Axel ignores me and knocks once more before a rough-around-the-edges-looking man opens the door. The guy is dressed in casual clothes, covered by tattooed sleeves, and accessorized with a rusty-orange-colored beard long enough to be braided. "Welcome," he says. His voice. This was the man who told me to meet Axel here.
I’m thinking about how I can get the hell away from them, but Axel is directly behind me and this other guy is less than a foot in front of me. "I guess this is when you hack my body into four million pieces. I never thought I’d be that woman who’d run upstairs when the murderer was chasing me around the first floor, but here I am, walking right into your trap. No wonder you’re offering room and board. I’ll be dead before it’s necessary to live up to that promise." My babbling earns me a slight shove inside the door.
"You think we’d manage to chop you up into four million pieces?" Axel asks. "We usually aim for about a dozen body pieces since we’re able to fit the contents into a heavy-duty trash bag better. The weight is more or less evenly distributed that way. On the contrary, if we have too many body pieces, the density causes the weight to settle at the bottom of the bag, making it harder to carry. You know?"
I swallow my fear while trying to convince myself he’s being sarcastic. I’m not left with any other option other than to walk past him, down a metal-grated stairwell that leads into a warehouse-looking space. I’m surrounded by vast, empty space, and it feels like my breath is are bouncing off of the nearby walls. Awesome.
We continue on into another area; this part has finished floors, but the walls are battleship gray, and there’s a lonely set of dark, modern furniture and a desk settled in the corner. I think this look is the result of alpha-male interior decorating. "Have a seat," Axel tells me.
I point to the couch. "Over there?" I know I shouldn’t be giving either of them an attitude, but I don’t have much hope of leaving here alive tonight, so I refuse to give them the impression that I’m scared of whatever it is they have planned.
"Do you see another place to sit?" he asks.
"The ground looks just as inviting," I respond. "So, I figured I’d ask."
"Please, have a seat on the couch over there," he says, agitated.
With slow strides, I make my way over toward the couch but take a seat on the cold floor instead. I’m not a huge fan of commands, and if this is a job application, he should know I’m not looking to be used like a puppet.
"Give me a break. What are you doing?" Axel asks, running his hand down the side of his face. "Are you always a smartass?"
I shrug. "Are you always such an ass?"
"Fine, sit on the floor. I don’t give a shit."
Axel removes his suit jacket and hangs it up on a lone coat rack behind the empty desk. He rests complacently on the corner of the wooden framed workspace and carefully folds his sleeves up to his elbows, revealing sleeves of tattoos on both arms. The artwork looks similar to the bearded doorman's display.
"Before we make things official, we're going to be testing your skills, and depending on the results of the test, we will discuss what's next."
"What kind of test?" I ask. "I'm not up for anything illegal." I almost laugh while saying that. We’re underground, beneath a hotel. There is nothing legal about what’s going on here.
"Desperation doesn't come with questions," Axel counters. "Also, definitions of legal practices are variable, so it’s hard to agree to your requirement." I’m not surprised by his statement. I’m also not feeling concern like I should be.
"Well, you must be desperate too," I tell him. "An interviewer typically asks for the interviewee’s name. Oh, and maybe considers a non-disclosure agreement to protect whatever undefined practices we’ll be discussing."
"We need to weed out the wrong people for this job, in hopes of finding the right person. Desperation has a different meaning to everyone," he says with a straight face. "Plus, your name has no relevance to this position." He stands from the corner of the desk and slips his hands into his pockets. "I don’t believe in non-disclosure agreements. We’ve never had an issue with anyone running their mouth, and I doubt we’ll have trouble with you."
4
Axel
Current Day
The short span of time between Everett's call from the empty store on Commonwealth Avenue, informing me about Harley’s impending interview, and six o’clock, crawled by in a measure of three-thousand-and-sixty pen clicks as I've held my gaze on a manila folder that contains information about Isabelle Hammel.
Now that the woman who is nearly identical to Isabelle—if she isn’t, in fact, her—is sitting in front me, I'm more eager to get this "interview" over with. If Harley handles this test as Isabelle Hammel would, I'll be a step closer to handling my situation.
Our test subject is waiting for her in one of the containment rooms, so I'll see about making this quick and easy.
"So now what?" she asks. "Do you want to stare at me a little longer or what?" She leans back, pressing her hands into the floor, and crosses her legs. The sight of her torn jeans and worn black boots with broken laces causes another wave of guilt to wash over me. She already has nothing. "Hello?" Harley waves her hand in the air to get my attention. "What part of my body are you so fascinated with?"
"Don't flatter yourself," I tell her. I need to watch myself. Part of me thinks if I stare at her long enough, I'll be able to determine whether she’s Isabelle.
Her head cocks to the side and her long hair grazes the floor. "What is your doorman doing?" she asks.
I turn around, looking down the dark hall to see what she’s looking at. What the hell is he doing? Everett is dancing to whatever tune is in his head I guess. We're two different breeds of people—that’s for damn sure—but we were brought together for reasons beyond our control, so we have found our common ground in life accomplishments as well as survival.
"It looks like he's dancing," I say as if it’s a normal thing for a grown man in our business to be seamlessly pulling off Beyonce’s moves. "Do you have an issue with dancing?"
"No," she says with a snarl. "I just usually listen to music while I'm doing so." For some reason, I can't picture Harley dancing or having any type of fun. She looks more miserable than I am.
"Why are you so desperate?" I ask her.
"Is this the interview part or are you looking for someone to date?" she asks while leaning forward and wrapping her arms around her tented knees. "Desperation is merely a side effect of being evicted from my apartment after looking for a job for the last six months. I haven't been able to find anything at all, and I’m pretty much shit out of luck. Does that answer your question?"
"Sure, but if you need a job so badly, what’s with the attitude?" I ask her. "You do know I'm giving you a chance here, and yet, you're sort of pressing your luck." I take another few steps closer, closing most of the space between us. She doesn’t budge an inch, which tells me she isn’t intimidated easily. Intriguing. "Have you considered that your hostility might to be the reason you haven’t gotten a job offer?"
She narrows her eyes as if she’s either studying me or analyzing my question before answering. I can assume her response will be snarky like the last few. "Like I said … if you were giving me a chance, you'd be asking me some questions about me and my skills rather than just staring at me like a perv."
Maybe I am freaking her out. Good. I want to make her as uptight as I can before I send her into confinement. "So, what if I am a ‘perv?’"
She leans forward and presses her elbows into her knees and releases a sigh filled with the sound of irritation. "Are you a cop?" she asks.
"No," I tell her. She must have something to hide. So do I, though. "Are you a cop?"
"Funny," she says.
I'm not sure which part she finds funny, but none of it is. It seems safe to assume she's not a cop, seeing as I watched her skimming the streets for money a few days ago.