by Dave Stanton
The dogs barked, gnashed their teeth, and stood on their hind legs pawing the fence. Through the truck’s rickety slats, I saw a man I recognized as Lennox Suggs open the door. His head was shaved except for a faint strip down the middle. He was shirtless, and the bulging muscles beneath his jailhouse tats rippled in the sunlight. Six-two and 220 pounds of serious body building. Probably a habit he brought home from prison.
Lennox Suggs stepped off the porch and glared right and left, the white of his eyes flashing under his brow. He walked over to the dogs and calmed them, then came back to the front door.
“Fuck you,” he huffed after a moment, and went back inside. The dogs retreated behind the house. I waited another minute and saw the blanket covering the window move aside. Suggs watched his yard for five, ten seconds, then the blanket fell back to its original position. I hustled down the street and crossed over to the Camry.
“Lennox Suggs?” Cody asked.
“Yeah.”
“He’s a walking advertisement for the failure of our justice system. Did you read his jacket?”
“Yeah,” I said. “He’s had a busy life.”
“Apparently three strikes doesn’t apply to him. He’s spent most of his adulthood in the joint.”
“The gangbanger said only one person lives there,” I said. “Looks like it’s Suggs.”
“I thought Tucker and Suggs were roomies.”
“Maybe Tucker moved.”
“We want to bug the place, we’ll have to deal with those dogs,” Cody said.
Our conversation stopped when the front door opened again. This time Suggs was wearing sunglasses and a white shirt open at the collar. A silver chain circled his neck and rested against his dark skin. He climbed into the GMC and backed out of the driveway.
“Follow him?” Cody said. “Or you want to creep the dump?”
“We don’t know the house is empty, and those pit bulls would alert the whole neighborhood. Let’s tail him.”
We hunched low as Suggs drove past us, then we pulled out half a block behind him. At that distance, we followed the SUV out to the main thoroughfare and toward the freeway.
“How much energy you want to invest on this guy?” Cody said.
“Hell, Tucker borrowed his wheels. They must be close. Let’s see where Suggs takes us.”
“I’d rather follow Tucker.” Cody accelerated through a light and followed the SUV onto 101.
“You want to turn around and go back and hope he shows his face?” I asked.
“Not now.”
Suggs stayed to the right and merged onto 280. Two miles later, he exited onto Guadalupe Parkway.
“He’s taking us downtown,” I said.
“Looks like it,” Cody replied as Suggs took the first turnoff onto Saint James Street. The GMC went around the block on one-way streets, passed within a stone’s throw of Cody’s office, then pulled into a driveway at a black glass high-rise that looked brand-new.
“What’s this building?” I said. Cody parked on the street and we watched Suggs stop at a drive-up kiosk in front of a copper-colored metal door blocking the entrance to a parking garage.
“The Skyscape condos. Been here less than a year. Luxury apartments for yuppies.”
Suggs’s finger jabbed at the kiosk keypad, and the door slid open horizontally. He drove into the garage and the door closed.
I got out of the car and stared up at the building. The sun reflected off the dark glass in sharp bursts. Small balconies rose in a column up the side of the structure, which was about thirty stories high.
Cody climbed out of the Camry and leaned on the roof across from me.
“From the slums to this place, huh?” he said. He adjusted his sunglasses and looked up and down the street.
“Why don’t you wait here?” I said. “I’ll go inside and have a look.”
“All right.”
“Call me if Suggs comes back out.” He nodded, and I went across the street to opaque glass doors that I assumed accessed a lobby, but they were locked. Next to the doors, instructions said to punch in a resident’s code or 0 for the sales office. I hit 0 on a keypad inset in the concrete wall, and a moment later the door clicked open.
The lobby was decorated in stainless steel and blond wood. The lack of color created a sterile, modernistic look. The woman sitting behind a concierge counter added to the effect. Short black hair, silver crosses dangling from her ears, green shadow above her eyes, and a thin-lipped smile.
“May I help you?” There was a pair of security cameras mounted high on the wall behind the counter.
I stuck my hands in my pockets and looked past her to an elevator in a hallway. “Yeah, I’m thinking about renting a place here. Can I ask you a couple questions?”
“Sure, but you should really talk with our sales office.”
“Right. So, if I lived here, and wanted to have guests, how would they get in?”
“You’d give them your access code. They could come in the front here and go up the elevator. Or, they could use the code to go into the garage and take the elevator from there. We have plenty of visitor parking.”
“Gotcha. Do you have units for rent?”
“I think we do. Let me get you a salesperson.” She picked up her phone, and after a moment, a man in tan slacks and a black button-down shirt appeared from an adjacent room. He walked across the lobby to greet me, a broad smile on his face.
“Welcome to Skyscape. You’re interested in renting?” His brown hair was styled in a wave, and he had a silver stud in one ear.
“I’m thinking about it,” I replied.
“Most of our homes are occupied by owners, but we do have a few for rent. Would you like to take a tour?”
“Sure.”
We walked to the elevator. “Skyscape opened just six months ago, and we’re nearly sold out. We offer everything from studios to three-bedroom, two-level homes with balconies. Every unit offers great views from floor to ceiling windows. We are the tallest building in San Jose.”
The elevator dinged, and we stepped in. “There are three homes available for rent. A one-bedroom with balcony on the fourteenth floor, a two-bedroom on the sixteenth, and a three-bedroom on the twentieth. What price range are you looking for?”
“Two grand a month, give or take.”
He hit the button for the fourteenth floor. “A one-bedroom would be in that range.”
“This is kind of new for San Jose, isn’t it?” I said. “I mean, high-rise city living.”
“Yes, but San Jose is changing. Are you from here?”
“No. Out of town. Thinking of relocating.”
“Downtown San Jose is booming. New restaurants and night clubs are opening all the time. The San Jose Sharks hockey team sells out every game, and we think we’ll have a major league baseball team soon.”
“What kind of people live in this place?” I asked.
“We have quite a notable ownership, actually. Some top technology executives own our penthouse units, and other affluent members of the community live here too.”
The elevator stopped and I followed the man down a hall to a door marked 1401. He unlocked a door knob and a dead bolt, and then he tapped a code on a keypad next to the doorframe.
“Quite a bit of security, isn’t it?” I said.
“Oh, we take security very seriously. Every unit is protected this way—traditional locks plus electronic. We’ve never had an incident of theft.”
“How about security cameras?”
“We have cameras covering the lobby and the garage elevator. So we know who is entering the building. Basically, thieves don’t bother us.”
We went inside. The place was furnished and the decor looked staged, like something out of an interior design magazine. The kitchen and living room were large, but the single bedroom was small. He showed me the bathroom, then we returned to the living room, where he opened a glass door and stepped out onto the balcony.
“It’s a little smoggy tod
ay, but most of the time the view of the mountains is spectacular.” We stood looking over the southwest half of the valley. The street grids and buildings stretched without pause before ending miles away at the base of the Santa Cruz Mountains, which ran from just south of San Francisco all the way around the western flank of Santa Clara County. I had spent years exploring the three-thousand-foot-tall range, hiking and riding dirt trails, rock climbing, and occasionally bringing a date to an inspirational spot.
I looked up at the subfloor of the balcony above. To the side, a six-foot-wide column of flat gray concrete rose to the top of the building. Next to it was a vertical row of black windows.
“Very nice,” I said. “What if there’s a fire?”
“This building has an iron frame. The whole thing is mostly steel and concrete. And we have smoke-activated sprinklers in every room and in the hallways too.”
“That’s good,” I said absently. “Let’s go.” I followed him off the balcony back into the bedroom. When I closed the balcony door, the latch didn’t fully engage. I took a moment and pulled the handle until it clicked shut. There was no lock on the door.
“Would you like to look at another unit? A larger one?”
“Maybe. How about stairs?”
“Of course. We have stairs at the end of each hallway. For emergency purposes. I mean, they’re not for people to exercise on. We had one owner who wanted to do that. But we discourage it.”
“You can get a good workout running stairs,” I said, as we went out to the hallway and back to the elevator.
“Well, you look in great shape,” he said. He had a loose smile on his face, and it occurred to me he was gay.
“How about a gym or a swimming pool?” I asked.
“Yes, on the twenty-eighth floor. Our fitness center is on our rooftop.”
“Let’s go check it out.”
“Certainly.”
We took the elevator up, then hiked a flight of stairs to a carpeted lobby with vending machines offering energy drinks and protein bars. I followed him through a doorway into a large, mirrored room lined with stationary bikes, treadmills, and elliptical machines, all facing glass walls looking out over the valley. The center of the room was occupied by racks of free weights and a variety of weight machines.
“Not bad,” I said.
“Access is free for both owners and renters.”
“And the pool?”
“Right this way.” We went through a hallway and out a door. A burst of sunlight hit my eyes as we walked onto the white roof. A sparkling turquoise pool lay in the center, surrounded by lounge chairs. Off to the side was a small building—a restroom or perhaps a changing room.
“Sometimes we have resident parties up here. Set up a portable bar, appetizers, that sort of thing.”
I shaded my eyes and looked around. Two tanned blond women in bikinis reclined in the sun. Another two sat sipping drinks at a table under an umbrella. Beyond the pool, a gold-painted, waist-high fence ran a foot or two inside the edge of the roof line. A taller fence, made of three horizontal, six-inch thick black tubes, was erected on the outer boundary. The fence was visible from the street, and I assumed it served nothing but a decorative purpose, as the gaps between the tubes were wide enough for anyone to slip between and fall to their death, if that’s what they chose to do.
“What do you think?” the man asked.
“Pretty nice. Let’s head back down. You got some brochures you can give me?”
“Sure. But just so you know, the available units will go quick.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
• • •
“What took so long?” Cody asked when I got back to his car. He was leaning against a wall in the shade of a building on the opposite side of the street.
“I told them I was looking for a place to rent and took the sales tour.”
“Did you find out who Suggs is visiting?”
“How the hell would I do that?”
“I don’t know. You usually find a way. What are those papers?”
I looked at the sheets I held. “Prices of units for sale. Frequently asked questions. Concierge services.”
“No map of the place?”
“No, why?”
“Because Suggs is hanging out up there on the sixteenth floor. He just had a smoke on the balcony with some dude. Take a look, I got a picture.” Cody handed me his cell phone. On the small screen, I could barely make out two black men, one in a white shirt.
“You’re sure it’s Suggs?” I said.
“Yeah. Zoom in, you can see the chain on his neck.”
I handed him the phone back. “You counted sixteen balconies up?”
“No, fourteen. It doesn’t look like the balconies start until the third floor.”
I put on my sunglasses and peered up at the rectangular shapes of the facing. “We need to figure out the address for that unit.”
“Right.”
“They said there was a unit for rent on the sixteenth floor. I suppose I could go back in.”
“You want me to go instead?” Cody said.
I shook my head. “No, they’ve already seen me. You might as well stay off the radar.”
“Suits me.”
I went back into the building and approached the woman at the concierge counter.
“Could I talk to that salesman I was with?”
“You mean Gerald,” she said.
“Yeah.”
She lifted the phone, and the salesman promptly appeared in the lobby.
“Back so soon?” he said.
“You mentioned a two-bedroom on the sixteenth floor. Can I take a look?”
“Of course.”
We rode the elevator to the sixteenth floor, and I followed him to unit 1608. The interior looked identical to the unit I’d seen previous, modern and sleek.
“Is there a balcony?” I asked.
“No, not on this one. Only the end units have them.”
“I see.” We spent a minute going from room to room, then went back out to the hallway. I started toward the elevator, past 1607 and 1606.
“The balcony units are this way?” I asked.
“Yes, but there’s none available on this floor.”
“I know.” I walked by the elevator and continued down the hall.
“Sir?”
“I just wanted to get a sense of where the stairs are. I don’t always trust elevators.”
“Oh. Well, the stairway is there at the end.” I kept walking and he followed until we stood at 1602, which was directly across from a door that opened to the stairwell.
“Okay,” I said, opening the door and glancing down the stairs. “So, 1602 is a balcony unit?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have any balcony units available on the lower floors? Lower than the fourteenth?”
“Oh, no. Those units are all sold out.”
“Nothing on the second floor?”
“Actually, our units start on the third floor.”
“I see.” We walked back to the elevator and headed down to the lobby.
“Would you like to fill out a rental application?” he asked.
“I’ll take one with me,” I said.
• • •
“What’s the scoop?” Cody said, when I came back out. He was sitting on a brick flower bed down the street from his car. Rows of purple and yellow flowers stretched behind him.
I pointed up at the building. “That one should be 1602.”
“We can look at a reverse directory, find out who lives there.”
I checked my watch. It was 3:30. I sat next to Cody and watched the parking lot door slide open. A couple in a blue Jaguar convertible drove out and turned down the street. The metal door closed with a soft clang, and I looked back up at the balcony. An elderly lady came around the corner walking two toy poodles, one black and one white. A jet taking off from the airport a mile away thundered upward, its gritty blast a smudge on the blue sky.
Twenty minutes went by until the garage door opened again. We saw the GMC Yukon before the door was half opened, and we were in the Camry by the time it pulled onto the street. As it turned, I caught a brief glimpse of a man in the passenger seat.
“Duante Tucker,” I said. Cody started the engine and pulled from the curb.
“You sure?” he asked.
“It’s him.
We tailed them around the corner and onto Guadalupe Parkway. They headed south for a mile, then got on 880, one of San Jose’s three main arteries. The rush hour traffic was picking up, and by the time we reached Brokaw Road, it was stop and go.
“You miss the traffic?” Cody said.
“Yeah. Kind of makes me homesick.”
The freeway narrowed to three lanes, and we crawled along. The black GMC stayed in the fast lane a football field ahead.
“Some of these poor bastards spend three hours every day doing this,” Cody said, gesturing at the gridlock. “Commuting in from Livermore or Tracy.”
A big rig merged in front of us and we lost sight of the GMC until Cody maneuvered to the left and from there the flow picked up to forty miles an hour. Then the traffic cleared and we hit seventy until it slowed again. Twenty minutes later we were in a corridor known as the East Bay. We exited in Fremont, a growing city with a heavy population of Chinese and Indian immigrants.
The GMC drove five minutes down Mowry Boulevard and bounced into a small shopping square. An auto parts store, a Jack-in-the-Box, a liquor store, a barbershop. Three other businesses I couldn’t identify because their signage was in a different language.
“Hindi,” I said.
“What?”
“That writing is Hindi. It’s what they speak in India.”
“You can recognize it?” Cody asked, eyebrows raised.
“That’s right.”
‘Where’d you learn that?”
“I’m worldly.”
“My ass.”
The SUV parked at the end of a retail strip, across from Abdul’s Mediterranean Cuisine. Beneath the sign on the window was a block of foreign writing different from the others.
We parked and watched Duante Tucker and Lennox Suggs walk from their vehicle to the restaurant. Suggs’s legs were bowed, and he held his arms far from his body, as if necessitated by his thick musculature. Tucker had an aggressive bounce to his step, his eyes half-lidded, his puffed lips set in a grimace.