The Parking Lot Attendant Who Controlled the Stock Market

Chapter One: The Last Slap

My head was still ringing from the slap when I hit the concrete floor.

That was the third time today. The third time some rich man in a suit decided that I was not a human being. His name was Derek, and he used to call me his brother back in high school. Now he was standing over me with his new watch and his new shoes and his new girlfriend who used to be mine.

"You are nothing, Felix," he said, and his voice was calm like he was explaining something simple to a child. "You park cars for a living. I own three buildings you cannot even walk into. So when I tell you to move my car faster, you move it faster. You do not look at me. You do not breathe in my direction. Do you understand?"

I did not answer. Not because I was scared. Because I was tired. Tired of answering. Tired of explaining myself. Tired of being the guy who lost his mother and then lost his girlfriend and then lost his apartment and ended up holding a orange vest in a parking garage that smelled like old cigarette smoke and cheap coffee.

Derek kicked my leg. Not hard. Just enough to remind me he could.

"That is what I thought," he said, and he walked away with my ex girlfriend Maya on his arm. She did not look back at me. She never did anymore.

I stayed on the ground for a full minute because my knees hurt and my cheek was bleeding and honestly, nobody was coming to help me anyway. The security cameras in this garage had been broken for three years. The manager did not care. The customers did not see me. I was less than a ghost. A ghost at least gets remembered sometimes.

When I finally stood up, I walked to the back corner of the garage where we kept the cars that got abandoned. People left them here when they could not pay the storage fees or when they died or when they just forgot. There was a dusty blue sedan that had been sitting in the same spot since before I started working here. My manager told me to clean it out last week. I kept putting it off because I hated looking at other people's old lives.

But tonight I needed something to do. Something to keep my hands busy so I would not think about Derek's shoe or Maya's silence or the fact that I had twelve dollars in my pocket and seven days until my next paycheck.

I opened the driver door and the smell hit me first. Old leather and stale air and something sweet like perfume that had died a long time ago. The seats were cracked. The floor had dried leaves and a single broken sunglass lens. I checked the glove box and found nothing but an old insurance card and a melted candy bar.

Then I checked under the seat.

My fingers touched something cold and round. A coin. I pulled it out and held it up to the dim light of the garage. It looked old but not special. Dark metal. Maybe bronze. On one side there was a eye. Just an eye. Open and watching. On the other side there was a number. Three.

I almost threw it back under the seat. I do not know why I did not. Maybe because I was bored. Maybe because my face still hurt and I wanted to look at something that was not my own sad reflection in a dirty window.

That is when the old man spoke.

I did not hear him walk up. He was just there suddenly, standing on the other side of the car. He looked homeless. Gray beard. Dirty coat. Eyes that did not match his body because they were too sharp and too clear for a man who smelled like he had been sleeping outside.

"That coin," he said, and his voice was rough but not weak. "You found it."

I nodded. "It is just some junk. I am supposed to throw everything away."

He laughed. It was a dry sound like paper crumpling. "Junk. Yes. Everything looks like junk until you know what it does."

I looked at the coin again. "What does it do?"

The old man came closer and I should have been scared but I was not. He had a way of moving that made you forget he was a stranger. Like he belonged here. Like he had been waiting for me.

"That coin shows you the future," he said. "Not the whole future. Just three seconds. But three seconds is enough to change everything if you use it right."

I almost laughed. Almost. But something in his face stopped me. He was not joking. I could tell because he was not smiling. Crazy people smile when they tell you crazy things. This man looked like he was telling me the weather.

"I do not believe in magic," I said.

"Good," he said. "Neither do I. This is not magic. This is a crack in the wall. A tiny hole where time leaks through. Someone a very long time ago figured out how to trap that leak inside metal. And now you are holding it."

I turned the coin over in my fingers. The eye stared at me. The number three stared back.

"How does it work?" I heard myself ask.

The old man pointed at the coffee cup in my other hand. It was empty except for ice and a little bit of brown water. "Look at your cup and ask yourself if you will finish that drink tonight. Then flip the coin."

I did not know why I listened to him. Maybe because I had nothing to lose. Maybe because the garage was quiet and the night was long and I was tired of being the man who got slapped on the floor.

I looked at the cup. I thought, will I finish this?

Then I flipped the coin.

And the world changed.

It only lasted for a heartbeat but I saw everything. I saw myself walking to the trash can by the elevator. I saw myself throwing the cup away. I saw the cup hit the bottom of the bin and heard the sound it made. And then I was back in my body with the coin hot in my palm.

My hands were shaking.

I walked to the trash can by the elevator. I threw the cup away. It hit the bottom of the bin and made the exact sound I had heard in my head.

The old man was smiling now. A real smile. "You just saw three seconds from now. And then you lived them. That is the gift. That is the curse."

I looked at the coin. Then I looked at the old man. "Who are you?"

He pulled his coat tighter and started walking toward the exit ramp. "Someone who used to own that coin. Someone who got too greedy and used it too much and now my time is almost up. But you. You are young. You still have time to do it right."

"Wait," I called out. "What is your name? Where can I find you?"

He stopped at the top of the ramp and the light from the street made him look like a shadow with eyes. "You will not find me. I am going away to die. But before I go, let me give you one piece of advice for free."

I waited.

"That girl who left you," he said. "That man who slapped you. The manager who pays you nothing. All the people who look at your vest and decide you are nobody. They think they are safe because they have money and connections and fancy shoes."

He stepped backward into the darkness.

"Three seconds is all it takes to ruin a rich man."

And then he was gone.

I stood there for a long time holding the coin. My cheek was still bleeding. My knees still hurt. I had twelve dollars and a job that made me want to disappear.

But for the first time in years, I smiled.

The next morning I went to work like nothing had changed. I put on my orange vest. I parked cars. I collected tickets. I let people yell at me and I did not yell back because I was waiting.

I wanted to test the coin on something bigger than a coffee cup.

At noon, Maya walked into the garage.

She was alone. No Derek. Just her and her expensive bag and her expensive shoes and the face I used to kiss goodnight. She walked right past me like I was furniture.

Then she stopped.

She pulled out her phone and made a call. I was close enough to hear because the garage was empty and sound travels weird in concrete rooms.

"Babe," she said into the phone. I knew she was talking to Derek. "I just checked our stock account. The tech fund your brother recommended. It is up twelve percent today. We are so rich."

She laughed. It was the same laugh she used to give me when I made dinner for her.

I looked at the coin in my pocket. I did not plan what happened next. My hand just moved.

I flipped the coin while looking at her phone.

And I saw the future.

Three seconds from now, her face would change. Her smile would drop. Her hand would shake because a notification would pop up saying the tech fund just crashed. Something about a hack. Something about a fake report. Something that would turn her twelve percent profit into a thirty percent loss in less than a minute.

But that was not all I saw.

I saw myself. Standing right here. Wearing this vest. Holding this ticket book. And I saw myself do something I never would have done before the coin.

I walked toward her.

Maya looked up from her phone and her eyes got cold. "What do you want, Felix? I am busy."

Her phone buzzed.

She looked down.

Her face turned white.

I handed her a parking ticket. The kind we give to people who park in the VIP section without a pass. She was not in the VIP section. She was in the regular row. But I wrote the ticket anyway.

"That will be eighty dollars," I said. "Pay by Friday or we tow your car."

She stared at me like I had grown a second head. Her phone buzzed again. Then again. She looked at the screen and I saw her soul leave her body.

"Eighty dollars," I said again. "Cash or card."

And that is when Derek's car pulled into the garage.

He saw me talking to Maya. He saw the ticket in my hand. He saw her pale face and her buzzing phone and everything falling apart around her.

He got out of his car and started walking toward me with his fists ready.

But I was not scared anymore.

Because I had already flipped the coin one more time when he was not looking. And I saw exactly what would happen in the next three seconds.

Derek would swing at my face. He would miss. And then someone else would step out of the shadows behind him. Someone with a gun. Someone who was looking for Derek. Not me. Not Maya.

Him.

The future snapped back into place and I smiled at Derek as he raised his fist.

"Go ahead," I said. "But you might want to look behind you first."

He did not listen. He never did.

He swung.

And the man with the gun stepped out of the shadows.