Chapter 3 — The Scenic Route
The security desk at Mason Towers runs twelve monitors. Earl watches all of them.
Tonight he is watching two.
In front of him: three incident reports pulled from a manila folder, cross-referenced against entries in his notebook. He has been at this a while. The schematic is already folded and put away. This is later work. Pattern work.
On the desk beside the reports: a small photograph, face-down.
He looks up at the monitors.
One feed: the front desk. A man in business casual stands at the security counter, jaw tight. He signs the log. The desk attendant clips a visitor badge to his jacket. The man doesn't look at it.
Earl watches.
A second feed: the elevator lobby. The same man crosses into frame, hands in his pockets. The walk of a man who made up his mind about something on the way over. He stabs the call button.
Earl watches. Does not reach for the notebook.
Very still. Not patient. Waiting.
The elevator arrives. The man gets in.
On the panel — button 13 flickers. Pale pulse. Gone.
Earl does not react to the flicker. He has seen it before.
He picks up the top incident report. Reads one line. Sets it back down.
He does not call anyone.
Carlton Mercer steps into the elevator alone and presses 9.
He has an appointment on the ninth floor. A witness in a property dispute — routine, unremarkable. He folds his hands. Waits.
Display: L. The doors close.
Display: 3. 6. 8.
The doors open at 9.
A man steps in. Business casual, visitor badge clipped to his jacket, jaw tight. The look of a man trying to hold his face together and not quite managing it.
He reaches for the panel. Presses L.
Carlton clocks him. Clocks the knuckles — raw at the edges, the particular rawness that doesn't come from a gym. Clocks the shallow breathing.
He says nothing. He does not reach for his badge. He does not press 9 again.
The doors close.
Display: 8.
"You ever do something you can't take back?"
Carlton looks at him. "Most days. What floor?"
"Lobby. Been a long ass day."
Display: 8 to 7. The car descends.
"I only went up there to talk to my boss. That's it."
"And did you?"
"Yeah, but that bastard just laughed at me. Ten years, and he—" The man stops. Exhales. "Sorry. You don't need to hear this."
"Easy," Carlton says. "Breathe."
Display: 6.
"Talk where? His office?"
"Nine-oh-four. Corner one."
"And he's still up there?"
A pause. The particular pause of a man deciding how much of the truth to say.
"He's not going anywhere."
Display: 5.
Carlton nods slowly. Like he already knew.
"What happened to your hand?"
The man looks down at his knuckles. Looks up.
"...I never told you my name."
Carlton says nothing. He just holds the man's eyes in the brushed steel of the doors. The display ticks to 4. Six floors left. Nowhere to run.
Display: L.
The doors part. Two uniformed officers wait in the lobby.
The man didn't hear a thing.
Carlton steps out first and lifts his badge. "Detective Carlton Mercer." He turns to the officers. "Nine-oh-four, corner office. He'll tell you the rest. He already told me."
The man looks down at his visitor badge. A barcode. Nothing else.
"My badge doesn't have my name on it."
"No," Carlton says. "It doesn't."
Carlton turns around.
Earl is standing six feet away, near the mailboxes. Arms folded. He has been there the entire time.
Carlton clocks him. Clocks the stillness. The patience of a man who watches everything and says nothing, because he cannot say anything, and has made that into something else entirely.
"You the building engineer?"
Earl nods.
"You see him come in?"
Earl nods. Reaches into his jacket. Produces the notebook. Opens it. Tears out a single page — already written, already waiting — and holds it out.
Carlton takes it.
Earl is already walking.
Carlton reads the note.
He looks up.
Earl is gone.
The note reads: Good job, Detective.
Carlton stands alone in the lobby. The elevator doors closed. The officers and the man somewhere above him.
He looks at the note one more time.
He doesn't say a word.
Some rides, you talk yourself all the way down.
Some doors were never meant to open.