Needle of the Southside

It only took Marty fifteen minutes to get home from work. His job depended on him finding his lost flash drive and getting back to work before lunch ended, but lunchbreak was only an hour long and he had zero time to spare. He parked his Impala right in front of the upscale complex and rushed in, only pausing to tell the valet to keep his car running because he would be right back out in a few minutes. He bolted into the building before the valet could ask for a tip. He made a beeline for the elevators and mashed the up button. Come on! Why is this thing taking so long? Damn it! He stood by the elevator impatiently tapping his feet. His eyes caught the people working at the bodega where he got his morning donut and coffee earlier. Those two were still working there. Part of him felt pity that they had to work such menial jobs to keep their bills paid, but then again, not everyone can be an executive. Some people simply lacked the intelligence, drive and work ethic to climb up to a better quality of life, like he did. That was why The Unchosen were, well, not chosen. It was as simple as that. Part of him felt bad about that, but the bigger part of him simply didn’t care. A ding and a swoosh heard behind him told him that his elevator was here. He jumped inside and hit the button of the 5th floor – the floor for the luxury suite he shared with his girlfriend – and then mashed the “door close” button. He was alone in the elevator and he didn’t want anyone to get in with him. He pressed on the button repeatedly. This thing was talking too long to close. When it finally did start, a man in a gray fedora ran up and slid in. He tapped the bridge of his spectacles and smiled at Marty as the door shut behind him.

“Thank you so much for holding the door open for me,” he said without any hint of irony, “Much obliged.”

Marty sneered. “You’re welcome.” Being in elevators with other people made him uneasy. He backed as deep into the corner of the cab as he could. He could even feel the metal handicap rail digging into his back, and he stared warily at the man in the car with him as they went up. Marty hated elevators. Eventually he heard the familiar robo-voice say “5th floor,” breaking the uneasy silence the two shared during their elevator trip, and Marty wasted no time pushing past the fedora man out of the elevator once the doors opened. He did not slow down or break stride. He had to get to his apartment post haste.

The corridor leading to his door seemed twice as long now that he was in a hurry to get to it, and that was with him walking at as brisk a pace as his gimpy leg would allow. If he went any faster, it would probably buckle, which proved to be a real hindrance now that he was so pressed for time. But he finally made it, and he already had his keycard out to…wait a minute. The door’s already open?

Marty slowed down, and frowned as he approached the door. That didn’t make any sense. His girlfriend left before he did to audition for a play. Those auditions were supposed to last all day. She couldn’t have gotten back that quickly. Could she? And even if she did get back earlier, she never left the door unlocked behind her, much less cracked open.

Something wasn’t right.

Marty looked around the hallway, and grabbed the first thing he saw, a large glass vase placed in the hallway for decoration, adorned with gold flecks. With the vase cocked in his off hand, he slowly pushed the door in, thankful that the door didn’t squeak. Once the door was cracked open enough for him to slide through, he slipped inside his apartment, vase still primed to strike any intruder. He scanned the living room he stood in, eyes darting from one papaya-colored wall to the next, passing over plush golden brown furniture that he bought at his girlfriend’s bequest. Good, nobody was in the living room. He didn’t let his guard down, though. Instead, he held his breath and listened. If someone was in his apartment, he would hear something from them. He held himself still, and listened. At first, nothing, but then a small rustle, and the sound of drawers being opened and shut. Someone was in his bedroom.

He turned to his left and crept towards the hallway leading to the master bedroom where he and his girlfriend slept. Who could be in there? It could be some kind of burglar, in which case Marty was fully ready to brain the guy with his makeshift weapon. But what if it wasn’t an intruder? What if his girl really had just made it back from auditions early? Then he thought of the drawer sound. What if she had brought company? Marty took a deep breath and puckered his brow while creeping past the bathroom. The thought of his girlfriend cheating on him was even more infuriating than the possibility of somebody robbing him. How dare she! If she were in there with somebody, he would have words with her…and whoever was in there with her would be the one getting whacked with the vase. He approached his door. It was open, and he could hear more drawers opening and shutting. Either way, what he was hearing was not good. He raised his vase high and shoved the door in.

Marty hoped the sudden opening of the door coupled with him yelling “Hold it right there!” as the door opened would startle whoever was in there and buy him some time. It worked, as he saw a lithe figure shriek and stumble backwards, falling over the corner of the bed and hitting the floor with a dull thud. He looked around. No Dior purse nearby, no scent of Tom Ford perfume in the air. His girl hadn’t been here, so it must have been a burglar of some sort. He scowled and pressed his advantage. Striding past the bed and raising the vase with both hands. Whoever it was had picked the wrong apartment to break into today, because he was going to throw that vase and shatter it all over the worthless head of that…woman? Huh?

Marty paused, and slowly lowered the vase to his waist side. The figure curled up on the floor before him didn’t look like a burglar at all. Her legs were longer than the olive drab cargo shorts that stopped at her knees, exposing slender, well-toned calves. Her white tank top hugged her body, betraying a flat stomach and small, perky breasts. Her arms were lean, sinewy and almost muscular, her skin toned bronze with a tint of olive. From the neck up she was even more comely, but the woman’s beauty was not an explanation for her being there. “Who are you? And what are you doing in my home?”

The lady sat up and scooted until her back was too the wall, looking at him with almost almond-shaped hazel eyes, holding out an arm with her palm out. “Hold on, Martin,” she said in a breathless, husky voice that carried the heft and richness of a South American classmate of his back in college, “Just keep calm. I can explain this.” Definitely South American: her “th” sounded like “d.”

Marty’s confusion deepened. “Keep calm? Who the hell are you? How do you know my name? I’ve never met you before in my entire life.”

She still held her thin, bare arm out at him, and looked up at him through a tangled veil of black and brown curls draped across her forehead. “My name is Anastasia. Your girlfriend just calls me Ana. We’re old friends.”

Marty wasn’t buying it. He shook his head. “My girlfriend never said anything about knowing anyone named Ana. And she would never just loan the key to her apartment away like that. You’re lying.” He took a step towards her, she tried to back up even further and waved her palm at him emphatically.

“It’s true, I swear!” She pleaded, “We were auditioning for the play together. You know, Graceworld. Where Elvis gets kidnapped by aliens? I spilled something on my blouse. I live too far away to go home and change, so your girlfriend was kind enough to loan me her keycard so I could borrow one of her blouses. Just let me change into one and I swear I’ll be out of your hair. Please forgive me.”

Now he knew she was lying. “First of all, I don’t see anything spilled on you. Second of all, if you were trying to get replacement clothes, you wouldn’t be snooping through my drawers.” With those words, he reached down and grabbed her still outstretched arm, then yanked her up and swung her across the room. She stumbled forward a few steps and landed on his bed face first. She immediately rolled over and looked back at him, her toned, slender legs spread over the edge of the bed, and a look of terror in her eyes. An exotic stranger was in his room, on his bed, and at his mercy. He smirked. If he weren’t so strapped for time, this would have been perfect. “Who are you really, and why are you really here going through my stuff?”

He picked the vase back up and took a menacing step towards her. Her palm shot out again to ward him off. “Okay! Okay! You got me. Just don’t hurt me. Please. I’ll tell you the truth. I had been watching you for a few days, and I got a keycard from the security desk downstairs.”

She was watching him? “Why would they give you a spare keycard?”

She shrugged, her bare golden shoulders rising and falling. “Right after you left, I told them I was your assistant and you had locked your keycard in your room, and I needed to get it for you. They let me right in.”

Marty couldn’t remember the last time he felt that violated. “Why are you here? Why are you trying to rob me? There are a ton of other people in this complex who have more money than me. Why the hell did you choose me?”

Ana finally straightened herself up and sat upright. “I’m not here to rob you, Martin. Not exactly. I don’t want your money, or your valuables.”

He put the vase down and folded his arms. “What do you want, then?”

She looked him in the eye, opened her mouth and licked the inside of her cheek. He had to blink to not be mesmerized by her stare. “A clue. Just a little piece of information that I was told you had.”

Marty shook his head. “What are you talking about?”

Her gaze intensified. “Have you ever heard of Eleggua’s Needle?”

Elewhat’s Needle? What the hell was that? “No.”

She shook her head ruefully. “I don’t believe you. You had to have heard of it. As much as your father was…”

Marty pounced on her, snatching her up by her shoulders and snarling in her face. “What the hell do you know about my father?”

She was wild eyed with surprise and fear. “Your father and mine used to work together. The Needle was going to be their last big score before they retired!”

What? This woman was spewing nonsense! He shoved her back onto the bed. “What the hell are you talking about? My dad was a stage magician. He did stupid parlor tricks at parties and bar mitzvahs and died when one of his tricks backfired on him. There’s no ‘big score’ in that.”

She looked back at him with rueful intrigue, then closed her eyes and shook her head. “Apparently you didn’t know your father very well.” She stood up and straightened out her cargo pants. “This was a mistake. You don’t have what I need, and even if you did, you wouldn’t know where it was hidden. This was a fool’s errand.” She took one more look back at Marty, slumped her shoulders in defeat, and then walked to the bedroom door. “I’m sorry to have bothered you, Martin. I promise you won’t see me again.”

What?! After breaking into his home and going through his stuff, she thought she could just leave? Marty didn’t think so. He reached out and grabbed her shoulder. “Now, wait just a….”

Before he could utter another word, he felt her hands snatch his off of her shoulder, and in the blink of the eye, he was the one stumbling onto the bed.

He looked back up to see her looking down at him, her hands and legs held out in some kind of martial arts stance. “Don’t try to follow me, Martin.” She relaxed, and then turned around and walked out. “You’ve been warned.”

A wave of embarrassment and anger washed through him, and he gathered himself up for another try, but his throbbing leg slowed him down and reminded him of what happened the last time he was in a fight. He sighed, and let his body drop back onto the bed. Eventually he heard the front door shut. Well, that was certainly interesting.

But he had gotten sidetracked. He was there to get that flash drive. Marty sprung off of the bed and went to his dresser, sifting through the clothes that Ana had already sifted through. No sign of it. He closed the top two drawers and opened the next two. Nothing. He closed those and opened the next two. Nothing. Then he closed those and looked through the final two drawers. Nothing.

He looked around frantically. Where could he have put it? Maybe he left it in the armoire. In seconds, he was across the room, opening up his hefty mahogany armoire, looking through the items inside. This wasn’t right. He knew for a fact he had just been using that drive this morning, finalizing the data for his big presentation later that day. He couldn’t have left it in the armoire. He closed its door.

Think, Martin! What did you do this morning after you finished with your computer? Of course! Marty remembered grabbing his briefcase from the table in the living room. He trotted in there and looked. All he saw on the table were the latest issues of GQ and Fashion Diva on the table, as well as a pot of flowers her robber-baron father sent to her that had long since died – she never was good for taking care of things – and a music box he bought her when they first started dating. But nothing else. His shoulders slumped.

Then a horrifying thought crossed his mind. That woman couldn’t have stolen it, could she? She could have been there long enough to see it and scoop it up. Marty shook his head. No, she said she didn’t find what she was looking for. He had to believe she was telling the truth. Otherwise…

A beep from his pocket interrupted his train of thought. He pulled out his phone and looked at it. Damn it! Lunch break was almost over. He didn’t have a lot of time. His dalliance with that Ana chick cost him too much time. Now he didn’t have time to search for that flash drive. Luckily for him the data he needed was still on his laptop, and she hadn’t taken that. He ran back into the bedroom and scooped it off of the nightstand before turning around and rushing out. He was just going to have to tidy up when he got back.