Standing next to the large man, her eyes pointed up at his back.

Ding, sang the elevator car, descending.

The Big Man With the Little Giggle was not laughing. He was sweating. He was counting millions in his mind. He was close to home free. He was still ignoring the little brown-faced brat, whose name he did not know; whom he thought of only as the last delivery.

The elevator hummed, moving earthward at the pace of falling dust.

He glanced down to his sleeve and flicked a particularly offensive piece of lint from the charcoal gray fabric. Tapped his foot one time. Slid his eyes to the glowing buttons on the wall next to him. Nineteen floors and one block to go.

Nineteen floors and one block, and he was golden.

Ding.

He glanced at his Cartier. It was close.

The Little Girl With the Spider Tattoo on her forehead stood by his side and slightly behind him. Her deep-set eyes would meet his anytime he was forced to look at her. Which he tried not to do.

He was trying not to focus on it, he wasn’t big on kicking stupid shit around his head. She just kept getting weirder and weirder and he didn’t need this right now. It’s not that he liked this gig but…a person should act certain ways. It wasn’t natural, the way this kid had been looking at him and talking to him since the pickup. It was working on his nerves. It was throwing him off-stride, and he wasn’t used to that.

Fuck it. He was gonna be fucking God in under ten minutes.  Richer than any other poor fuck in this entire building, that’s for sure. Hell, he’d have  more money than the goddamn mayor by the end of the hour. The last  year’s work was gonna pay off, finally.

He looked down to his hands. The nails were trimmed to the skin, which was as bright and blank and crumb-less as hands that have been scrubbed with iron wool and bleached clean.

“Greed,” said the small voice behind him.

Ding. Eleventh floor.

He straightened up and shoved his hands back into his pockets. Lifted his head up and gazed through the glass wall of the elevator. He drew a deep breath and refocused on the good feeling.

Couldn’t find it.

Nothing comes for free. Deal. Deal. Almost there. Just a little walk across the street, and up to 11th. Home free, man. Home free!

That made him smile a little, finally.

He looked ahead to his reflection in the glass door. Opened his smile wider so he could inspect his teeth. Clean, good.

“Yeah. Deal with it,” he said to nobody.

He jammed the “L” button with his thumb. Hard. He held it in the wall until his nail turned white. He did not release it.

Ding, chirped the elevator, finally, as the car reached the lobby.

—

He was walking as fast as a grown man can drag a small girl along with him without arousing any suspicion, which was still pretty fast. She said nothing, just tried to keep up with his large strides, but fell to the curb and crumpled up clutching her knee.

“Okay, come on, let’s go.” he snapped as she crouched there, holding her knee, face wrinkling up.

It made him feel good to see her unblinking front shattered by pain and emotion. Good. She wasn’t so weird or scary. Just another creepy street rat. As anxious as he was about being so close to finished, he felt his lungs fill with a sigh of relief as he looked down at her tears.

Inside of 1226 11th street, they stood again in an elevator. This time there was no gold and red rug, no smell of fine scents and clean floors . In the tiny metal box of an elevator were the odors only of lysol, caked-on cigarette smoke, and hints of urine. A single, bluish bulb lit the interior of the small enclosure.

The Little Girl With the Spider Tattoo on Her Forehead stood silent next to him, her face again calm and smooth.

“So,” the Big Man With the Little Giggle said, still staring ahead at the crack between the two elevator doors. “This is it. This is where you’ll live now. You’ll…make…friends…” But he couldn’t finish the little ramble of bullshit he typically delivered at this point, and his voice faded out.

Truth is, what happened to her now didn’t concern him at all. He just needed to get the fuck out of this place for good, these walls painted with decades of paint, these tiny, dank passages in this old building. He needed sun, yeah. He needed a vacation. And he’d take one. Maybe Thailand or something. He’d heard good things. He deserved a little R&R after this last year.

“You got that laminated thing, right?” he said as the doors opened. Sub-basement level. “I gave it to you in the car. Right after I…picked you up?  You still got that?”

She said nothing. She followed him when he walked and stopped walking when he did. They were at an elbow in the basement passage, which was lined with dusty pipes snaking overhead, and shadows damply stuck to the walls. He stopped and finally looked down to her.

“Listen,  you’ll need that here.” Angrily. “ I’m helping you out. If you don’t have that, you’ll…you’ll start from the lowest rung. I’m tryin’ to help you.”

The Little Girl With the Spider Tattoo on Her Forehead lifted her eyes to meet his. The oily bulb in the corner of the passage glinted from her shadowed eyes.

“You didn’t pick me up, Big Man,” she said, softly. “That was someone else.”

He felt the hairs stand up all over his scalp and arms at the sound.

“What are you talkin’, about? What the hell is that supposed to mean?” he spat out, holding his voice steady.

“I’m talking about what you’ve done,” she hissed. “You picked up a little girl with a spider tattoo on her forehead.”

In the basement gloom, he squinted hard at the spidery design that looked almost…embossed on the skin between her eyes. He leaned closer to her.

“Yeah, so…isn’t it a spider? What the hell is it, then?” he grunted, only inches from her head.

“It’s not a tattoo,” she whispered, and darkness leapt up and flew into the big man’s shrieking face.

Finally, we stopped, and she turned to face me. Her dark eyes glimmered with the intensity of spirit for which she was known so well.

“Do you remember why we are here?” she asked me.

I did. I said so.

“Yes,” she replied when I had finished. She seemed relieved to hear the answer. Then, she shifted into a softer posture. “And now…we part ways again.”

She looked to the window for a moment. The ocean was an amazing sight in the near-dark, waxily reflecting the huge moon above. “And we will go on.” Quietly, then. To the sea.

“Will I see you again?” I said.

“Yes.” She turned to me and smiled. “Of course. As you always do. But you won’t know me. Nor I, you. Not in words.”

There was a moment, then, of nothing but the distant roar of the waves falling onto the beach below.

“I may even be your schoolteacher next time! Or maybe I’ll beat you up at recess,” she said, grinning.

We both laughed, then. It was good, there. In that safe, joyous space we’ve shared for so long. And then, suddenly, I felt my face began to wrinkle into tears. It surprised me.

“I’m afraid,” I blurted out, feeling utterly ashamed of myself and my tears. What was wrong with me? I wiped my face with the soft, satiny sleeve of my robe.

“So,” I said, feeling irritated. “I’m an old, weak, fear-filled fool at the end of it all, is that it?”

She hushed me. ”No, my love.” Put her hands gently on my cheeks, looking into my eyes and making me look into hers. “You are as wise now as the day you were born.”

Her laugh was gentle, and she pulled me close in an embrace. Her long, black hair was smooth and cool against my face, which I realized suddenly felt very hot. Feverish, almost.

“You are playing one of your characters, silly,” she said into the side of my neck. “Stop pretending you aren’t a boastful, successful and famous playwright. False modesty is so…not you!”

“That’s not funny,” I said. The odd feeling persisted that I had no idea of what I was about to say, and when I did, that it wasn’t my voice at all.

She drew back from me slowly.

“You don’t remember the celebration, then?” she whispered, her question ending a little flat.

“Where did the moon go?” I heard myself say, sounding a bit frantic. Over her shoulder the sky had grown darker. I couldn’t see past her, now.

“It is beginning,” you said,  your face growing smaller. “Oh, dear Emil. Be at peace. You have done good for many in this world, my darling. I will remember you well. And I will see you again.”

“What is beginning?” he asked the nurse, his voice rising now to a high pitch. “What’s beginning?”

He tried to sit up but could barely move his body, and slumped back into the scarred, metal headboard with a sigh. The streetlight glared dully against the window, its weave of shatter-proof wires and dried, yellowy, spackle deflecting the weak rays.

“Where is the damn moon? It was just there!” Ed Hernandez yelled from the only bed in E3.

“Shhh, it’s gonna be fine, Mister Hernandez,” said Sharon, who was exhausted and couldn’t wait to get out of CCU and back into Public Health and doing home visits. “Let me open the curtain a little for you, okay, darlin’?”

“…the ocean…” he said, in a whisper.

“Hmm?” Sharon asked over her shoulder, tugging on the curtain.

And he was gone.