Nobody's Safe

Getting onto the roof was the easy part. It was just past three that afternoon when Greg casually walked into the high-rise's lobby. An elevator to the forty-third floor, neither looking anyone in the eye nor looking away. Just another faceless visitor to the newly built high-rise on a crowded Friday afternoon. As expected, he was the only one to get off on the still-unfinished floor; the last before the two private penthouse floors. And ten minutes after he'd entered the building, he stood in front of the secured fire door that led to the rooftop access stairway. It was locked. Of course. He stood there, very still, carefully listening for any footsteps on the stairs below him. Finally satisfied (the closed-circuit cameras wouldn't be installed on this floor until next week), he set his briefcase on the ground and began to work. The door was alarmed. No problem. Two small pieces of well-chewed bubble gum and four nine-inch-long, pale blue, pure silk threads and the alarm ceased to be a concern. Attention on the lock. "Oh, Linus, Linus," he barely whispered, "this is a most piddling little thing." He studied the lock as he reached into the case. "Quality control just isn't what it used to be." He sighed as he came up with what his fingers had been reaching for. "But then, what is?" A quick spray from a can of graphite, a slight push from an Allen wrench and . . . On the roof, there was no hesitation. A quick, casual-seeming look around to ensure that he was alone, then straight for the spot he'd been observing from a rented office across the street for the past week: an equipment shed for elevator servicing and light storage. It was beige, as was most of the building's exterior. Three sides on the roof like some misplaced pigeon coop, the fourth wall just inches from the roof edge. With the bottom thirty inches of it in constant shadow from the roof's restraining wall. He quickly reversed his jacket to expose its flat-black lining; pulled on a black hood and gloves from the case; took a last lookaround, a last listen, then slid into the narrow, deeply shadowed space. And lay there, unmoving, for the next nine hours. Normally he would've willed sleep to come. Forced rest and relaxation through his adrenalized body to prepare for the night's work ahead. But ever since he'd decided on this job, sleep had become his enemy. A thing to be avoided at all costs. Well, not sleep exactly, but the things that sleep brought with it. Phantom pains and fanged shadows that reached out for him from a place he'd thought no longer existed within him. A place that had been mostly silent for so many years. He never should've even considered this score. He knew that now. With the clarity of a man who has the time to think Oh? I took that curve a little too fast, moments before crashing over the side of a cliff. But to walk away, even now, would be conceding a power over him to the dusty, moldy demons. And this man conceded nothing to no one. It was a little past midnight when he slowly, carefully crawled from his hiding place. His ears strained to hear everything, anything. Any noise that might give a second's warning of trouble or, worse still, that might give him away. Once he was fully out of the crawl space, he rolled onto his back, staring up into the starry night, slowly counting to 300. He felt the blood come racing back into previously cramped limbs. Forced pinioned muscles to stretch, then relax. Rolled his neck to loosen his shoulders. Felt himself come alive again. Only then did he try to stand. After testing his legs and arms, convinced that they'd fully recovered from the odd positions they'd been forced into all day, he moved silently across the gravel roof to the Gravesend Avenue side. ASteinberg, Richard is the author of 'Nobody's Safe' with ISBN 9780553581881 and ISBN 0553581880.