The Rhythm Of Rain

The rain slid down my window slowly, in an almost calming pattern. As always, the slow rain served as a reminder to stay with it. That rain did not rush down the window, and yet eventually it reached the ground. The creeping drops helped to center me as I got ready for my meeting and the evening that I figured was awaiting me.

Underclothes, shirt, pants, vest, jacket, hat, and I was ready to head into that rain. Well, almost ready. One problem, the only problem, with rain was that it tended to get whatever was worn wet. In addition, my clothes tended towards being very sensitive to getting wet. The combination meant I’d need the enormous umbrella I kept at the door out, leaning against the wall. Clearly designed to shelter a small army, I used it to ensure that mine own attire remained not just wellkept, but completely dry. Flicking it open, I headed out into the street.

Wandering out towards my office, I kept my head down. Public transportation generally worked around here, and on sunny days, I sometimes even took it to the office, but today was not a sunny day. Today was dark, grey, and pouring. The perfect day for a nice brisk four mile walk. As I passed the shops and other pedestrians, I smiled, I nodded, I acted perfectly human. There were some odd looks at the enormity of my umbrella, but other than the occasional double-take, no one really took note of me. I didn’t mind that, not really. Attention meant people and people meant more work. I preferred to limit my interactions. The mock aloofness, the umbrella, the gait, the look, it was all serving that singular purpose, to pass through a crowd without dealing with the people of that crowd.

In no time at all, I was at the office. Closing my umbrella at the lobby, I rapped upon the front desk. Paulie, the security guard who worked mid-afternoons, looked up from his nap. “Right. Mister Sinclaire. Mister Albertson is waiting for you upstairs.”

I tapped the closed umbrella once on the tiled floor, in the middle of one of the squares. There was a satisfying clack as it contacted the ground. Paulie waved at the other security guards, who opened the small door to the side of the security checkpoint. With a smile, I walked swiftly through the opening and past the people standing there to the elevators. A group of a few employees of Mister Albertson were standing around, gossiping, though they grew silent as I approached.

“Mr. Sinclair,” one fo the gossipers, “I didn’t realize you were coming in today.”

I ignored him. The elevator arrived, and I stepped past them and into it. They did not follow. I leaned ever-so-slightly onto my closed umbrella and looked past the group of employees. They stood there in shocked silence. It was good to know that my very presence still inspired such fear in them. The elevator doors slowly closed between us. Flicking the umbrella up, I pressed the button for the top floor, then placed it against the ground once again. The employees had undoubtedly gone back to gossiping. In all likelihood, they now were including me in their gossip. But their hesitance, their fear, their silence, that told me far more about the office’s opinion of me than their gossip might have said. I was still the bogeyman of the office, and I liked it that way. I couldn’t help a slight twist of a smile to grow on my face as I considered that.

The doors opened at the top floor. I dropped the smile as I exited the elevator. Mitchell had always had garbage taste, and now that he was in charge of the place, it showed. Decorations like out of the Renaissance covered the walls of his executive office floor, from the decorative molding, to the excessive curtanis, to the statuary lining the corridors and the paintings hanging in each office. It wasn’t even well done Renaissance, instead pulling its influences from everywhere and anywhere, mixing Early Dutch masters’ works with late Itallian sculpture with German embossed metals. It was less a theme and more the idea that anything which looked expensive and old adorned his small palace in the middle of the city. I hated coming up here. Half the reason I was semi-retired in the first place.

I walked past the horrendous décor and into Mitchell’s office. The boy who thought himself god stood in front of his far too large desk. “Mister Sinclaire!” he said, his voice a mix of relief and irritation, “I am glad you could make it.” His eyes moved, a slight twitch. He hated the fact that he had to call me, but he had a problem that he couldn’t solve without me. There was someone else, too. This wasn’t the work of Mitchell Albertson, not really. He was doing a favor for someone else. I tasted perfume in the air. Old, plain. Out of production. That could only mean one person.

I smiled and, placing my umbrella’s tip firmly against the ground in front of me, without turning to look, I asked, “And what do you need me to do, Miss Vincero. Or is it Missus? I lose track.”

From behind me, in the corner of the room that would have been obscured by the door when entering, Maria began to clap. “You’re still sharp, Cullen. And you know the answer, you’re just trying to antagonize me.”

“Of course I am, Maria. Where would we be without antagonism?” I replied. I had known Maria for a long time. We sometimes worked together, sometimes worked against each other. On and off and on and off, we crossed one another’s paths throughout the years before we retired.

“We’d probably feel a good decade younger,” she replied, a smile in her voice. Where Mitchell was mostly irritated, and the other employees were mostly afraid, Maria was genuinely happy to talk with me. I supposed that it may have been to long, but life gets in the way sometimes.

“What is so hard that you’ve got to pull me out of retirement to do?” I asked them both. I still had not turned to face Maria. And she kenw that I wouldn’t. Just like I knew that she woudlnt’ move from that spot to look me in the eyes. She could tell what I was thinking from my voice, from my breathing pattern, from the subtle changes in the slightly salty smell of the thin line of sweat forming on my undershirt after this afternoon’s walk. Just like I could from her voice, her breathing pattern, and the suble changes in the citric smell produced when her small line of sweat crowning her forehead interacted with her plain perfume. It was how we were trained, and we knew each other well enough to be able to read one another almost as instinct.

“I didn’t,” Mitchell complained, “I hired her. I didn’t want another of your rants about my styling place, Mister Sinclaire.” Then, he paused. He knew that her decision was the right move. He also didn’t want to know that. The kid wasn’t dumb as rocks, no matter what his appearance seemed to indicate, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t stubborn as them. Finally, he sighed, “But she knew it was a two person job, and the only other person I know anywhere near her level is you.”

“And since I no longer work here, it maintains deniability. I know. Where am I going and what am I stealing?”

“Miss Vincero can give you all the details. You’re working directly for her, just like she’s working for me. I just needed to get you here to talk with her because she was afraid you’d try to kill her if she reached out directly.” Mitchell shook his head at both of us, as though the kid even had the capacity to understand our whatevership. When you are friends and enemies, allies and adversaries, pieces on a gameboard controlled by external forces, all those emotions become jumbled up in a fun milieu of confusion.

The smell shifted slightly. Maria had just shrugged. I smiled at that. “I still haven’t decided. Give me a month or three to work it out.” Then, to Maria without turning my head even slightly, I asked, “So, where am I going and what am I stealing.”

Maria laughed a sweet, soft chuckle. Then, slowly, she answered, “We’re going to a funeral to steal a thumb.” She felt uncomfortable with the job. Not because of the thumb, but the funeral. Maria had a thing about them, ever since her first husband’s. Something about that much strong emotion concentrated for that little time in that small of a space just overwhelmed her. I could understand, though it didn’t me. I could turn it off, sometimes, that incessant clicking of the gears, the prying into the minds of everyone’s voice and bodies and eyes and smells and movements. She never could. She didn’t walk in the rain enough.

I smiled and nodded slightly. “Sounds like an experience. I presume we’ll be flying solo?”

“Yeah. I’ve got some fun new toys I was thinking I’d try,” Maria replied, “If you want to learn a new trick.”

I shook my head. “The old ways haven’t failed me yet.”

Mitchell shook his head as he went back to his obscenely large chair behind his enormous desk. I called these offices his palace for a reason. “Could you please have this vague discussion about hypothetical activities outside of my office?” he spat out, clearly irritated that his vaunted plausible deniability was being violated.

I nodded, and tapped my umbrella three times against the stone floor, then turning on my heel, I began to walk out. Maria joined me. “You know, that whole signalling your next move with your umbrella thing is really weird,” she joked as we approached the elevator.

I shrugged. “Yeah, but I can’t hardly carry around a cane in the rain, now can I?” I retorted.

She laughed. I’d generally been this weird and over-the-top. It worked when I was not on a job, just in the building. It gave me a sense of mystery, a vague air of otherworldliness. Especially back when I was friends with all the security personnel, so I could tap my cane and have elevators and security doors open on cue. Like I truly was the demonic force I liked to make my self out to be. Standing there, we waited for the elevator car to arrive. I turned slightly towards her. “Café to talk and plan?” I asked.

“Do you even need to ask?” she replied. Whenever we were on the same job, whether working for the same sides or opposite sides of it, we met up at the same small local café to chat. We chuckled as the elevator binged. I instantly dropped the joy from my face, hardening it into the cool demeanor of the office scary story.

One of the lesser executives was standing there, impatiently. His eyes widened at seeing the two terrifying corporate spies, both of whom were supposed to be retired, standing over him, casting a shadow across the elevator. He sprinted out towards his small office space. We got into the elevator and waited for the door to close before we chuckled. The man’s expression was objectively funny. I flicked my umbrella up and pressed the button for the lobby.

“I have a car, you know?” she complained.

“I assumed,” I said, “But I do not.”

I could feel her smirk. “I could give you a ride,” she replied, the innuendo intentional.

“I know,” I shot back, my smirk just as evident to her, “But I thought I could help you work up a sweat.”

She sighed jokingly. “That’s sweet, but I’ll have to decline.” Then, in a more serious tone, she added, “You know that’s too many.”

I nodded. “I know. I was hoping that you had learned to selectively ignore it by now.”

She furrowed her brow. “Why? That would just hamstring me on a job.”

I shrugged. “But it would make living easier.”

The elevator opened up at the lobby, I nodded to her as I began to walk out. She, as the elevator doors began to close, said to me, “Living easily is overrated.”

I sighed. I knew she believed that completely, just as I believed that struggle was. With a nod to the security and Paulie, I walked briskly out of the door, flipped up and open my oversized umbrella, and began the mile walk over to our little café. The calming rain pounding rhythmically against the umbrella and ground, the people passing silently around me.

#fiction #modernity #realisticfiction #story