The Parking Lot Attendant Who Controlled the Stock Market

chapter 7

Chapter Seven: The Meeting

I did not go back to my cousin's floor that night.

I walked the streets until the sun came up. Past the closed shops and the homeless people sleeping on cardboard and the men in white trucks washing the garbage from the sidewalks. The city never sleeps but it does get tired. I saw that tiredness everywhere I looked.

At six in the morning I found a diner. The kind with sticky tables and coffee that tastes like dirt. I sat in the back corner and ordered eggs I did not eat. I just wanted to sit. To think. To hold the coin in my hand and ask it questions it would not answer.

The coin only showed three seconds. Not three hours. Not three days. Just three seconds. Enough to win a fight or dodge a punch or know if someone was lying to your face. But not enough to know if you were walking into a trap.

I finished my coffee and paid with a five dollar bill. The waitress smiled at me. She had kind eyes and tired hands. I wanted to tell her that her son would call her today. I saw it in the coin when she handed me my change. Three seconds of a phone ringing and her face lighting up.

But I did not tell her. Some things are better as surprises.

At nine o clock I called Derek.

"The suit worked," I said. "Now I need a car."

"A car?"

"Something nice. Something that says I am not a parking attendant anymore. Something that makes Marcus Webb open his door a little wider."

Derek sighed. That sound was becoming familiar. "I have a BMW. Black. You can borrow it. But Felix?"

"Yes?"

"Do not crash it. My mother will kill me."

I picked up the car at ten. It smelled like leather and money. I sat in the driver seat for a full minute just holding the steering wheel. The last time I sat in a car this nice I was parking it for someone else. Now I was driving it.

The coin was hot in my pocket.

Marcus Webb's office was in a glass building that touched the clouds. I parked the BMW in a spot marked VIP because I could. Nobody stopped me. Nobody asked questions. The suit and the car and the watch did all the talking for me.

The elevator took me to the thirtieth floor. The doors opened and I stepped into a lobby that looked like a spaceship. White floors. White walls. White desks. A woman in a white dress smiled at me with teeth that were also white.

"Felix," she said. Not a question. She knew my name. "Marcus is waiting. Follow me."

She walked down a hallway and I followed. The walls were covered in screens showing Marcus's face. His smile. His eyes. His hands gesturing like he was explaining something important. It was everywhere. You could not escape him.

The woman stopped at a door made of glass. She knocked twice and then opened it.

"Your guest is here," she said.

Marcus Webb sat behind a desk that was bigger than my first apartment. Behind him was a window that showed the whole city. He was wearing a gray suit today. No white. No smile. Just business.

Chloe stood by the window. The same red dress from last night. Or maybe a different one. They all looked the same on her. Dark hair pulled back. Dark eyes watching me like I was a puzzle she wanted to solve.

"Close the door," Marcus said to the woman in white. She closed it and we were alone.

Marcus did not stand up. He did not offer me a seat. He just looked at me with those empty eyes and waited.

I sat down anyway. In the chair across from his desk. I crossed my legs like I had been rich my whole life.

"You came back," Marcus said.

"I said I would."

"People say a lot of things. Most of them are lies."

I pulled the cracked phone out of my pocket and placed it on his desk. Victor's phone. The one with the recording.

"I am not most people."

Marcus looked at the phone but did not touch it. Chloe walked over from the window. Her heels made soft sounds on the white floor. She picked up the phone and held it like it was something fragile.

"This is Victor's," she said. Her voice was low and smooth. Like honey. "How did you get it?"

"He gave it to me. To help me find where Marcus hides his copy."

Marcus laughed. A short sound. "And you just brought it here? To me? Does Victor know you are showing me his phone?"

"Victor does not know a lot of things," I said. "That is why he needs me. And that is why you need me too."

Chloe put the phone down and looked at Marcus. They had a conversation with their eyes. The kind of conversation you have with someone you trust completely.

"What do you want, Felix?" Chloe asked. She said my name like she was tasting it. "Really want. Not the answer you gave Victor. Not the answer you gave Derek. The real one."

I looked at her dark eyes and her red dress and her steady hands. She was not afraid of me. That was rare. Most people were afraid of something. She was not.

"I want power," I said. "Not money. Money is just paper. Power is something else. Power is walking into a room and everyone stops talking. Power is saying a name and watching people flinch. Power is never getting slapped again."

Marcus leaned back in his chair. "And you think Victor Kensington will give you that?"

"I think Victor Kensington will use me until I break. And then he will throw me away. So I am not working for Victor. I am working for myself. And right now, working for myself means making sure Victor does not destroy me before I am ready to destroy him."

Chloe smiled. It was the first time I saw her smile. It made her look different. Softer. But also more dangerous.

"You want to play both sides," she said. "You want to help Marcus keep his recording so Victor has something to fear. And you want to help Victor so Marcus does not release it too early and start a war. You want to be the bridge."

"I want to be the one who decides when the bridge burns."

Marcus and Chloe looked at each other again. This time the look was longer. Deeper. Then Marcus turned back to me and nodded.

"Fine," he said. "Here is the deal. You go back to Victor and tell him you deleted the recording. You show him this." He pulled a small flash drive from his pocket and slid it across the desk. "This is a fake. A blank. He will test it. It will show nothing. He will think the problem is solved."

"And the real recording?"

Chloe picked up the cracked phone. Victor's phone. "Stays here. On this device. In a place Victor will never find."

I looked at the flash drive. Then at the phone. Then at Marcus and Chloe.

"What do you get from this?" I asked. "Why help me?"

Marcus stood up and walked to the window. His back was to me. His reflection in the glass looked tired.

"Because Victor Kensington needs to be stopped," he said. "And I have been looking for someone on the inside for six months. Someone he trusts. Someone he underestimates. Someone he thinks he owns."

He turned around.

"You are that someone, Felix. The parking attendant who made a million dollars in ten minutes. The hungry boy in a borrowed suit. The nobody who walked into a party he was not invited to and found my office in the back."

I stood up. The coin was burning in my pocket.

"So I work for Victor. I tell him what you want me to tell him. I bring him information. And in return, you do not release the recording yet. You wait until I say so."

Chloe walked toward me. Close. Too close. I could smell her perfume. Flowers and smoke.

"And if you betray us?" she asked. Her voice was soft but her eyes were hard.

"Then you release the recording. Victor goes to jail. And he takes me with him because I am his man now. So I am not going to betray you. Betraying you is betraying myself."

Chloe stared at me for five seconds. Then she stepped back and nodded at Marcus.

Marcus picked up a pen and wrote something on a piece of paper. He slid it across the desk. An address.

"That is where we will meet next time. Not here. Not at a party. Somewhere safe. Somewhere Victor does not know."

I took the paper and put it in my pocket next to the coin.

"One more thing," Marcus said. "Chloe will be your contact. Not me. You talk to her. She talks to me. Do you understand?"

I looked at Chloe. She was smiling again. That dangerous smile.

"I understand," I said.

I picked up the fake flash drive and walked to the door.

"Felix," Chloe said. I stopped but did not turn around. "Be careful with Victor. He is not stupid. If he finds out what you are doing, he will not just kill you. He will make sure everyone you have ever known suffers first."

I looked over my shoulder. Her dark eyes were on me.

"Then I will make sure he never finds out," I said.

I walked out of the glass office and down the white hallway and into the elevator. The doors closed and I was alone.

I flipped the coin.

Three seconds.

I saw myself standing in Victor Kensington's office. His cold eyes on me. His thin smile. I handed him the fake flash drive. He plugged it into his computer. He waited. He saw nothing.

Then he looked at me and said something. I could not hear the words. But I saw his face. And he was not happy.

The vision ended.

I put the coin away and drove the borrowed BMW back to Derek's building. The suit was starting to smell like smoke and sweat. The watch was leaving a mark on my wrist.

Tomorrow I would go back to Victor. I would lie to his face. I would hand him a flash drive full of nothing.

And I would start the most dangerous game of my life.

I parked the car and walked up to Derek's apartment. He opened the door in his robe again. He looked at my face and did not ask questions. He just handed me a beer and pointed to the couch.

I drank the beer and stared at the ceiling.

Somewhere in this city, a homeless man was dead. Victor Kensington was planning his next crime. Marcus Webb was planning his next video. Chloe was planning something I could not see.

And I was right in the middle of all of them.

The coin was warm against my chest.

Three seconds at a time.

That was all I needed.