Taking a small key from my chain, I gingerly placed the rest of the keys on top of the mailboxes before opening the new padlock I’d installed. Underneath a pile of thick brown envelopes and junk mail I found a pair of brass knuckles. In my teens I’d boxed for my parish. A lot of poor Catholic kids in New York did the same. It was supposed to instill discipline and sportsmanship—but in my case, my dad had insisted upon it for an entirely different reason. The way he figured it, if I could punch out a guy twice my size, he wouldn’t worry so much about my rookie mistakes when it came time to strike out on my own as a con artist. All I had to do was train hard in the gym, work smart with the grift, and make damn sure my mom didn’t find out about any of it.
The lobby was in darkness, quiet and still except for the odd moan from the heating pipes. The stairs were old and creaked like crazy. Weighing my options, I decided the stairs would carry less noise than the ancient elevator. I kept my steps light and close to the tiled wall. That allowed me to watch the upper levels as I ascended and helped avoid the worst of the groans from the old boards, which barked if you put weight near the center of the stair. The brass knuckles felt cold in my hands. Their icy touch was somehow reassuring. As I neared the top of the third flight of steps, I could hear voices. Muffled, hushed tones.
The door that led to my office was wide open. A man stood in the doorframe with his back to the hallway. Beyond him I could see at least one man with a flashlight craned into the top drawer of my file cabinet. The man with his back to me wore an earpiece. I could see the translucent wire snaking down from his ear to the folds of his black leather jacket. He wore jeans and thick-soled boots. Law enforcement, but certainly not cops. Earpieces are not standard issue for NYPD, and most didn’t want to cough up the hundred dollars for the privilege of appearing either tactical or cool. The federal law-enforcement budget did stretch to an earpiece for each man, but feds would’ve posted a man in the lobby and they wouldn’t care about replacing the dime in the doorframe. If they weren’t feds or PD, then who were they? The fact that they had coms made me nervous. Coms made them organized. This wasn’t a couple of crackheads looking to make a quick buck.
Crawling up the last few stairs, I made sure to keep my belly on the ground. I could hear whispered conversation but couldn’t make it out. The man with the flashlight in the file cabinet wasn’t speaking. There were others in the office who I couldn’t see; they were the ones having the discussion. As I got closer, the voices became clearer.
“Anything so far?” said a voice.
The searcher closed the file cabinet drawer and opened the one below it.
“Nothing relevant to the target,” said the man as he selected a file, opened it, and began reading with his flashlight.
Target.
That word, like a shock wave, sent boiling adrenaline through my veins. My neck muscles tightened, and my breath quickened.
They hadn’t seen me.
I had two good options: slide out of there, get my car, drive like crazy all night, and then call the cops from the next state. Option number two was to leave, forget the car, jump into the first cab I saw, and head to Judge Harry Ford’s apartment on the Upper East Side and drop a dime to the cops from the safety of Harry’s couch.
Both choices were sound; both were smart; both carried minimal risk.
But that wasn’t me.
I got up without a sound, rolled my neck, tucked my right fist under my chin, and charged the door.