The Son of Every Man

Chapter 8.5

Monday, August 9th, 1999

He arrived early at the warehouse Monday night for a 9 p.m. consultation with a vendor. The vendor was late—not necessarily cause for alarm, but certainly rare in an industry he had come to know as uniquely punctual. Why add extra unknowns when the premise of each and every meeting lay rooted in felony?

He settled his nerves with housekeeping, dusting the crevices of shelves jammed with files, thickly lining every wall of the already cramped office, forming a manilla tomb. He gathered a year's worth of stale purchase orders and handwritten receipts, already painstakingly sorted, and began hanging them in a newly-installed filing cabinet (number eight) along the office's exterior wall.

The buzz of fluorescent lights presided overhead. They created a kind of silence that was never truly silent—not enough to allow one to perceive, for example, the soft padding of footsteps across a polished concrete floor.

"Hello," came a voice from right behind him.

Miguel had been kneeling before the gaping bottom drawer of the metal cabinet. He was so startled that he flailed onto his back before scrambling to his feet. The man was white, nearly Miguel's height and somewhere in his mid- to late-twenties. He matched the description of the vendor.

Miguel glanced up at the wall clock above the workbench. Almost half past nine. "You're very late."

The words were empty, almost playful: "Sorry about that."

"How'd you get in?"

"Door was open." The man began to appraise his surroundings. His eyes infiltrated every surface, every corner. He stepped slowly around in a broad circle, clicking his tongue. "Not a bad setup you got here."

Across the room, the small service door lay several inches ajar like a puncture in a hot-air balloon. Somehow, unbelievably and unforgivably, Miguel had not secured it. He rushed over and pulled it shut, snapping the deadbolt in place. "Was this open?"

"Unlocked. I opened it."

Even in the not-silence, Miguel should have heard it opening. The weather stripping brushed audibly against the frame under normal conditions, unless a person took special care to make it quiet—and why had the man not closed it behind him? "You always have to knock."

"How was I supposed to know? I turned the knob, it opened."

"Everybody knocks," Miguel said firmly.

The man said nothing.

Miguel did his best to put away his shock and confusion. He faced the man as he would any other vendor and began their dealings. As they discussed pricing and Miguel gathered signatures, the man cast repeated glances about himself, anywhere but at Miguel and the paperwork. He seemed enraptured by the space. At one point Miguel ducked into the office for a fresh pen, and when he came back out, found the man wandering the far wall opposite the workbench.

"Please stay over here," Miguel called out. He had never said anything like that to a vendor before—no exchange called for it until now.

The man walked casually back toward him. "What kind of capacity are we dealing with in a place like this?"

Miguel read his behavior clearly. The man was not ignorant of the formality he should have adhered to. Asking such an inappropriate question in that eerily cursory tone did not signal sloppiness—not in this case. It was bold, haughty, intentional. "I don't know," he answered firmly.

By some miracle, the meeting concluded without incident. Once the man was gone, Miguel went into the office and called Eddie's cell phone. Eddie told Miguel he would accompany Gabe in the delivery car later that night, and the three of them would debrief together. Then, a grave request: Miguel was to stay inside the warehouse until they arrived. He was not to return home during the intervening hours (which he had indeed planned to do). It felt like a prison sentence.