The Hidden Man - Charles Cumming [2]
He has been here before, twice, to premeditate the act, to scout the building for exits, and to get a sense of its layout and design. So he knows that there is a white plastic timer switch inside the front door that will illuminate the stairwell for approximately two minutes, and an old, wrought-iron caged lift on the right-hand side of the lobby, with a staircase leading down to a locked basement and up to seven floors of apartments.
All of his experience has told him to take the stairs, to leave an option should anything go wrong. But he is older now, the fitness ripped from his legs, and has decided to ride the lift to the fifth floor and to walk down a single flight to the fourth as a way of preserving his strength.
The lift is waiting. He slides back the gate and steps inside, pushing a red ceramic button marked 5. The cabin ticks as it passes each floor, slices of red carpet and banister visible through the metal grilles of the lift shaft. The ageing wheels of the elevator mechanism twist through grease and oil, pulling him up throug the building. At the third floor the lights go out on the stairs, sooner than he had anticipated, but a single pearl bulb inside the cabin provides him with enough light to reach into his coat, pull out the gun and place it in the right-hand pocket of his overcoat.
Now he squints outside, passing level 4, eyes moving quickly left and right to detect any sign of movement. Nothing. The lift continues to climb, halting ten seconds later on the fifth floor with nothing more than a slight jolting bump, like a sprung dancefloor. He notices a fresh piece of chewing gum wedged between the roof and the left panel of the cabin. He would like some gum now, something to take the dryness from the inside of his mouth.
Why does he feel nothing? Why, when he is just minutes away from an act that he has envisaged with total clarity and rapture for nearly twenty years, why then has his mind given way to everything but a very basic sense of process and technique? He is trying to convince himself that a moment of catharsis is imminent, but as he pulls back the cabin’s metal grille, pushes open the heavy door of the lift with his left hand, reaches into the pocket of his overcoat to release the safety catch on the gun, he is little more than a machine. It is like every other criminal act in his long, corrupted life. Tonight has no special resonance, not yet any sense of joy.
In one of the flats at the end of the corridor, the Russian can hear voices on a television, teenagers shouting at one another, then a screech of tyres. Alate-night American film. The volume must have been turned up high, because he is able to pick out the noises and his hearing is not what it was. He holds the door of the lift as it swings slowly back on its hinge and then heads for the stairwell, taking each step slowly, keeping his heart rate down. It is very dark and he has to hold on to the banister with a gloved hand, the leather sticking on bumps of dried polish as it slides down the wood. Acar sounds its horn on the street just as he reaches the fourth floor.
Simultaneously he feels the first burst of adrenalin, not what it was in his youth, but a quickening nevertheless, lightening his arms and chest. He knows that his heart is beating faster now and has to check his pace moving down the corridor, deliberately slowing as he approaches the door of Apartment 462. Twenty feet away the Russian stops and takes out the set of lock-picks. He sees light glint dully on the metal surface of the keys and finds its source - a fire exit sign at the end of the corridor, bold white lettering within an illuminated green case. Then he pinches the main key between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand and moves towards the door.
With his head pressed to the