Chapter 5 - The Private Office Downtown
The address folded twice in my pocket felt less like a piece of paper and more like an anchor. It had taken two buses and a forty-minute walk through the downtown grid to reach the base of the foundation tower, a twenty-story slab of green-tinted glass and brushed steel that rose out of the asphalt like a monolith. Through the revolving glass doors, the lobby smelled of polished terrazzo and expensive air conditioning.
I stopped at the security desk, my sneakers squeaking slightly on the pristine floor. The guard behind the high marble counter didn't look up immediately. He was middle-aged, wearing a pressed uniform with gold braid on the shoulders, his attention split between a small monitor and a crossword puzzle.
"Help you, son?" he asked, finally raising his eyes. He took in my tan t-shirt, the slight scuff marks on my shoes, and my wind-mussed hair, his expression shifting from professional indifference to mild skepticism.
"I'm looking for Vargas," I said, keeping my voice level.
The guard's pen stopped moving across the paper. He didn't ask which Vargas, or what department. He just studied me for a long beat, his eyes narrowing as he weighed my age against the heavy glass doors behind me.
"Name?"
"Leo."
He reached for a desktop phone, punched a two-digit extension, and muttered a brief sentence into the receiver. I didn't catch the words, but I saw his eyebrows lift a fraction of an inch as he listened to the reply. Without another word, he reached beneath the counter, pulled out a visitor badge clipped to a lanyard, and slid it across the marble.
"Fourteenth floor. Private suite at the end of the hall. Don't touch anything on the mahogany tables."
The private elevator carried me upward in near-silence, the digital floor numbers ticking past like a stopwatch: 08, 09, 12, 14. When the doors slid open, there was no reception desk, no waiting room filled with leather chairs and outdated magazines. Just a long, muted gray hallway lined with abstract photographs of industrial landscapes. The air here was cooler, sharp with the scent of ozone and faint cologne.
I followed the carpeted path to the end of the hall, where a heavy double door stood slightly ajar. Pushing it open, I stepped into a room that felt less like an office and more like a high-end dressing suite. Tall windows on the far side framed the gray sprawl of the city under a hazy afternoon sky. Racks of dark suits stood along one wall next to an oak wardrobe, and a large three-sided mirror dominated the center of the space.
Standing before the mirror was Vargas.
He had changed out of the soaked white shirt and ruined suit jacket from the riverbank, but he wore another white dress shirt, crisp and unwrinkled, and was in the middle of adjusting the cuffs of a charcoal grey suit jacket. The gold wristwatch caught the overhead light, a bright flash of metal against dark wool. The gold chain rested flat against his collar.
He didn't turn around immediately, watching my reflection approach in the glass.
"You found the place," he said, his voice quiet, devoid of the adrenaline-soaked urgency from beneath the highway bridge. He straightened his lapels, smoothed the fabric over his shoulders, and finally turned to face me. There was no hostility in his dark eyes, only a cold, assessing appraisal. "Took you less time than I expected."
"Your man at the diner made sure I had the right number," I replied, standing my ground near the doorway. I didn't take off the lanyard. "You're keeping close track of me."
Vargas walked slowly toward a low table where a crystal decanter and two heavy-bottomed glasses sat. He poured a finger of amber liquid into one, swirling it without drinking.
"In my line of work, boy, you don't survive by leaving loose ends," he said, setting the glass down. He looked me straight in the eye, his gaze steady. "You pulled me out of the water when three men were coming down that slope with bad intentions. That tells me you aren't easily rattled. And it tells me you have skin in this game, just like I do."
He stepped closer, stopping a few feet away. The gold ring on his finger caught the light as he rested his hand casually on the back of a leather chair.
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"You want to know about your grandmother," Vargas said, stating it not as a question, but as a fact. "And I want to know who authorized the paperwork that buried her name thirty years ago. We have a shared interest. Help me uncover the party responsible for that cover-up, and I'll give you the full truth about what happened to her."
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