I was a 45 year old retired ninja with a muscular frame, receding hairline and the beginnings of a tiny middle-aged paunch. My post-ninja gig was as a security contractor. Companies hired me to inspect their premises and either prophylactically try to break in or, more often, figure out how somebody else had outsmarted their alarm system/trained dogs/security guards/walls,locks&fences.
My latest client was an elite underground spa for wealthy businessmen. I went on the welcome tour, mentally noting gates, locks, and steroidal staff. After a group steam bath in the cavernous natural shale-lined sauna, I exited to the main lobby with the other guests, then did a u-turn in a dark stairwell and padded silently back downstairs to the locker room.
This time, rather than sauntering in like I owned the place, I hugged the walls and calculated each footfall, while adrenaline, despite years of experience in sneaking, drove a familiar pounding bloodrush in my ear drums.
I never met with my clients in person until after a job was complete. I'd come to Steele Spas unannounced, armed with an alias, and as far as the staff knew, I was just another supremely wealthy CEO/arms dealer/minor middle eastern prince. I was therefore at the mercy of any of the security measures, however angry, muscular, or efficient. I would not identify myself even if caught and handed over to the police. In theory. In two and a half years of practise this had never happened.
The locker room door was true to its namesake: locked. A very solid, gleaming deadbolt slid visibly through several thick wrought iron slats. The lock mechanism itself, however, yielded easily to my handheld pick set, and I observed the gate wasn't truly floor to ceiling but had a good five inches of clearance at the bottom, two at the top. I eased the gate open just wide enough to slip through, and, hearing footsteps echoing somewhere behind me, froze.
The acoustics of the underground caves made it impossible to be certain which direction the noise was coming from. I silently pulled the gate closed behind me, and slipped to one side just as the WWF-sized security guard ambled by on his timed rounds. Having seen him or his clone pass during my impersonation of a guest, I estimated I had five minutes. Not much time, but hopefully enough.
At the far end of the locker room was a pleasantly rusted set of decorative saloon doors that led to the several pools and temperature controlled caves. This time I stopped, dropped, and rolled through the generous waist-high gap, rather than risk the small double squeak I'd heard every time a guest had pushed open the doors and let them swing back.
In the corridor beyond it was dark; before it had been dim, but not so much you'd risk tripping or stumbling into another guest. Now they'd turned out all but the small blue security LEDs set high on the outside side of the curving hallway, spaced about every ten feet. They glowed but only enough to see a small disk of surrounding wall. I walked and counted LEDs, trying hard to ignore how unsettling it was to be unable to see the floor, like I was just a head, floating through an inky darkness.
I turned a corner and walked into a busy dining room, sat down across from two business partners at a firm on Wall Street that had once used my services. I pretended to take part in the conversation, an easy task at this point as I was several whiskeys more sober than either man at my table. Behind them a carefully dressed, delicate-featured Malay girl was having dinner with some friends. Her musical soprano laughter easily outstaged the high-decibel bass of my drinking companions ever raunchier jokes. My desire for her felt like a red haze.
I excused myself when I saw her rise; the boys were having too much fun to notice it was my second break in under fifteen minutes. The restrooms were set to the right of the unmanned front desk. I surreptitiously beheaded one of the Tiger lilies in the chest-high vase, and tossed it expertly against her retreating calf. Rushing forward, I bent to pick it up as she turned, having felt it brush her ankle.
"You dropped this?" I asked, handing it to her, enjoying the puzzlement in her eyes, her small, automatically outstretched hand. Instead of handing it to her, I set it gently behind her ear, allowing a tiny thrilling graze of her cheek with my pinky; I observed a satisfying flush in her cheeks. I gave a faint smile, then moved past her to the men's room. I had crossed the line entirely, now it was time to give my prey a little space.
I opened the door and stepped from the floor of a Chicago city bus onto the sidewalk. Two blocks down I spotted the sidewalk cafe where Jarod, my best friend from high school, was waiting. We hadn't seen or spoken to each other in fifteen years. He looked good - older, heavier, but still the same big brown eyes, olive skin. Unlike me he still had all his hair.
Spotting me he waved, stood, and gave his trademark hundred-watt smile. That smile, together with his stocky six-foot-two frame, had spared him from the usual harassment meted out to the foolhardy uncloseted gays in my midwestern 1990s city.
Jarod folded me in a bear hug, signaled the waiter for another drink, and we entered into conversation shockingly naturally, as if the intervening years had been an insignificant fortnight vacation from our friendship.
Halfway through my second beer, he put his hand on my knee. He held his alcohol well, but there was a tiny weave in his frame as he leaned in, his eyes serious, holding mine. "I think I am in love with you." Then he sat back, as if he'd just told me in confidence that he'd won a bet in a horse race. He took another pull from his lager, gave his dazzling smile, and said, "I have to hit the head. Be right back."
I chewed thoughtfully on a cracker smeared with Brie, trying to decode my best friend's confession, and woke to scratching at my door, and mews clearly demanding breakfast.
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