CHAPTER 8: THE EMPTY FLOOR
The glass cases arrived exactly twenty minutes after the morning light cleared the sills. They were four feet high, rectangular, and made of heavy, triple-layered plexiglass that had been polished until the edges disappeared into the gray space of the room.
Marcus stood by the entry desk, his overcoat unbuttoned, his silver pen held between two fingers as he watched the installation crew drill small, nickel-plated expansion shields directly into the floorboards. The high, drilling scream of the steel bits through the old pine sounded small here now—the rafters were entirely empty, the canvas stripped away down to the bare timber, revealing the long, pale lines where the ropes had shaded the wood from forty years of soot and sun.
“The lane markings are uniform,” Marcus said, his voice level but dry, the septum whistle giving his words a faint, mechanical rasp. “We’ll place the nineteen eighty-nine trophy set in the eastern sector, right over the joint where the old waterline used to sit. It’s what the historical board requested for the catalog.”
Thomas didn’t answer from his chair. He was sitting behind the desk, his hands resting flat on the bare wood. The small iron cash box was gone, replaced by a single white envelope containing the municipal deed receipt—the official notice that the building had been reclassified as a state heritage resource under the Ames shell name.
“The boy didn’t take the position, Marcus,” Thomas said softly.
Marcus stopped his pen. He didn’t turn his head toward the desk, but his jaw muscle moved under the silver stubble at his ear. “Garrity said he cleared the medicals for the autumn card in Detroit. The contract was worth twelve thousand if he took the preliminary broadcast slot.”
“He cleared the medicals,” Thomas agreed, his fingers moving over the pale void where the green felt blotter used to rest. “But he left the satin trunks in the locker box at Section 114. Leo took his tools out of the cellar at midnight. They’re down at the freight annex now, using the platform by the loading bay where the floor has a two-inch tilt.”
Marcus turned slowly, his loafers making a short, leather-on-wood click that sounded flat without the canvas deadening. He looked at Thomas’s eyes—the gray, heavy lids that didn’t blink when the workers lifted the first plexiglass housing over the iron railroad post.
“The freight annex doesn’t have an occupancy permit for training, Thomas,” Marcus said, his tone dropping into that guarded, transactional lower register that had closed fifty television dates in Chicago. “The precinct captain will have the blue tags on the bay doors before the week is out.”
“The captain doesn’t walk the loading platform after the four o’clock horn,” Thomas replied. He reached into his cardigan pocket, his fingers tracking the cool, flat surface of the missing brass marker—the number 1 that Leo had hidden inside the toolbox before the movers arrived. “And the boys down there don’t use the digital wristbands. They use the old hemp ropes they pull from the grain barges. They’re rough on the wrists, but they don’t break when you lock the heel.”
Through the large street windows, the silhouette of the neighborhood had begun to blur under a thin, midday mist. The modern fitness annex across the street had its blue neon signs on already, the bright, artificial glow reflecting off the polished plexiglass cases like teeth in the gray room.
The foreman of the installation crew stepped down from the platform, his boots leaving clean, rubber-soled prints on the bare timber where the ring’s center used to be. He held a small, black electronic level against the top of the glass case, waiting for the digital readout to turn green.
“It’s dead level, Mr. Ames,” the foreman said, his voice echoing slightly in the hollowed rafters. “The foundation under this corner has a six-inch sag from the old sewer connection, but we shimmied the base frames with lead blocks. The glass won’t rattle when the heavy trucks go by outside.”
Marcus looked down at the floorboards between his feet. Right there, where the foreman’s rubber boots had left their gray marks, was a deep, crescent-shaped indentation in the pine—the permanent scar left by Marcus’s own trailing boot the night he had thrown the short counter that won him the state selection in ninety-five. The wood inside the indentation was dark, stained with old sweat and oil that no industrial sander could ever completely leach out of the grain.
“Leave the lead shims out on the eastern side,” Marcus said suddenly.
The foreman looked up, his thumb still resting on the level’s calibration button. “Sir? If we drop the level, the top plates will have a quarter-inch lean toward the window. The tracks won’t slide right when you open the casing for the tour groups.”
“Leave it,” Marcus repeated. He slid his silver pen back into his overcoat pocket, his face staying in the long, gray shadow cast by the unpainted cedar post near the entry. “The tour groups can walk on the median. They don’t need the glass to be straight to see the ink on the ledger sheets.”
He walked toward the exit, his long coat brushing against the bare pine door frame with that soft, dry whisper of expensive wool. He didn’t offer a hand to Thomas, and he didn’t look at the green wooden locker that stood empty against the back wall. He stopped at the threshold, his fingers resting on the brass knob for three seconds before he pulled the door open.
“The archive will keep the name on the glass, Thomas,” Marcus said into the cold room, his voice catching on the nasal whistle as the wind from the street hit his face. “But the light won’t stay in here past November. The heating lines are on the same circuit as the annex.”
“The light doesn’t belong to the circuit, Marcus,” Thomas said, his old hands remaining flat on the pale desk, his eyes fixed on the indentation in the center floorboards where the shadow of the rafters had begun to lengthen toward the sills. “It stays under the wood until the next line comes up the stairs.”
The door clicked home, the small brass bell giving its short, dead rattle before the quiet took the room again, heavy and level and true.
