A Knock at the Door

by Ellis, T. W.

  Pulling out of the lot, she almost heads right, almost heads to the warehouse, but who is she kidding?

  She’s tired. She’s beat. She should be in bed.

  Someone else can check it out.

  1:07 a.m.

  It’s not quite as simple as I thought to get in, because there are no windows reachable from the ground. There are, however, some that are accessible after I’ve clambered up on top of a dumpster round the back of Leo’s warehouse. Trevor watches me with no attempt to hide the apprehension in his expression. He winces and sucks air between his teeth.

  ‘You’re not helping,’ I tell him once I’ve got something resembling secure footing.

  ‘I don’t think I’m trying to.’

  ‘Just pretend, Trevor. Pretend I’m Spider-Man.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Jesus, Trevor, where have you been for the last few decades?’

  ‘Not taking the Lord’s name in vain, that’s where I’ve been.’

  I’m suitably chastised. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘That sorry I’ll accept.’

  Dumpsters are not designed for someone to stand on, I’m discovering. The wheels don’t help. Neither does the rounded lid that’s not only hard to balance on but also feels as if it might collapse in on itself at any moment. Somehow, I’m managing. I have one palm braced against the wall for support and the other clutching the half-brick. The window is about in line with my shoulders and it looks like a regular window that should collapse without too much effort.

  ‘Do you think they have security patrols around here?’ I call down to Trevor.

  ‘If they have, they’ve failed to notice a couple of people who clearly don’t belong here acting suspicious so I wouldn’t worry about them.’

  ‘Good point,’ I say. ‘Here goes nothing.’

  I’m holding the brick with my fingertips and I sort of punch the window with it – an exploratory punch with little force because I’m nervous and unsure how much strength I need to utilise.

  Crack.

  The brick goes straight through, along with my hand.

  ‘Nice job,’ Trevor calls to me.

  I have to be careful withdrawing my hand because it’s surrounded by shards of glass ready to slit my wrist. A few pieces fall away but I’m uninjured. Not so much as a graze. Maybe burglary is my lost calling.

  A few more careful hits with the brick and the window pane is nothing but glittering pieces. I knock out the whole thing and spend some extra time clearing out any remnants on the lower strip of the frame so I don’t slice and dice myself when I climb through.

  I’m not sure what to do with the brick so I toss it towards Trevor and say, ‘Catch.’

  He may be slow on his feet but Trevor snatches it out of the air one-handed without so much as a blink.

  ‘What am I supposed to do with this?’ he asks.

  I shrug. ‘I don’t know. Keep it. It’s a souvenir.’

  He says nothing but looks at me with one of his wide-eyed, head-shaking looks. I ignore it. I’m on a roll. I place my hands on the window frame, hike up one foot so it joins them, and push and pull my way through the gap where the window pane used to be so I drop down on the other side feet first.

  Glass crunches underfoot.

  I’m in an empty room. A featureless cube with nothing but a broken window to give it any character. Part of the office space that flanks the main warehouse. Unused because Leo has no staff. He pays contractors as and when he needs to bring in wine and ship it out again. As I understand his business, that’s not something that happens on a regular basis. It tends to be substantial shipments now and again. He couldn’t afford to pay proper employees and there wouldn’t be enough work to justify them even if he could.

  No alarm has sounded.

  I’m not sure why. A little luck, perhaps. There’s just enough light from outside for me to see. I’m not sure if that will be the case further into the building. I don’t want to turn on the interior lights and advertise I’m here.

  I cross the room and open the door, stepping out on to a metal walkway that overlooks the main warehouse space.

  There are transparent sections to the roof above so I can still see enough to know as I look down that something is very wrong.

  The walkway continues to the right and there are more doors to more offices. Left, there are steep, narrow stairs that lead to the warehouse floor. I descend and find a door to open so I can let Trevor inside.

  ‘Hey,’ I call to him, trying a couple of times to get the right volume. I don’t want to shout loud enough for anyone else to hear and end up making just enough noise to get Trevor’s attention.

  ‘Well done,’ he says, nearing.

  ‘Anything to report?’

  He shakes his head. ‘Didn’t hear or see anything.’

  I say, ‘Good,’ and stand aside to allow him to pass.

  I close the door behind Trevor, who takes a few paces into the warehouse to look around. He pivots on the spot, looking high and low to get the full picture.

  ‘Where’s all the wine?’ he says.

  ‘I wish I could answer that.’

  The warehouse is empty.

  There are several rows of industrial-scale shelving units and not a single bottle of wine on any of them.

  ‘Didn’t you say your husband is a wine merchant?’

  ‘I did,’ I say. ‘He is. Was.’

  Trevor looks at me for answers.

  ‘If I knew, I would tell you. But I don’t. I don’t know why the warehouse is empty. I don’t know where all the wine is. I don’t know what the hell’s going on.’

  ‘Does he have another property?’ Trevor is reaching and we both know it. ‘Perhaps he moved his stock elsewhere.’

  ‘I very much doubt it, Trevor. Why would he need this place if he has another? And if he has another warehouse with all his wine in there, why hasn’t he told me about it?’

  Trevor shrugs. ‘I have no idea. Could be that business has been bad and he didn’t want to worry you.’

  I’m silent. I don’t know what to say. I stare at the empty shelving units, enough for dozens of cases of wine, hundreds and hundreds of bottles. Why are they empty?

  ‘Hey,’ Trevor says, seeing how anxious I am. ‘There might still be a good reason for all this.’

  ‘I don’t see how.’ I approach the stairs. ‘But whatever the answer, we’re not going to find it down here among empty shelves.’ I ascend. ‘How are your knees?’

  Trevor grumbles as he heads towards me. ‘Better than the respect you show to your elders.’ He climbs up. ‘Did you disable the alarm?’

  ‘There isn’t one.’

  Trevor points to motion sensors high on the walls. ‘Yeah, there is. Why is it off?’

  ‘Huh,’ I breathe. ‘Well, it’s not like there’s anything to steal.’

  The weight of what I don’t know about Leo is taking a huge toll. I’m still holding on to hope that there is some explanation for all of this, some innocent misunderstanding that has spiralled out of control. It’s feeling like a fool’s hope right now more than ever.

  I realise I’m rubbing my palms together.

  My hands and fingers are tingling. Pins and needles, anxiety addition. If I can generate enough friction, enough heat, maybe they won’t—

  ‘Dammit.’

  Trevor asks, ‘What’s wrong?’

  My hands have seized up. My fingers are paralysed, half-curled. Tendons bulge out through the skin of the back of my hands. I can feel the hypertensive muscles in my wrists and all the way up to my elbows.

  Not really painful, but frustrating.

  Infuriating.

  ‘I just have to wait it out,’ I tell Trevor.

  ‘Can’t you just relax your hands?’

  ‘No.’

  It comes out more as a snarl than a word. A guttural, primitive response. I don’t need Trevor’s belittlement right now adding to my problems. I’m pre-emptively angry with him as I expect some dismissive reto
rt but I’m surprised that he doesn’t respond like that. His brow is furrowed and his eyes are narrow as they stare at my hands. He can see that this is something real. Even he can’t pretend a physical symptom is all in my mind.

  To my surprise, my fingers begin to relax. My forearms loosen.

  ‘That was quick,’ I say. ‘Usually lasts much longer.’

  ‘What was different this time?’

  ‘I turned my anger on to you instead of me. Seems to have done the trick quite nicely.’

  ‘Happy to help.’

  A fool’s hope, I think.

  Even if Leo isn’t a money launderer, even if he hasn’t been an informant for the FBI, there has been too much deception, too many lies, for us to go back to our normal life.

  If the person you care about the most in this world can hide so much from you, what does that say about your relationship?

  ‘Well, what do you think?’

  I wasn’t sure what to think. The warehouse seemed huge to me. It seemed cavernous. I couldn’t imagine why we needed so much space. Twelve thousand square feet, he told me.

  Leo said, ‘Don’t keep me in suspense.’

  He was giving me a tour of the empty building and seemed like an excited schoolboy showing off a new toy. He was looking for similar levels of excitement from me but I found it hard to care in the same way.

  ‘The shelving units are part of the lease.’

  ‘It’s almost too good to be true.’

  There was nothing to see, no reason for the tour, but I was happy he was happy. The business was growing. He wasn’t just recommending wine but selling it too, sourcing it himself and importing it and delivering it to restaurants and hotels.

  He needed space.

  I was craning my neck to look at the ceiling high above. ‘It’s just so … big.’

  ‘We have to dream big,’ he told me. ‘We’re committed now, so why limit ourselves? Why put a glass ceiling above our heads before we’ve found out how far we can grow? Don’t you want us to grow?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ I said. ‘But we’re risking so much. The lease is a killer of an outlay. It’s such a commitment.’

  My words were not putting him off in the slightest. If anything I was making him more animated and enthusiastic because he was determined for me to see this his way.

  ‘This is who we are, Jem. We’re entrepreneurs. Risking is what we do. No one gets rich without taking chances.’

  ‘I like the way I said “risks” and you say “chances” to make them seem less dangerous.’

  ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’

  My eyebrows pinched closer. ‘You know exactly what can happen. Everything is on the line.’

  ‘Bet big to win big.’

  I rubbed his arm. ‘I thought you were the sensible one and I was the hot head?’

  He smiled that perfect smile of his. ‘I guess you rubbed off on me.’

  I gave him a look.

  He showed his palms. ‘Accidental innuendo, I swear.’

  ‘Then why do you look so pleased with yourself?’

  He gestured to the warehouse, empty now but in his imagination filled to bursting with possibilities.

  ‘I’m pleased with this, with us. With how far we’ve come.’

  I glanced around at the cavernous space. ‘Is this not too much, too fast?’

  He didn’t answer.

  I said, ‘How much is enough?’

  The question took him back. Not because he saw it as a challenge but because he hadn’t thought about it before. He hadn’t stopped to question his ambitions, and that worried me. I needed to know he was reliable if this was going to work out.

  ‘I’ll know when we get there,’ he said.

  ‘That’s not an answer. That’s not even close.’

  I was annoyed then. Not only had I not received the reassurance I sought but I was also questioning the sense of this entire endeavour.

  ‘I grew up poor,’ Leo said. ‘You know that. Nothing has ever been easy for me. But I never used that as an excuse. I did everything I could to pull myself out of that poverty. Did I always do the smart thing? No. Did I never make a mistake? Of course not. I made plenty. I don’t want sympathy any more than I want praise.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. Stop beating around the bush. How much money is enough?’

  He looked me square in the eye, intense and unblinking.

  ‘What I mean is, I’m always going to want more. When I was a kid I was happy with enough money to buy a new comic book instead of stealing it from the store. Ten years ago I was happy to pay the rent on time. What I mean is that we change, don’t we? Whatever we have will one day not seem like enough. I’m not trying to dodge your question. In fact, I think I’m being as honest as I possibly can be. However well this works out and however much money we make it’s not going to be enough one day in the future and then I’m going to want more. For me, for us.’

  I think about my travelling years and chipping steadily away at my inheritance until I was penniless. I didn’t appreciate the comfortable life my parents had raised me into until it was gone. I wanted to be comfortable again. I had to trust him.

  ‘I trust you,’ I said.

  He smiled. ‘Rome seems a long time ago, doesn’t it?’

  ‘A lifetime ago.’

  He took my shoulders and massaged them. ‘We can do this. I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t believe it.’

  1:15 a.m.

  As well as the empty room I broke into, there’s a meeting room, a kitchen, restrooms and a main office hub. Only the latter shows any signs of life. The other rooms seem as though they have never been used. Or at least used so infrequently as to barely count. With just Leo running things, I’m not surprised the meeting room hasn’t seen any use. Much of his work is done abroad or on the road. If he’s not away he’s with me.

  I’m telling myself a lot of things, I realise. I’m trying to fill in the gaps and explain away what might otherwise add to a picture of a man I know less and less.

  The office hub has room for a couple of workstations and Leo’s office is separated off behind a glass wall. There’s no lock on the door and I push it open. It’s a little square space with a desk, filing cabinet, computer and a whiteboard hanging from one wall. Leo’s chair is one of those incredibly expensive ergonomic mesh things. I take a seat while Trevor goes round making sure the blinds are all down.

  ‘Squint your eyes,’ he says.

  I’m so distracted thinking about Leo that I don’t understand what Trevor’s doing until the lights come on and blind me in a flash of stinging fluorescence.

  I grimace, squeezing my eyelids shut. ‘Trevor … ’

  ‘What?’ he says. ‘I did warn you.’

  ‘What are you doing? Turn those off.’

  ‘What exactly are we going to find in the dark?’

  ‘I have an awful feeling there’s nothing to find.’

  Trevor grunts. ‘Don’t you go giving up so easily. We’ve come this far. Let’s not get defeatist.’

  I nod, exhale. ‘Yeah, you’re right. I just need to focus. Got to summon some of that Trevor-trademarked can-do attitude.’

  ‘That’s my girl.’

  ‘What are we here for? What are we looking for? I want to know who is telling the truth about Leo: Wilks or Carlson. Or, I want to prove neither of them are. Although given the distinct lack of wine in this wine warehouse I’m going to jump the gun and say something’s rotten in Denmark.’

  Trevor nods. ‘I think we can call that a given right now.’

  I look at Trevor’s old jeans, his old tattoos, his old face. ‘I’m going to take a wild guess and say you’re not one for computers?’

  ‘You people today, you think everything revolves around technology. You forget—’

  ‘What did I just say?’

  He grumbles something.

  ‘There you go,’ I say, pointing, ‘you take the filing cabinet.’

  ‘What am I looking for?’

&nbs
p; ‘Anything that mentions Rome.’

  ‘What does “anything” mean exactly?’

  ‘Anything.’

  He frowns at me.

  ‘We’re flailing in the dark, Trevor. This morning, Messer mentioned Rome, and Carlson’s picture of Leo was taken in Rome too. That can’t be a coincidence. So I’m guessing that there’s an invoice or some other paperwork pertaining to Rome. There has to be a trail when money’s involved.’

  ‘I thought the whole point of money laundering was to hide it.’

  ‘Not exactly. It’s to legitimise that money, isn’t it? You’re making dirty money clean so it doesn’t have to be hidden.’

  ‘And how does that work?’

  ‘Like I have even the remotest idea how money laundering works,’ I say. ‘But I’ll take it as a compliment that you thought I might understand it.’

  He shrugs. ‘Well, it could be the family business.’

  ‘Not funny.’

  ‘I think it is.’

  ‘Have you found anything mentioning Rome yet?’

  He gets down to work.

  I tap a key on the keyboard to wake the computer out of sleep. I’m greeted with a log-in screen. I make a few attempts at guessing Leo’s password: favourite baseball team, basketball team, soccer team. Nothing works, which is not surprising. He no doubt has some alphanumeric password that is impossible to guess.

  I give up, and I suppose this is one secret that is so common, so benign, that I shouldn’t have any issue with it. Leo doesn’t know the password to my laptop, so I have no right to be annoyed here. Only, it’s yet another secret on top of all those other secrets. How many more things about him don’t I know? How many other secrets will be revealed before this is all over?

  Just thinking about the possibilities makes me livid.

  That anger is intense but lasts mere seconds because I glance at the photograph that sits on Leo’s desk. It’s a proper photograph, taken on real film and developed by professionals. A solid silver frame houses it because the picture is special – I gave it to my husband as a present. It shows us together, smiling and happy. He has one arm around me and I’m leaning into him, my head resting against his chest. We’re both tanned and more than a little inebriated because we’d just been to dinner at a busy little bistro and eaten so much food we had to loosen our belts. Leo’s caught the sun too much on the right side of his face and it looks a bit red. He still looks like a movie star, more so than usual even. The setting sun paints us in perfect orange-pink light. An elderly couple passed us and told us we were a beautiful couple. Leo asked them if they would take a picture of us and they were happy to do so, almost fighting with each other to use Leo’s top-of-the-range Nikon. The old woman won, if I remember correctly. She said something to us in rapid-fire Italian that we didn’t understand and we looked at each other in confusion. When we got the reel of film developed, we saw that she had taken the shot at the exact moment we’d looked at each other and not at her. I was annoyed at first, but Leo liked the picture for the exact reason I disliked it: because it showed us as we were, a couple of goofballs pulling funny faces, instead of nicely posed. In our element, he said, the dual expressions of confusion perfectly captured. In time, I learned to love that shot of us.