I'd written beneath the address--4783--and thumbed the pound symbol. A grating buzz released the gate, and with a stab of exhilaration I walked through.
Maybe not Enemy of the State. Maybe I was living out The Game.
Apartment 11 was at the back of the courtyard on the second floor. My unease mounted as I ascended the stairs. Ariana was right--this was foolhardy. I could be strolling into my own murder.
The floating walkway serviced four apartments, each in worse shape than the last. I reached number 11. Those rusting numerals, loosely nailed to the door. No peephole. With its cracks and curling paint, the ancient door looked even worse than in the picture. The knob hung loose. A new dead bolt, the sole upgrade, had been installed high on the door, compensating for the old-fashioned keyhole assembly.
I took out the DVD in its purple case, regarded it, tapped it against my thigh. Sucked in a breath, blew it out hard. Then I pushed the doorbell. Broken. Given the condition of the complex, I wasn't surprised. I pressed my ear to the wood, dry paint poking the side of my face. More nothing.
I raised my hand but couldn't bring myself to knock. I don't know what stopped me. Dread, maybe. Or perhaps an early warning system, some heightened awareness my cells were registering even if my mind was not. I rethought my decision to wear the GPS Nikes. Did they rule out a retreat? I lowered my fist. Released a silent breath. Was that a muffled creak I heard from inside or merely the floor groaning beneath my own weight? Slowly, cautiously, I crouched to look through the old-fashioned assembly.
Filling the keyhole, squirming to take in my nearing face, was an eye peering back at me.
I yelped and leaped back as the door flew open, and then a stocky man in a tank top charged, shoving me into the railing.
'Who are you?' he yelled. 'Why are you doing this to me?'
He pounced again, pushing me into the floor, as if unsure what to do with me. I flung him away and we squared off, but it quickly became clear neither of us wanted to fight.
His breathing was ragged, more agitated than angry. At five foot nine, he was a few inches shorter than me, but thicker. Massy arms bulged from his worn undershirt. His curly hair, mussed high and paired with a receding hairline, added a comedic note to his otherwise tough-guy appearance.
He pointed to the purple jewel case, lying cracked where I'd dropped it on his doorstep. 'Why are you leaving those?'
My mouth goldfished. 'I . . . I'm not. Someone's been delivering discs to my house. Surveillance footage of me. They got that DVD to me, along with your address.'
Keeping his eyes on me, he picked up the case and flipped it open. Then he glanced down, quickly, at the disc. 'These are the kind of DVDs you use, too?'
'No. Mine are different. . . .' It took me a moment to register the 'too.' I said slowly, 'They send you footage, recorded onto your own discs.'
'Yes. Through my mail slot. Under my windshield wiper. In my microwave.' He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then swiped his thumb twice across the inside of his wrist, his movements quick, jittery. 'Little movies of me walking to the park. Shopping for groceries. That kind of shit.'
'Did they call you? On a cell phone?'
'No. Never talked to anyone. But my service got shut off--bills. And I don't have a landline.'
'Do you have the DVDs?'
The thumb moved across his wrist again, a nervous tic. 'No. I threw them out. Why would I keep them?'
'How long have they been doing it?'
'Two months.'
'Two months? Christ, it started five days ago for me, and I'm already . . .' Dread overtook me, and I paused to breathe.
'Why me?' He tapped his chest with a fist. 'Why film me? Filling up my fucking truck with gas?'
'They got me taking a leak. Have you talked to the cops?'
'I don't like cops. Besides, what are they gonna say?'
'How were you contacted?' I asked.
'I wasn't. Just the discs showing up. I don't know why . . .'
'Why they're doing this to us.'
His expression shifted. We were comrades all of a sudden, patients with the same affliction. 'Why they chose us,' he said.
I thought of that two-word directive at the end of the e-mail. GO ALONE, not COME ALONE. A mission, not a summons. We'd been put in touch to figure something out. Our gazes moved in concert to the DVD in his hands.
He rushed inside the apartment, me at his heels. The dense reek of mold overwhelmed me two steps in, less a smell than an impression on my pores. I blinked into the drawn-curtain dimness to see him fumbling the disc into a player beneath a hefty TV. Dirty clothes and grocery bags were strewn across the patchy carpet, as well as a few discs in purple cases marked with TV-show names. No chairs, no couches, no table by the run of counter that passed for a kitchenette. The only items that couldn't be swept up were a twin mattress thrown in the corner, topped with a twisted fuss of sheets, and the TV denting a metal trunk.
He shoved himself up and took a few steps back, standing shoulder to shoulder with me, facing the screen, his knee jackhammering.
The picture came up. Basement, stairs, concrete floor.
'It's nothing,' I said. 'It's--'
He let out a creaking gasp. He fell to his knees. Crawling forward, he paused the image and put his face right up against the screen, scrutinizing something in the bottom-right corner. Then he sat back on his heels and swayed a little. It wasn't until a gut-wrenching moan filled the room that I realized he was crying. He lowered his face to the dank carpet and sobbed. I stood a few feet behind him, mystified, completely at a loss.
He rocked and cried some more.
'Are you . . . ?' I asked. 'Can I . . . ?'
Pulling himself to his feet, he fell into me, squeezing me hard. A tinge of soured sweat. 'Thank you, thank you, God bless you.'
I raised an arm awkwardly from my side as if to pat his back, but my hand just hovered there. 'I don't know what I did. I don't know what that is.'
'Please,' he said, stepping away. He looked around, as if only now realizing he had nowhere for me to sit. 'I'm sorry, I can't remember the last time I had someone . . .' He seemed disoriented.
'It's fine.' I sat on the floor.
He followed suit. His hands moved in circular gestures, but he couldn't manage to speak. A square of yellow light from the window fell across him, filtered through thick, dusty curtains. A water stain in the far corner darkened the carpet, climbed the wall.
'I was a custodian,' he finally said. 'At a high school outside Pittsburgh. The water heater gave out, and we were tight, you know, budget cuts.' His thumb skimmed across the inside of his wrist again, as if smoothing the skin. 'A guy on the school board was in on some low-income housing deal, they were tearing down a complex, whatever. So he got a big water heater from there.' He gestured at the screen, the water heater. 'They delivered it for me to install. An older unit. I said I didn't like the looks of it. They told me it wasn't a beauty pageant, that it had been tested and met whatever qualifications. So I put it in. The thing is . . . the thing is, they'd prepped it for delivery. Drained it, I mean, and wired the pressure-relief valve so the leftover water wouldn't drip out during transport.' He fell silent.
'What happened?' I asked.
'I drank back then. Not anymore. But I may have had a few nips that morning. The morning I installed it, I mean. Just to get going. Third of November.'
I glanced over at the date stamp on the screen: 11/3/05. My skin, tingling with anticipation.
'Through that wall's a basement room. Shop class.' He pointed, his hand shaking, and there on the inside of his wrist was a thin white ridge of scar tissue. His other hand lay in his lap, exposing a matching razor-blade remembrance. 'When the wall blew apart, one kid got killed. Another got her face mostly burned off. That she lived . . . well, in some ways that's even worse.' Again he thumbed the line of one of the scars, rocking a little. 'During
