The Basement Vault

by Brandon Zenner

  ***

  We took Nick’s van to the highway, and then drove south for about twenty minutes. He was taking me to two locations, both of which I had already seen. One was his office, since I was now expected to help keep tabs on the books. The building itself was tiny, an old one-car garage, the sliding door patched up with drywall and converted into a single office room with a bathroom in the back. A battered wooden sign read “Grady Construction and Repair” over the front door.

  It was a mess.

  Papers everywhere, filing cabinets overflowing with files, and Nick’s blue glass jars and bottles bordering every spare inch around the room’s two windows. On top of the cabinets was an assortment of rocks and crystals.

  Nick read the expression on my face. “Don’t worry about all this.” His hands danced over the room. “We can clean up however you like. This,” he said, pointing to the corner of the room, “is where we keep the important stuff.” He grabbed the sides of a filing cabinet and slid it aside. Then he knelt down, feeling the edge of a strip of molding. He pulled, and the baseboard came free of the magnets keeping it in place. Nick put the molding aside, and reached into a cavity to remove several large ledgers, placing them each on the desk in turn.

  “These are the books,” he said. “Expense reports. Payroll. A section of the wall pops free too. That’s where we hide the safe.”

  “How are the books standing?” The random slips of papers jutting out from the pages answered my question. A few even fell out and drifted to the floor.

  “Well,” Nick said, scratching the side of his face, “not as bad as they look, but I’m close to falling behind. I’m juggling too much at the moment.”

  I nodded.

  “All right then.” I started rolling up my sleeves. “Should we start?”

  “Not yet.” Nick shook his head. “We’re going to the warehouse first. With Darin gone, I’m still shorthanded at the operation. I want to show you a few things. That’s actually where you’ll be needed the most.”

  We had previously negotiated a salary on the way to the office, and had settled on a fair rate—more than fair. About twice of what cubicle-hell was paying me. I would do whatever was needed. There was no way I was going to fuck this up; it wasn’t like I could bounce around from job to job forever. This was it.

  Nick put the ledgers back in the hole in the wall, replaced the molding, and moved the cabinet back in place. The little shiny rocks jittered on top.

  Then he turned to the door, and I followed him out.

  We drove to another part of town, closer to the shore. The area was mostly industrial, with large warehouses belonging to FedEx, UPS, as well as about a dozen or so smaller companies. Nick drove across a vast and vacant paved lot, and parked around the corner of a windowless rectangular building, all steel and metal. The wall approaching had a large faded mural of graffiti, which must have been vibrant, perhaps even nice when it was first spray-painted by whatever talented kids vandalized it. The graffiti had been painted over with a nearly transparent coating of white paint, but the colors showed through. This was the first time I was seeing it this early in the day, and the rainbow, cartoonish mural of a girl’s face along with some zigzag signatures were legible.

  Nick parked next to a white sedan with several moving vans nearby. A dark blue Mercedes Benz sat a few spots down. The car was a little beat up, but still sharp looking.

  My part time work for Nick had always been late at night when the other workers were long gone. It was Nick’s design that not all of his employees should meet and know each other. A good business model when you’re in his type of work. The only people I ever worked with in those long dark hours were Becka and a security guard named Jeff. But that guy didn’t talk much, just drank coffee and watched old movies on his portable television. That’s how I got to know Becka: at the warehouse. She’d been working for Nick ... I don’t know, maybe seven years longer than myself? Maybe more.

  Nick got out, and I followed him to a side door. Earlier, he had given me his master code. I still had my own code, but along with my promotion came the responsibility of increased knowledge. Only myself, Nick, and one other employee had the master code. Nick entered it on a keypad and a little LED flashed from red to green. Inside, a large man stood up from a folding chair holding a crumpled crossword puzzle and a pencil.

  “Nick,” the man said, nodding.

  “Mark, brother, meet Powers.”

  The day shift guard named Mark reached out and shook my hand. He stood a foot taller than the both of us, and his palm looked like an elephant stump coming out of his black leather jacket.

  “My pleasure,” I said.

  “Same.”

  “That your Benz out there?”

  He nodded.

  “Nice car.”

  “Thanks.” He sat back down, his attention going to the folded newspaper. “I’m looking to trade it in. You in the market, let me know.”

  We walked directly across the hall, to a second door leading to a second warehouse. It was like those Russian Matryoshka dolls that get pulled apart to reveal smaller dolls nesting inside. A warehouse within a warehouse.

  Nick took me to the door and knocked.

  My previous work took place down the long hall to the left, in a room around the corner in the rear of the building, and I looked over my shoulder to where I normally worked with Becka. She was nowhere to be seen. Whatever Nick was about to show me was entirely new, but I had a very good idea of exactly what was behind that thick door.

  A sliding viewing port opened, and a set of eyes looked out. The viewing port closed, and the sound of a heavy lock clacked from the hollows of the metal door. A moment later it opened and we stepped inside, shielding our eyes from the glaring light.

  “Holy hell,” I muttered, stepping into the room ...

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