Michael Harvey - The Fifth Floor

The kid slipped me a business card, red with yellow stars: hubert russell. “Gotta get back,” he said.

“Thanks, Hubert. Name’s Michael Kelly.”

“No problem, Mr. Kelly. It was fun.”

We shook hands. Hubert went back downstairs. I waited a minute and followed. I could feel Hubert’s boss tracking me as I walked through the bureau. The kid fell in step halfway across the room and spoke in a voice plenty loud for anyone who wanted to listen.

“Sorry I couldn’t help you, sir. The property you want was actually not even platted back in 1840. Chances are no one technically owned it. At least, not anyone who could produce a legal deed. Like I said, if you want to find out more, you might try the Chicago Historical Society.”

Hubert winked and opened the door to let me out. Then I was alone again, in the cold marble corridor, walking back in time. To 1871 and a gang of land thieves, also known as Chicago’s founding fathers.

H ow did you get in here?”

I wandered back to my office on Broadway at a little after two in the afternoon. The girl sat in the same chair her mother had. She had the same hair touched in red. Same elegant lines for nose and chin. Same pale skin, stretched tight over high cheekbones with dusky points of fatigue underneath. Like her mom in just about every way. Except she didn’t have the black eye. Not yet, anyway.

“You left the door open,” the girl said, and threw a look behind her.

“I don’t think so.”

She smirked, in a way that made me feel suddenly slow. Suddenly old. “Okay, so I’m good with locks.”

I made a mental note to get the locks changed and took a seat behind my desk. My notes from the historical society and the County Building went into a drawer. Then I booted up my Mac and checked my e-mails. I could feel the girl waiting, watching, assessing. I thought she might get a little antsy. I was wrong. After a minute or so, I looked up and across the desk.

“Let me guess,” I said. “You’re Taylor Woods.”

“How did you know?”

“You look a lot like your mom.”

Taylor held up the volume of Catullus I had shared with her mother less than a week earlier. “I borrowed a book.”

I got up and walked over to the shelf by the door. Felt for the Smith and Wesson, a. 38 caliber snub nose I kept in a space behind the Iliad. The gun was still there. Loaded and, thankfully, not in the hands of a teenager. Then I sat back down behind my desk.

“I showed that book to your mom the other day.”

“She told me,” Taylor said. “I study Latin in school.”

“What grade are you in?”

“I’m fourteen. Freshman in high school.”

“So you can translate?”

“A little bit.” She looked down at the title and then back to me. “I hate and I love. That’s pretty easy.”

“You like Catullus?” I said.

Taylor weighed the pros and cons of a poet who wrote two thousand years before she was born. Took all of five seconds.

“Seems pretty cool. Kind of romantic.”

I could have told her all about romance. About how it was sometimes better read than lived. But I figured people, even fourteen-year-old people, had to figure some things out for themselves.

“What’s up, Taylor?”

“My mom told me you were going to help us.”

“She did?”

“Yeah. She told me if there was trouble, I should come find you.”

Taylor held out my business card. A name, address, e-mail, and phone number. Not much more than that to a business card. Until it’s in the hands of a kid. Until it offers you up as a savior.

“Does your mom know you’re here?”

She shook her head and hair fell over the lower half of her face. She pulled the tresses back behind her ears and settled herself in her chair.

“You came on your own?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s your mom?”

“At home, I guess.”

“So she’s not in trouble right now?”

“No. Is that what I have to wait for? I mean, before we can come and see you?”

“No, Taylor. It’s okay to come and see me whenever you want.”

We sat for a moment and I thought about things. Taylor picked through the pages of Catullus, then looked around the room. Waiting, apparently, for my plan.

“Who’s that guy?” she said. I followed her finger to a couple of old volumes that sat on the edge of my desk.

“That’s a Greek playwright by the name of Sophocles. Ever heard of him?”

She shook her head. I picked up a book titled The Oedipus Trilogy.

“He lived in the fifth century b.c. Any thoughts about the fifth century b.c.?”

Taylor just looked at me so I kept going.

“Sophocles wrote three plays known as the Oedipus trilogy.”

“What were they about?”

“That’s a big question.” I opened the text and found a line from Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus.

“What’s that?” Taylor said.

“Ancient Greek.” I pointed her to the translation: “Man is born to fate a prey.”

“Is that supposed to be a puzzle?”

“Sort of. Sophocles believed each man was born to a destiny he couldn’t escape. And that anyone who thought otherwise was a fool. Like Oedipus.”

“Oedipus was a fool?”

“Oedipus was a king. A man who thought he was the master of his fate. A man who thought he could solve any problem through the force of his own intellect.”

“Let me guess,” Taylor said. “That didn’t work out.”

“Oedipus asked a lot of questions. Problem was, he didn’t always get the answers he wanted.”

“Was that the point of the play?”

I smiled and closed the book.

“There are a lot of points to the Oedipus trilogy, but, yeah, I guess that’s one of them. Don’t ask a question unless you’re sure you can handle the answer.”

Taylor ran her hand across the frayed cover and pulled it across the desk.

“Mind if I take this one too?”

“Suit yourself.”

I showed her the book’s layout. Where the English translations were for each Greek passage. How the comments in the back of the book worked. She took it all in, then stacked Sophocles on top of Catullus.

“Thanks. I kind of like this stuff.”

“Me too,” I said. “Makes you think.”

“Want to know what I was thinking just now?”

“Shoot.”

“I was thinking, I wonder if he has a girlfriend?”

“How interesting,” I said.

“So do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Have a girlfriend?”

“What did I just tell you about asking questions?”

The girl smiled. For the first time since she sat down, she seemed 100 percent kid.

“What do you want to know?” I said.

“Why don’t you date my mom?”

“Excuse me?”

“She says you two used to go out.”

“Your mom’s married. For the second time.”

“Yeah, we know about that.”

“Move on, Taylor.”

Now she laughed a little. Bounced a bit in her chair. I noticed a tattoo on the inside of her wrist. Looked like some kind of fruit. Maybe a peach, but I couldn’t be sure.

“Want to know what she said about you?” the girl said.

“We’re old friends.”

“I know. Want to know what she said?”

I tipped forward in my chair and slid my elbows onto my desk. “No, I don’t want to know. How about you, Taylor? You got a boyfriend?”

The girl dropped her eyes to the floor and pulled the two books I’d given her close to her body. The part in her hair was straight down the middle of her scalp. Just like her mom.

“I don’t mix too well,” she said.

I knew I shouldn’t have asked the question. As usual, about ten seconds too late.

“You got friends,” I said.

“I have people I talk to every day.”