She nodded. “Oh, yeah. There’s a document on the iPad that’s like thirty or forty pages long.”
“Could you send me that? There’s something going on over there, and it’s not a television show. A couple of us are trying to figure out what.”
Kathy frowned. “I don’t want to lose this gig.”
“You won’t, I promise. Just email me the file. It’s just background information to give out anyway, right?”
“I suppose so.”
He pulled out a pen and scribbled his email address down on his napkin. “Just make up some reason why you’d have to send it to me. Most rental places keep documents on their properties, right? You’ve just got one that’s a lot better than most.”
Nate pushed the napkin across the table. She stared at it for a moment. “Okay,” she said. “But I swear, if you fuck this up for me I will kill you. And I know where you live.”
Thursday Nate was back in the office and focused on making up for the three days he hadn’t been doing his job. Another crate had arrived on his day off and he guessed there were close to two thousand names and addresses to input now. He checked his email every other hour, but there was nothing from Kathy-who-had-been-Toni.
At the end of the day, Anne leaned into his cubicle. “Drinks tonight,” she said. “Down at the Cat and the Fiddle.”
He shook his head. “Love to,” said Nate, “but there are no outings in my future. Especially to places with expensive drinks.”
She nodded. “That’s the whole point. Editor Dave is taking us all out and buying the first round. It’s his way of saying sorry.”
“Dave’s not responsible.”
“Yeah, but he’s a good guy.”
He looked at the screen. His inbox was still empty. He pictured the search for a parking space in his neighborhood after hours. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m still feeling tight with the hours getting cut. Plus, I’m working on a couple projects at home.”
Anne shrugged. “It’s a free drink. Thought you’d want to know.” She slipped past him and out the door.
Her hips made a convincing argument for going out.
It went like every other time out, of course. He made small talk with Dave and Zack. He flirted with Anne even though they both knew she was out of his league. He listened to Jimmy the intern explain how he was going to make it big and change Hollywood and not play studio games. The Journalist was there, without his Hot Redhead Girlfriend, chatting with Dave and another editor whose name Nate could never remember.
Once his free drink was gone, Nate considered having another. There were four beers in the fridge at home, though, and his wallet was very thin. And for the past ten minutes he’d been leaning back in his chair not talking to anyone and the conversations were still going on all around him. Plus, thinking of home reminded him that Veek still didn’t know about Kathy the actress.
He got up, thanked Dave, said a few goodbyes, and headed for his car. It was late enough he only caught the tail end of rush hour. In a record-breaking ten minutes he found a space only a block from his apartment.
He was cutting across the parking lot for the corner liquor store when a familiar figure stepped out. Oskar had a plastic bag slung around each wrist. They almost dragged on the ground. His face had a slumped expression Nate knew all too well. The look of someone who’d accepted his place in life and stopped striving for anything else.
“Hey, Oskar,” he called out.
The man glanced up. It took a moment for him to process Nate out of context. Then his lips twisted into a tight smile. “Mr. Tucker,” he said. “Forgiff me for not greeting you. My mind was elsewhere.”
“No problem,” he said. “How are you?”
Oskar waited for Nate to come alongside him and then the two men walked down the street together. “I am well, thank you. Haff you seen any more rats?”
Nate caught himself before he furrowed his brow. “Just that one,” he said. “You were right. It must’ve been a fluke.”
The older man gave a sharp nod. “The Kavach Building would not allow rats within its walls,” he said.
“Sorry?”
“It is too dignified a building for pests.” He tried to raise one of his burdened arms to reach the crosswalk button. Nate reached past him and hit the large yellow button. “It is a wonderful place. I am glad to liff here with such good tenants.”
The glowing red hand became a white figure in mid-stride. They crossed Kenmore and headed up the block to the building. “By the way,” said Nate, “I wanted to ask, what’s the address for the main office?”
Oskar stopped. “The what?”
“The main office. Locke Management. Where are they?”
The older man shook his head. “Do not waste your time with them. Whateffer you need, talk to me.”
“I don’t want to bother you.”
“It is not a bother. It is my job. I am glad to do it.”
“Still,” said Nate, “I’d love to get it from you. Just for my records and stuff.”
Oskar stared up at him for a moment. “What is this about, Mr. Tucker?”
Nate feigned innocence. He wasn’t sure if he did a good job at it. “About?” he echoed. “It’s not about anything.”
“Do you haff a problem with how I haff been doing my job here?”
“No. No, of course not.”
“Why do you wish to work around me, then?”
“I’m not trying to work around you,” said Nate. “I just wanted to know where the office is. Is it out of state or something?”
Oskar’s brow furrowed. “Why do you say that?”
“Say what?”
“Why do you ask if the office is out of state?”
“Because you’re being really difficult about giving out the address. I thought maybe it was far away.”
He considered this. “It is,” he said. “Forgiff me for being suspicious. After so long here, I dread the thought of losing this job. I am comfortable.” He gestured with his head and continued up the hill to the building.
Nate fell in alongside him. “What about...whatshername? Toni? Who does she work for, then, if there’s no local office?”
Oskar gave a theatrical glance over either shoulder. “Honest truth?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“She works for another office. Locke hires her to be their local face because she is attractiff, but they will not open an office here. It is a tax thing. I do not know the details.”
“Ahhhh.”
They reached the fence and Nate held the gate open for Oskar. The older man swung his broad shoulders to fit through with his bags and they both trudged up the steps.
“So, anyway,” said Nate at the first landing, “could I get that address?”
This time Oskar didn’t stop. “What address?”
“The main office.”
“I told you,” he said, prying the door open with his heel, “you do not need it. Whateffer you need, talk to me.”
“But what if somewhere down the line I’m applying to live somewhere else? I need my rental history. They’ll want to talk to the people in the office.”
“Are you going to moof out?”
“Well...no. But if I do someday—”
Oskar shook his head as they stepped into the lobby. “Just haff them call me. I deal with all such things.”
“Yeah, but I can’t just assume you’re going to be here.”
“I haff been here twenty-three years, nineteen as manager. I haff no plans to moof.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Mr. Tucker,” he said. “My job is to make things run smoothly. That means making sure there are no disturbances here. It also means making sure there are no disturbances for the people at the main office. They do not want to be getting phone calls at all hours from tenants with silly questions or worries about rats.”
“This isn’t about the—”
“So you will let me deal with such things. And we will stop with the idea of contacting the main office, yes?” Oskar’s face had lost the cheer and humor that had filled it outside. “And also with the measuring of walls and hallways.”
They stood in the lobby for a moment and stared at each other. Then the older man turned away. He raised his bags and started up the stairs.
“What is this place?” asked Nate.
Oskar didn’t turn back. “This is the Kavach Building. It is my home. It is your home. It is a good home. What more do you need to know?”
Oskar trudged up to the landing and around the corner. Nate heard him thump down the hall to his apartment. A moment later a door closed hard enough to be called a slam.
“Nate,” called Tim. “Do you know my new best friend, Roger?”
Tim and the man from the laundry room were sprawled on the deck chairs in front of Friday’s sunset. Between them was a twelve pack of beer and half a bag of ice. Trails of water snaked out of the case to form small puddles and drip between the planks of the deck.
“I’ve been replaced?”
“Well, Roger brought a half case with ice,” said Tim. “What do you have?”
“I could go get chips or something.”
“Save it for next time, bro,” chuckled Roger. He pulled a bottle from the ice-filled box. “Want one?”
“It’s why I’m here.”
He popped the cap off and held it out to Nate. “Enjoy.”
Nate took a long pull off the bottle while he found a seat. He grabbed a chair from the table under the cabana.
“Long week?” Tim asked.
“Too long.”
Tim held out his bottle and they clinked the necks. “Tell Doctor Farr all about it.”
“I don’t know if I can afford your rates.”
“That’s okay. I work with a lot of charity cases like you.”
Roger laughed and coughed up some beer.
“You want to hear the bad news or the weird news?”
“No good news?” asked Tim.
Nate shrugged. “I suppose some of the weird news could be good, in that confirmation kind of way.”
“Let’s go with weird, then.”
Nate went back to the start of the week and explained what their measurements had revealed. Then he told them about the chance meeting with the woman they’d all known as Toni, and his encounter with Oskar. Neither of them interrupted him. By the time he was done, he’d started his second beer and the sun had touched the horizon.
“Lemme get this straight,” said Roger. “Hottie Asian chick was just an actress?”
“Looks like,” said Nate.
“And we’re on some British reality show?”
Tim shook his head. “I think Nate was dead-on. There’s no television show going on here.”
“But she’s an actress?”
“Yeah,” said Nate. He looked at Tim. “What do you think?”
Tim drummed his fingers on the arm of the deck chair. He took a drink of beer. “I’ve got to be honest, Nate. When you told me your ideas about hidden secrets, I thought you were overreacting a bit.” He had another sip of beer. “If you hire an uninformed third party to conduct your business, though, you’re trying to protect yourself.”
Roger set his empty bottle on the deck. “From what?”
“On a guess, either they don’t want to be in the public eye or they don’t want it known they own this building. Possibly a little of both.”
Nate took another hit off his beer, but before he could say anything a throat cleared behind them. He glanced over his shoulder. Tim and Roger looked, too.
Andrew stood by the fire door. He had on another sweater vest, this time over a pink polo shirt. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your party. I just didn’t want you to think I was eavesdropping.”
“No problem,” said Nate. He glanced at his drinking buddies. “Do you guys know Andrew?”
Andrew walked over and thrust his hand at Tim. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced. I live across the hall from you. I’m Andrew.”
“So I heard.” He shifted his bottle to the other hand and wrapped his fingers around the offered palm. “Tim Farr. Would you like to join us for a beer?”
Andrew’s head shake could’ve been a twitch. “Intoxication goes against the Lord’s wishes.”
“Not getting intoxicated, bro,” said Roger. “Just having a beer or three at the end of the week.”
“You’re not in my congregation, so please don’t call me brother,” said Andrew.
Roger’s eyes widened and rolled. “Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean anything by it.”
“I know it seems like careless fun now,” Andrew said, “but when your soul is tallied, these are the little things which add up. The Lord asks for focus and devotion. He has a plan and it doesn’t involve alcohol.”
Roger bit back most of his chuckle.
“You laugh now,” said Andrew, “but in the end we shall see who—”
“Stop,” said Tim. There was an edge to his voice. Nate remembered his first impression, of drill sergeants and gym teachers.
The word even made Andrew pause for a moment. He looked confused. “When the key to salvation is found and you—”
“I said stop.” Tim took his sunglasses off and stared at Andrew. Nate could see the curve of his eyes and found himself grateful he wasn’t the focus of that stare.