Page 40 of Brian and Mina's Holiday Hits
“Okay,” he whispers.
I turn and watch out the door for the cleaners. It feels like a lifetime passes before the elevator doors finally open. Ten large men all wearing black T-shirts, pants, and work boots. Several covered in black tattoos. They bring in buckets and mops and cleaning supplies, and rolls and rolls of plastic wrap and duct tape.
They peer with interest at me and the boy, but I hear Brian say “They’re with me.” And they quickly get to work.
Half the men go back downstairs to handle thirteen and the lobby. Brian goes with them. I shut and lock the executive suite, not trusting myself and the boy alone with these men.
The clean-up is faster than the time waiting for them to get here. They’re efficient and have coordinated this down to a science. Suddenly the boy rushes past me and out the door into the lobby, I follow to try to stop him, but it’s too late.
Plastic wrapped bodies are being carried to the waiting elevator. The boy watches each one as it passes, and I know he wonders which of these plastic mummies is his dad. He can’t even say a proper goodbye.
When they’ve gone, Brian returns, wearing his own set of clean gloves. He goes into the executive suite and comes back out a few minutes later, grinning like the Cheshire Cat.
I give him a questioning look and he just raises his wrist to reveal the new watch stacked on top of the one he was already wearing. “Special delivery.”
“You were going to let that just blow up?”
He shrugs. “I’m still expensing it to the client.”
We go down to the thirteenth floor together with the kid. Brian picks up the bomb, and checks for any other evidence the cleaners might have missed. The bodies of the guards are gone and the bullet holes have been filled—like it never happened. But apparently bomb removal isn’t a part of their job. Either that, or Brian wanted to keep that bit of evidence himself.
When we get inside the elevator, he wipes off each button.
“What about the stair railing? I think I touched it,” I say.
Brian shakes his head. “You and hundreds of other people. Nobody ever cleans those, so no one’s fingerprints will stand out. Besides, no one knows what happened here tonight.”
That’s so gross, that nobody ever cleans the railing in the emergency stairwell. I try not to dwell on that thought.
Brian looks down at the boy, suddenly remembering he’s here. And this kid has instincts only living with criminals can create.
“I-I won’t tell anyone,” he whispers.
Brian nods and looks awkwardly away from the kid.
When we get down to the main floor lobby, Brian says, “Get him to someone who can help him and then meet me at the car.”
I usher the boy outside into the warm muggy night. All of this has happened and the parade is still going on. It’s so surreal. I hold the boy’s hand as we walk toward the parade, the loud fireworks still popping and exploding above us as the atmosphere shifts from one of blood and death and loss to a summer carnival energy.
“Are you hungry?” I ask.
The kid nods, so even though I know Brian would be pissed, I stop at a food cart and get him a corn dog and a soda. I get one for myself as well. Then I give him ten dollars. I don’t know why, but he might want an ice cream or something. Or a sparkler.
I get down to his eye level while he bites into the corn dog and say, “Do you see that fireman over there?” I point, because the last thing I want to do is direct him to police.
He nods.
“Finish your corn dog, and then go tell him you’re lost, and he’ll help you get back home to your mom.”
“I don’t have a mom,” he says with his mouth full.
My chest tightens at this. My God, what have we done to this child?
“Who do you live with?”
“My daddy.”
Fuck.
