I stood outside, staring up, trying to count the floors. Across the street, the half-finished steel skeleton of a similar building rose from behind a blue barricade. Signs were posted along the fencing, urging pedestrians to keep back. Returning home to Spanish Harlem seemed a safe distance. But I didn’t want to lose my job. With any luck, the apartment I’d been sent to clean would be on the third floor.
In the lobby, the concierge handed me a key to one of the two penthouses. He called after me, “Don’t forget to water the plants on the terrace.”
I turned back to smile and nod. When he looked away, I flipped him off and reluctantly summoned the elevator. Inside, I closed my eyes and screamed the chorus to “What Have I Done to Deserve This?” by the Pet Shop Boys, until the doors opened again. I willed the key not to work, but it did. Everyone and everything was against me.
The penthouse was easily four to five thousand square feet, with a mezzanine loft providing extra acreage to thwart my plan to get in and out as quickly as possible. The vast space was heightened by the minimalist décor. The few pieces of furniture were arranged in small groups, making a guided tour irrelevant. The black leather sofa, two chairs, and barren glass coffee table seemed to exclaim, “Hi! We’re the seating area. If you sit down, please don’t touch the table.” And so on through the apartment.
As promised, the owner was compulsively neat. The kitchen was cold and sterile. The stainless steel island begged for an emergency appendectomy to be performed on it. The glass table in the nearby dining area suggested that its owner’s motto might be Tables should be clean and not seen. The mirror in the guest bath had one fingerprint on its center. I laughed and wondered how many other strategic hairs or crumbs were left to test me.
I emptied the trash can, but ignored the mirror entirely.
The bedrooms were just as sleek and modern. I was grateful for the black lacquered platform beds, because I didn’t have to clean under them. Not that I would’ve. I’d already made up my mind that I didn’t like the apartment’s owner. I didn’t want to care for his apartment, either. I didn’t like modern high-rise buildings. They sometimes looked interesting and different from the norm on the outside, but inside, the apartments were always the same cookie-cutter formation. Kitchen, living area, bedroom, bath, all arranged in rectangle after rectangle, box upon box. The owner of this penthouse had to be king of the banal.
I tried to water the plants on the terrace, as instructed. But when I felt the wind rush past my ears and saw how high up I was, I heaved into a potted palm and went back inside.
I found some aspirin in the master bathroom medicine cabinet. I washed it down, leaving water droplets on the granite sink, sat down on the bed, and opened a nightstand drawer. Parker D. Brooks owed fifty-six thousand three hundred twelve dollars and eighty-two cents to American Express. And I thought I had problems. I spent the next half hour looking through his closets and opening drawers, sometimes trying on his clothes.
I was accessorizing with a pair of sunglasses when I heard the unmistakable sound of a pistol being cocked. A voice behind me said, “Drop the shades and raise your hands slowly! Wait. Don’t. Carefully place the Armani sunglasses on the dresser, then raise your hands slowly.”
I followed instructions and willed myself not to pee in his pants.
The guy I assumed was Parker D. Brooks patted me down with one hand, then said, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Cleaning?”
I slowly turned around. He looked like he was only a few years older than me, which was surprising. I’d imagined Parker D. Brooks as being in his forties, with a chiseled body underneath his expensive suits. This guy looked like he spent all day at the tennis courts—so he could watch.
He squinted at my crotch and asked, “Are those my pants?”
“They’re a little big,” I said defensively.
“Take them off!” he demanded. “And hang them up. I don’t believe this. Who are you, anyway, and where’s Deshaun?”
“I’m William,” I lied. “Deshaun’s sick. I’m just filling in.”
“This is unacceptable.” He tossed the gun into the bedside drawer on top of the American Express bill, muttering that it wasn’t loaded anyway. He pulled a vial from his pocket, cut two lines on the nightstand, then snorted them up his right nostril while I pulled on my jeans and thought about running for the fire stairs. I’d never seen anyone snort cocaine. “This has never happened to me before. I’m not a bad person. Why would you do this to me? I don’t deserve to be treated like this. If you were me, what would you do?”
Wipe my nose off, I thought. Instead, I said, “I don’t know.”
“Genius answer,” he said. “Do you do this to all your clients?”
“No.”
“Just me? I don’t even know you. Ask me anything, and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. You don’t have to snoop through my things.”
“Are you going to call my boss?” I asked.
“I should,” Parker D. Brooks said. “Unless you can give me a reason not to.”
Before I knew what I was doing, I heard myself stammering and whining about how I needed my job, how I had rent and bills to pay, and how I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I got fired. I sounded weak and pathetic.
I was almost grateful when Parker D. Brooks held up his hand and said, “Okay. I get the picture.” He thought for a minute, looked me up and down, then said, “William, I won’t call your boss. Your friend Deshaun and I have an arrangement, and since you’re filling in, maybe you’d like to fill in on that end, too.”
“What end?” I asked, willing my eyes not to look at his pearlike butt.
“I run a company. Videos.”
Of course you do, I thought.
“Sometimes I direct. What do you say I set up my camera, turn it on, lie on this bed, and you and I—”
“I don’t think so,” I interrupted. Then I remembered the gun and added, “No, thank you.”
“You’re sure? I’d pay you. Two thousand. Five, if you let me screw you.”
I didn’t really know Deshaun, or where he lived, but I wanted to find out immediately so I could smack him around.
“Really, no. Thanks anyway,” I said and turned to leave.
“Then I have no choice but to speak to your boss and tell him what I caught you doing,” Parker D. Brooks called after me. He spoke in a singsong tone, as if that somehow made it okay to blackmail me.
“Okay,” I answered. “‘Bye.”
I barely realized that I rode down in the elevator. I felt like ants were crawling up my arm. I remembered having the same creepy feeling after I was mugged. The helplessness, fear, and nervousness that lingered after the fact. At least that time the only thing taken from me was twenty dollars. This time, I was going to lose my job. I hadn’t asked to be mugged, but I’d pretty much begged to be fired. Why did I try on his clothes? Why did I look through his drawers? What was I thinking? Rent was due again soon. So was the ConEd bill. Would I have enough to cover that? Would giving Parker D. Brooks a blow job really be so bad? How long could that take? A half hour?
The doors opened at the lobby and a woman got in the elevator with me. Seconds later, when I realized she’d asked me something, I said, “Huh?”
“I asked which floor you want.”
“Penthouse.”
“Really? You don’t live here, do you?”
“I’m the maid,” I said. She smiled and nodded. What else could I be doing there? I added, “I was about to go home for the day, when it dawned on me that I forgot to give the master his blow job. Silly me, huh?”