Christopher Hebert - Angels of Detroit

Half an hour later Darius was stumbling down the narrow aisle of the bus, hoisting the plastic shopping bags as high as he could. But they were heavy, and he couldn’t seem to keep them from banging against the backs of the seats. Sorry , he said, sorry. Sorry sorry . The passengers sitting by the aisle bent toward the windows as he passed. He flopped down, groaning like an old man, into the second-to-last seat. Around himself he built a fortress of groceries, which he spent the next forty-five minutes struggling to keep from falling to the floor.

“You’re late,” Michael Boni said.

Darius slumped down beside him on the marble bench. It was twenty minutes after six, and he felt as if he’d been sitting all day, somehow without a single moment’s rest. He tossed back his head, taking in the columns of mirrored windows hovering above him.

“And you look like a tourist,” Michael Boni said.

They sat in the evening shadow of the HSI Building, the sun setting at their backs. No matter how many times Darius looked at the tower, he couldn’t understand how anything could be so big and yet stand so effortlessly.

“It’s what a city should look like,” he said. The whole city, not just a few square blocks, what passed here for a business district. The plaza was immaculate. In the flower bed beside the bench, even the dirt was tidy, the soil so deeply and evenly black, it appeared to have been painted. The chrysanthemums were all the exact same height. From down here it was impossible to tell that nearly a third of the building’s floors were vacant.

At this hour, everything was shutting down. The parking ramps and streets were choked with cars waiting to get on the interstate, out toward the suburbs.

“They can’t get out of here fast enough,” Michael Boni said.

Darius reached out to pick up a straw wrapper from the flower bed.

“What are we?” Michael Boni said. “The ladies’ auxiliary?”

The sawdust in Michael Boni’s hair seemed to sparkle in the day’s remaining light. He leaned in closer to Darius. “We can’t meet here any more.”

Since that day at the post office two weeks ago, Darius and Michael Boni had met here five times, always just before the start of Darius’s shift.

Michael Boni pointed at three men in suits who’d just pushed through the revolving door. “We’re like foxes in a henhouse.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’ve been looking through those books,” Michael Boni said. “I’ve made a list of what we need. But we can’t talk about it here.”

“Why?”

“It’s too dangerous.”

Michael Boni gestured over Darius’s shoulder. Over there was a second tower, with a second plaza, virtually identical to their own. An old man was rising from one of the benches.

“Watch,” Michael Boni said.

As the old man moved toward them, Darius saw he was wearing dark glasses and a brown straw hat, carrying a blind person’s cane. At the crosswalk, the old man stopped, standing with four others, men and women in business suits. The old man was saying something, talking into the air. A businessman in a gray flannel suit reached out and let the old man take his arm. The light changed, and the five of them started across.

“Watch carefully,” Michael Boni said.

Darius felt he must be missing something. It took just a minute for the men to reach the other side. When they did, the old blind guy offered thanks, bowing and waving goodbye. On his own again, the blind guy navigated his way to a bench not far from where Michael Boni and Darius were sitting.

“Did you see it?” Michael Boni said.

“See what?”

“The way he pocketed the guy’s wallet. The blind guy.”

Darius glanced at Michael Boni, expecting to see he was joking.

“I watched him do the same thing twenty minutes ago,” Michael Boni said. “I was the only one who noticed it.”

Darius saw no point in arguing over something he hadn’t seen.

“That’s what I’m talking about.” Michael Boni leaned in, lowering his voice. “There might be someone here saying the same thing about us, watching us every day.”

“But we haven’t done anything,” Darius said. And he was sure no one had ever noticed them. Darius was hardly the only black man in a uniform. And Michael Boni wasn’t the only Hispanic guy in stained jeans.

“What do you think we’re doing?” Michael Boni said. “Just shooting the shit?”

“I’m just saying, we haven’t done anything. Not yet.”

“Don’t think I’m not keeping an eye on you, too,” Michael Boni said.

Darius pushed the straw wrapper deeper down into his pocket. “Fine,” he said. “We’ll be more careful.”

Michael Boni turned away, his eyes falling once again upon the old man with the cane. He seemed serious about the dangers the blind man represented. But more than that, Michael Boni seemed pleased by what the blind man had done.

§

In the five months since he’d been assigned the night shift at HSI, Darius had never faced a security breach more serious than a drunk setting up camp in the doorway. After six o’clock, there was never more than a handful of people left. Every night, from the booth in the lobby, he watched the stragglers trickle out, a few each hour until, by eight or nine — ten at the latest — the last of them had gone. It was always the same people.

That night, like almost every night, the last to leave was Mrs. Freeman, from the third floor. Even before he knew her title, Darius could tell she was someone important. She was in her late sixties, and she had a leisurely way of crossing the lobby from the bank of elevators, as if she had nothing to prove, no reason to hurry. Maybe no one was waiting for her at home. It made him sad to think so.

“It’s all yours, Darius,” she said, pausing at the booth, tossing him an imaginary set of keys.

He caught them midair, as always. “We’ll get it spic ’n’ span,” he said. “A fresh coat of wax.”

She raised her eyes toward the high ceiling. “I don’t know how you can stand all this quiet.”

“The girls get here,” Darius said, “and I drive them crazy, talking their ears off.”

“You’re a bad influence.”

He smiled.

“Well,” Mrs. Freeman said, giving him a wave. “Goodnight.”

Outside in the plaza, she opened her umbrella. Darius hadn’t realized it had started to rain.

At eight, his partner, Carl, arrived, toting sixty-four ounces of radioactive pop. Darius poured himself a cup of lukewarm coffee. Carl flipped through a magazine, page after glossy page of sports cars, posed like centerfolds.

“Did I ever tell you my uncle used to build Vettes?” Carl said, holding up the magazine for Darius to see.

The thing in the photo looked more like a flying saucer than a car.

“Ever drive one?” Darius said.

“So fast, bugs vaporize on the windshield.”

“Is that something you need?”

“What’s need got to do with it?” Carl turned the page and did a double take at a little red convertible. “Get your boy one of these,” he said. “Zero to pussy in three point one seconds.”

Darius’s coffee had grown cold. “Carjacked in three point two.”

At nine, Darius had his first break. He walked to the far side of the lobby, where he could have some privacy. He called Sylvia. She was already in bed.

“Thanks for doing the shopping,” she said. “Did you wash the sheets, too?”

“I spilled coffee,” he said. “Sorry.”

“They feel nice.”

Darius asked about the kids, about her day at work, about everything that crossed his mind, but none of it helped to distract him from what he’d done that morning, what he’d promised himself he’d never do again.