The Quiet Man

Choose a Side

The lift is taking forever. Mashing on the button doesn’t help, I know, but it certainly feels like it might. Come on, come on...

Is it out again? Are they repairing it, or something? There’s no sign. They wouldn’t shut it off early in the morning, would they? Not without a sign. People are off to work. There would be an outcry. But it’s stalled, it hasn’t moved in ages. What is it, stuck?

Bloody lift. Come on, hurry up, I’m already late.

Oh, there it goes. Thank god. Someone just holding the door open, no doubt. Bloody do-gooders. The rest of us are waiting.

It’s later in the morning than I’d hoped it would be. She’ll be up by now, she’ll be getting ready for work. She’ll have noticed that I’m gone, she might even have looked for me. I didn’t take my phone. She’ll wonder where I am; maybe she panicked and called the police. No: she wouldn’t, would she? She wouldn’t do that. She’d wait. She’d wait and worry, that’s what she’d do.

I didn’t think to leave a note. I’ve gone out for a walk in the morning before. She shouldn’t imagine the worst, not yet. When I go out in the mornings I generally tell her I’m leaving, though. Usually she knows where I am. I could have left my computer on and open to a blank page, as if I’d just stepped out to get some air and cope with some sort of writer’s block. She would have understood that. She would think it was only frustration, or insomnia, or both. That would have been a good idea, leaving the computer on. You would have thought of that. But I didn’t; I didn’t imagine I’d be this late.

An hour ago I could have slipped back into bed and Mary would just be waking up. She might never have noticed that I’d left, if I did it right. She’d never even know enough to ask me. She wouldn’t have heard the door close at three in the morning; she wouldn’t notice that I took my gun. She wouldn’t have seen the code solved on my desk; she wouldn’t have understood it, or tried to. She’s not like you: she wouldn’t take it all in in a moment and make sense of it. She won’t notice the grass stains on my jeans, either, or the flecks of blood on the cuffs of my jacket. She won’t deduce what it is that I’ve done.

She’ll certainly notice the blood on your face.

Oh. Right. I nearly forgot about that. My face.

Ouch. Best avoid touching it, it’s a bit sore. I can feel my pulse in it. I’m still bleeding. That bloke had a pretty good right hook. But nothing broken. It’s fine. I’m fine. It’s nothing.

I guess I could take the stairs. That’s a lot of stairs though. Twenty-five floors. The lift will be quicker, no matter how long it takes.

She could check the drawer and see if my gun is gone. But she won’t. It won’t occur to her. She doesn’t see me as the sort of person who walks around with a gun in public, she just doesn’t. Even though she knows about the gun, even though she’s read all the stories. That was a different man, to her. A fictional one. Someone I used to aspire to be. I thought so too, really. Now I’m not so sure.

Well, maybe she doesn’t really know about the gun, not really. I never admitted to shooting anyone in stories, or in the novel. I’m not an idiot.

Whatever gave you that idea?

Someone’s come in the front door; he’s got a dog. He was out walking his dog first thing in the morning: a perfectly ordinary activity. Makes sense. He looks familiar; I think I’ve seen him before. He’s new. He moved in recently, didn’t he? Yes. Twenty-fourth or twenty-third floor, we’ve shared the lift a couple of times, I think. He’s all in black. He looks military, or ex-military. Not like me, though: combat. The kind of quietly-muscled ones that are twice as heavy as they look. I know his type. Sniper, maybe. Unless I’m just being romantic.