and took a bite. Some kind of sweet juice exploded from the pastry. He had to
admit, it was quite good.
“Is good,
no?” Kostas asked, smiling. “Is made by friend, Cynthia. Very old family
recipe.”
“Yes,
delicious.” Higgs said after swallowing his bite of the flaky confection.
Phineas nodded and mumbled something through his full mouth.
“Ok, we
share baklava, we can talk now. What is job you say?” The strange man took a
seat on a wooden crate across from the other two men. He still avoided eye
contact with them, still clearly uncomfortable having visitors in his
apartment.
“We want
to rob a train.” Higgs spoke up. “It’s an armored car, and there are sure to be
a number of locks and safes. There will be a very short window to pull it off,
so we need to work fast.”
Kostas
nodded, gazing off beyond Higgs’s shoulder. “The pay, it is good?”
“Very
good. You’d never have to work again.”
“Work I
like.” Kostas said, standing and walking back to his carton of baklava. He
reached in and took another piece, shoving the entire pastry into his mouth. He
chewed it loudly and took a long swig from an unmarked bottle with a brown
liquid that looked like whiskey. “But much money can buy much baklava, no?”
Kostas
broke into hysterical laughter. Phineas nearly jumped out of his seat. It took
a moment to decide it was safe, and finally he and Higgs joined Kostas in his
laughter. Kostas handed the bottle to Phineas, who gave Higgs an alarmed look,
then lifted his mask and suspiciously took a sip from the bottle. He tried to
hand it back to Kostas. Kostas waved with his hand toward Higgs. Higgs took the
bottle and took a drink himself.
Kostas
laughed loudly again. “We have a deal! We will take much money from train.” He
grabbed the bottle back from Higgs and took another long drink.
Sensing an
end to the conversation, Higgs and Phineas saw themselves out of the apartment.
They returned to the elevator, flipping it into descent mode. The elevator
lowered itself slowly back to the fourth floor. As soon as the pair left the
building, Phineas removed the mask and took a deep breath of the night air. “I
never thought the city could smell so good. Are you sure about that guy,
Higgs?”
“Yeah…Why?”
Higgs walked toward a nearby subway station with Phineas in tow.
Phineas,
still reeling from the odd experience in Stavraki’s apartment said nothing. He
wasn’t feeling confident. What an odd team! But he trusted his friend Thurmond
Higgs. He just hoped that trust wasn’t misplaced.
