“You tell me: Do you know where Grandma’s Pantry is?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Great,” Zig said. “Show me.”
78
His favorite part was picking the music.
Today, most elevators have stopped playing overhead music, but when you buy your own, you can choose to play whatever you want. According to a leading communications expert, music in an elevator is like “amniotic fluid that surrounds us. It never startles us, it is never too loud . . . it’s always there.” It’s why the saleswoman at Atlas Elevators suggested soundtracks with names like Easy Listening and Calm Pop.
“You want to be in the background, not the foreground,” she’d told him.
But screw it. Who the hell wants to live life in the background? he’d decided, picking a soundtrack with Grandmaster Flash and a ton of Marvin Gaye.
Indeed, his office was so quiet, as the elevator made its way up, he could hear the faint beat of “Got to Give It Up.”
Within seconds, the green digital indicator light lit up, but didn’t ping. They’d turned the ping off months ago for being too annoying.
The elevator doors slid open as the man craned his neck, looking to see just how bad the rest of his day would be.
Sure enough, Nola stormed out of the elevator, pistol at the ready. She spotted the man instantly, in the open doorway of his office. He had a knife of a nose and a leprechaun smile.
Nola plowed toward him, her pistol aimed straight at his face. Her lower lip was split. At least Dominic got a lucky punch in.
“Relax, I’m not your enemy. Not even armed,” he insisted, hands in the air, signaling his own surrender. “Friends, okay? Friends? Adrian Vess,” he said, offering a handshake.
Nola stayed silent, her finger on the trigger. “I know you’re the one who did this.”
“I hate to break it to you, kid, but you don’t know nothing,” Mr. Vess said, hand still in the air. Heading for his office, he motioned for her to follow. “Now, c’mon—I got something you’re gonna like,” he added, his leprechaun smile widening. “I promise, I won’t bite.”
79
Landenberg, Pennsylvania
“Suck it, fartwizard!”
“Kevin!” Nana Dotty scolded, her grandson barely reacting. “Apologies, Ms. Waggs, he’s just— Boys are animals.”
“I have a son,” Waggs agreed, sitting at a tiny faux-wood kitchen table that was built for two, but had three seats around it. From a mug that read “What Happens at Grandma’s Stays at Grandma’s,” Waggs pretended to enjoy the instant coffee that had all the flavor of backwash. In the living room, two boys—Kevin and his brother—were frantically jumping on a sagging orange couch, playing an old Wii baseball video game like it was a cardio workout.
“Swallow that!” the shorter boy yelled, hitting what appeared to be a digital triple.
“Paul!” Nana Dotty shouted, wearing a sheen of exhaustion that only comes when you’re eighty years old and your daughter’s opioid habit leaves you raising two tween boys.
“You were saying about his accident,” Waggs began.
“Actually, ma’am, I hadn’t said anything,” Nana Dotty replied, taking a long sip of coffee. “My daughter’s been arrested five times, Ms. Waggs. So forgive me for being suspicious when someone with a badge knocks on my door.”
Waggs took a breath, noticing that above the stove, above the fridge, above every single doorway including the bathroom, was a metal horseshoe, for good luck. Right about now, she needed it. “Can we go back to his brain injury?”