Corridor Man Volumes 1, 2, 3,4 5

by Nick James

  “Will you need help with your shower?” Maria asked.

  “Help?”

  “Yes, to wash your back or whatever you…”

  “No, I’ll just grab a quick shower and be out to join you. Please, you’ve done so much already, enjoy the wine.”

  “You like?”

  “Yes, it’s very nice. Thank you for all you’ve done, Maria. Thank you.”

  Once Maria left he quickly undressed and tossed his suit and shirt on the bed. He laid out the clothes he would wear after he cleaned up then stepped into the shower. The hot water running down his back felt good and began to relax him. While he stood under the water, he thought of Cori Denton, Addison, Bennett Hinz with Emily in San Francisco, Bishop Dalton offering to call Morris Montcreff, Emily’s car still sitting in the street, stealing all the original Montcreff files and then he thought, screw it. He was suddenly in million dollar digs with a bright future. All he had to do was take care of a couple of minor problems.

  He stepped out of the shower, toweled off, and went back into the bedroom. His suit wasn’t on the bed and the shirt and undergarments he’d left on the floor were gone. He found the suit, neatly hanging in the closet. The under garments were God only knew where.

  He dressed, then walked out to the kitchen. Maria was quickly off her stool the moment he stepped into the room. She hurried around the counter and handed him a glass of wine.

  “Thank you,” he said, then raised his glass to the group. “How about a toast to all of us? And especially the three of you, for all your help and for your friendship.” Miguel smiled, Isa snuggled next to Bobby and Maria’s eyes flashed.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  He was told at least a half dozen times what the dinner was, but between his lack of Spanish and the wine he’d forgotten, again. Either way it was a wonderful meal. They chatted about the new place. Maria already had a list of things she planned on changing and proceeded to rattle them off. They were seated on the couches in front of the gas fireplace. Isa, lay with her head on Miguel’s lap, occasionally raising her eyebrows at Bobby when Maria wasn’t looking. When they’d finished the current bottle of wine, their fourth or fifth, Bobby got to his feet to open another.

  “Maybe no more,” Maria said, then gave him a suggestive smile.

  “We should all go to bed,” Miguel said. “What is your schedule tomorrow?”

  “I must be in the office by ten. I have a lot to do.”

  “Don’t forget your personal effects, the things that were left behind at your old apartment,” Miguel said.

  “We can go there in the afternoon. I have to move a friend’s car tomorrow, too.”

  “Move a car?”

  “Just pull it off the street and park it behind her building. She’s in San Francisco,” Bobby said, catching Maria paying more attention. “Out there for the weekend with a boyfriend,” he added. “It will just take a minute and then we can go over to the old place.”

  They said their goodnights. Miguel seemed more than content to remain on the couch sipping wine with Isa’s head in his lap. Bobby and Maria brought their glasses out to the kitchen and walked down to his bedroom.

  He turned on the light in the room and began to unbutton his shirt, when Maria stopped him and gently pushed him back until he was sitting on the four-poster bed.

  “Wait for just a moment,” she said, then quickly undressed, dropping her clothes on the floor. She stood in front of him, naked except for a fine gold chain bearing a crucifix that dangled in her cleavage. The figure on the cross appeared to stare down at the full breasts on either side.

  She knelt down, untied his shoes and took them off, placing them side by side at the corner of the bed. She pulled off his stockings and pushed him back to undo his belt which she pulled off and dropped to the floor. She pulled off his shirt, then his trousers and boxers. She pulled back the covers on the bed revealing luxurious silk sheets that Bobby almost slid across as he moved toward the pillows. She was suddenly on top of him and began nibbling his ear.

  When he awakened, bright daylight was peeking out from behind the edge of the drawn drapes. Maria was nowhere to be seen. As his eyes adjusted to the room, he noticed that all their clothes had disappeared from the floor. A moment later there was a soft knock at the door and Maria stepped in, fully dressed and carrying a steaming mug of coffee which she set on the bedside table.

  She fluffed two pillows for him and said. “You stay here and sip your coffee. I’ll have breakfast for you in twenty minutes, huevos rancheros.”

  “Sounds wonderful,” he said not having the slightest idea what she was talking about. He leisurely sipped coffee, and organized the day in his head, then climbed out of bed, dressed and made his way to the kitchen. Miguel was sitting at the counter drinking coffee and working his way through a large plate of eggs covered in hot sauce. Isa was nowhere to be seen.

  No sooner had Bobby sat down than a similar plate was placed in front of him. “Huevos rancheros,” Maria said and set three different bottles of hot sauce down on the kitchen counter. One of the bottles contained a green substance that looked particularly brutal.

  “No hot sauce for me,” he said. A moment later she was back with another mug of coffee.

  “We leave whenever you’re ready,” Miguel said a few minutes later.

  “Soon as I finish this we’ll be off,” Bobby replied then shoveled another forkful into his mouth. Twenty minutes later he was headed up to his office in the elevator.

  It was Saturday morning, the weekend, and just a skeleton crew was working. Certainly none of the partners would be in and no one from the reassembled acquisitions team was in the office, not that anyone expected to see them. Working the weekend was largely for the paralegals, the people who did the grunt work and the heavy lifting for the powers that be.

  Bobby stepped into his office and read through the two emails he had waiting. One from Amazon, offering free shipping on a lawnmower if you purchased in the next forty-eight hours. Another from someone claiming to be a millionaire in need of help transferring funds to an off-shore account. He waited another ten minutes, then casually made his way to the file room after checking just to make sure no one was passing by.

  He locked himself in the room and started making copies of the Montcreff files. Four hours later, he had three boxes stacked on the two-wheel dolly and was ready to leave. He locked the file room as he exited then made his way to the elevator and down to the lobby. He phoned Miguel from the lobby and ten minutes later all the files were loaded in the trunk of the Mercedes.

  “I’m going to run this back upstairs,” he said and rolled the two-wheel dolly back onto the elevator. “I’ll be back down in just a minute,” he told Miguel. He stepped back on the elevator and rode up to the office. The door opened and he stepped off and into a group of four paralegals.

  “Oh, hi, Mr. Custer,” one of them said, then all four looked from Bobby to the dolly and back again.

  “Moving day at home,” Bobby said. “Enjoy the rest of your weekend.” Then he rolled past them and kept on moving.

  There were comments, at least he thought there were, but he couldn’t make out what was said, just heard the conversational buzz. He wheeled the dolly into the file room, then locked the door and headed back to the elevator.

  He was climbing in the backseat of the Mercedes. Miguel had just closed the door behind him and was hurrying around the front of the vehicle. Bobby glanced out the tinted window and spotted the four paralegals standing at the front of the building with their mouths hanging open, watching as Bobby was ushered into the Mercedes.

  “Where to?” Miguel asked climbing in behind the wheel.

  “Same place as last night. I just have to move a car for a friend, shouldn’t take more than a minute. You remember how to get there?”

  “Yeah, I think so,” Miguel said, then headed over to Emily’s. He parked across the street from Emily’s car, then waited while Bobby moved it. Fortunately, the same space sh
e’d originally parked in was vacant and Bobby hurried into it. Unfortunately, he brushed against a cast iron pole in the process. The pole stood just a little more than three feet and had been below his line of vision when he pulled in. He got out and walked around to the passenger side to view the damage once he realized he’d rubbed against the pole.

  There was a dent on the passenger side door about a foot-and-a-half long. Just in case that wasn’t obvious, the black paint from the pole on the side of the car gave the appearance of a giant skid mark.

  It was Saturday afternoon. Emily was due back in twenty-four hours and he could only hope she would blame herself when she saw it. He unlocked her back door, hung the car keys on the hook, grabbed a bottle of wine from her wine rack, and headed back out the door.

  “All right, lets head to the old place,” he said climbing into the rear seat of the Mercedes. If Miguel noticed the bottle of wine, he didn’t mention it. They pulled into the underground parking area fifteen minutes later and took the elevator up to the unit. Miguel glanced up and down the empty hallway before he waved Bobby off the elevator, and they hurried down the hall and into the unit.

  Even though it looked the same, there was a sense of abandonment about the place. There were a half-dozen empty cardboard boxes sitting on the dining room table and a roll of bubble wrap on the floor. Bobby quickly scanned the book shelves, and removed the five or six books that belonged to him. Miguel went into the kitchen and retrieved two cast iron fry pans which had been left behind. While Miguel was in the kitchen, Bobby pushed a chair over to the bookcase and removed the small recording device he’d placed up on the top. He gathered up the recording devices in his old bedroom, the guest room, and the kitchen area as well, reasonably sure Miguel remained unaware of any of the devices. He took a couple of kitchen knives that really weren’t his, but he’d grown fond of them so he grabbed them. The same thing with some crystal glasses, a silver tray, and a set of steak knives, figuring no one would ever know. After little more than an hour and having gone through everything twice, it was time to head to the new home.

  “I think that pretty much does it,” Bobby said and climbed into the Mercedes to head back to the new place.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  They were met by Isa, just inside the front door and down on all fours. Both men stood and stared for a long moment admiring the view before she looked over her shoulder and smiled at Bobby. Then she changed her expression and snapped off a few words in Spanish to Miguel.

  “Come on, better follow me,” he said and hurried out to the kitchen. As they entered Maria was pouring something into a mixing bowl. She glanced up at the two of them and was about to say something when the timer on the oven went off. She hurried over and removed two trays of some sort of bread. She shouted something to Miguel in Spanish, then proceeded to set the trays on a wire rack sitting on the counter.

  “Oh, Jesus,” Miguel groaned. “Luis phoned. He’s coming for dinner and bringing guests. We can store these boxes in the small room off the kitchen for now. Then the safest thing to do would be to get out of the way. They go crazy when he visits. You’d think it was el presidente coming, which in a way maybe isn’t so far from the truth. We can relax and get ready in our own time.”

  “He’s coming here? Why?”

  “Why? To congratulate you, of course. And probably to discuss your next task.”

  “Next task?”

  “Yes, whatever he wants you to do. He never comes except when he wants something. It is always his way.”

  They left the kitchen via the dining room where an older woman Bobby had never seen before was busy washing windows. She nodded at Bobby then immediately returned to the task at hand. They sat in the den for the next hour, sipping beers while Miguel watched a soccer match and occasionally cursed in Spanish. After forty minutes, Bobby couldn’t stand it any longer and said, “This beer is making me sleepy. I think I’ll close my eyes for a few minutes, and rest up before Luis comes. I want to be at my best when he arrives.”

  Miguel nodded and waved, never taking his eyes off the flat screen.

  Bobby woke up when Maria gently shook his shoulder. She had a white towel wrapped around her and apparently had just stepped out of the bath. “It is time for your shower, Mr. Bobby,” she said, then bent over and gave him a kiss. “I have the water already water running for you and towels laid out. Did you want your back washed or anything else?” she asked and raised an eyebrow.

  “No, no, nothing else just now. I think just the shower. What time is he due to arrive?”

  “He’ll be here in one hour, so it’s best that you are ready to welcome him. The dinner is prepared and I have the wines on the counter. You know not to open them until he arrives, and then you must do it so he can see you.”

  “Oh yeah, I forgot how obsessive he is about any sort of open bottle.”

  “I do not know this word, obsessive, but Luis is still alive because of it. Many who thought they were so much stronger are no longer so.”

  Bobby thought about that as he stepped into the shower. The water was already running and the glass front was steamed. He took his time, then finally stepped out and dried off. The clothes he taken off just ten minutes earlier were nowhere to be found. Clean undergarments had been laid out on the bed along with a belt, a dark blue suit and a white shirt. Polished shoes were on the floor next to the bed

  He couldn’t disagree with her choices and dressed. He found her in the kitchen, busily arranging trays of food. A glance through the double doors to the dining room showed the table set with a massive flower display on the buffet next to a number of unopened bottles of wine.

  “Maria, thank you for setting out the clothes for me. Do I look okay?”

  She smiled, stepped toward him, sort of smoothed the lapels on his coat, lifted up on her tiptoes and gave him a kiss.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “It is a great honor to have Luis Morales coming to your new home.”

  “I have a question. With Luis coming, and bringing guests, what do I do? I’m not sure of your customs and I want him to feel very…honored and respected.”

  She nodded. “He should always be served first, the wine, or water if that is what he will drink. You open it in front of him. You hand him the first glass, but if you watch he will wait until you drink before he will. He is not rude, he is just being careful. He will not interrupt or touch another woman in a way that her lover does. Some think this is a weakness, but it is his strength. He hears everything and never forgets. Be yourself and the night will be a great success.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I must warn you of one more thing.”

  “Which is?”

  “I will be paying attention to Luis and his guests, please do not be offended. Once they leave you will have all my attention and I promise you will sleep with a smile tonight.”

  “I look forward to that,” he said.

  Chapter Thirty

  The guests arrived promptly at eight. You’d have thought the Queen of England was about to enter as Isa and Maria lined up at the front door. Miguel had already gone downstairs to make sure the underground parking area was safe before their car drove in.

  They heard the elevator door open. Maria and Isa absently smoothed their dresses and touched the backs of their hair. As the door opened, both women seemed to take deep breaths as Miguel stepped in then held the door as Luis entered behind him. Maria and Isa both smiled and sort of bowed. Behind Luis, little Valentina suddenly skipped in, looked wide-eyed at Bobby and then waved. Behind her, came Camila, walking with a cane and looking fragile, but unassisted all the same. Luis half stepped to the side as Camila nodded at Bobby. He hurried past Luis, wrapped his arms around her, and held her for a long moment.

  “Oh, what a wonderful surprise. You look wonderful,” he said, finally letting her go. Then he turned to Luis and wrapped both hands around Luis’s outstretched hand and said, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

&n
bsp; Maria and Isa stood wide-eyed.

  Luis seemed to beam and said, “Only for you, this would have never happened. Thank you, my friend.” His eyes seemed to water as he took a breath and cleared his throat. “So, it is to your liking? Your new home.” He moved his arms in a broad sweep to indicate the room and beyond.

  “Yes, very much. It’s wonderful. I can’t thank you enough.”

  “The least I can do,” Luis said, sounding like he actually meant it.

  They did a quick tour of the unit, then made their way to the kitchen where Maria gave Bobby the signal to open a bottle of wine. He poured a glass for Luis first, then Camila, then Isa, Miguel, and Maria. Maria pulled a soft drink from the refrigerator and filled a glass for Valentina. Once every one had a glass in hand, Bobby raised his in a toast to Luis, Camila and Valentina, then watched from the corner of his eye as everyone but Luis took a drink. Luis seemed to wait, possibly looking for some sort of reaction, and once he was satisfied it was safe he took a small sip.

  They adjourned to the couches in the living room where Maria had placed trays of food. They chatted for maybe a half hour. Maria excused herself and headed for the kitchen then returned and announced that dinner was ready.

  Luis automatically sat at the head of the table, Bobby to his right, and Miguel across from Bobby. Two strains of conversation began, the women talking in Spanish at one end of the table, and the men, because of Bobby, speaking English.

  “Your work, it’s going well?” Luis asked as Maria and Isa began to clear away plates.

  Bobby detected a vagueness to the question and answered in like manner. “Yes, reviewing files. Miguel has been quite helpful in transporting the originals here. I’ve spoken to two individuals, one of whom will work. The other, based on prior associations would not be the best choice. But, there are plenty of others we can pursue.”

  “Who is this one?” Luis asked.

  “The man I had mentioned before, the one who changed his mind and called back to meet with me.”