ENTER: NIGHT
Chapter 3: Escort
From: Strong-arm Security Corporation
To: #M1487
Subject: Probationary Assignment #3: VIP Escort
One of our VIP clients, Adrian Belle, has requested an armed escort for the afternoon. She requests that you meet her at the Cathedral of the Resurrection after the service.
That is all. And remember, we have high hopes for your success.
-SSCX
The sun shone brightly nearing its zenith, and the air was crisp and cool as Pierce made his way on foot to the East Side. His eyes were downcast and his body was tired. The combination of physical and mental stress that the first couple of jobs had put him through was taking a toll on him. And now he had to meet Adrian Belle, the crazy cat lady. But he was beginning to catch up on his payments to the hospital, and he couldn't let his mind or body quit.
He brought his attention back to the present and began scanning faces and body language. As he made his way down the streets leading to the church, he noticed that everyone else looked happier and better rested than he felt. If there is a God, he thought, He must not like me very much.
Eventually, the Cathedral of the Resurrection came into view. It was the same church he had caught a glimpse of as its Gothic spire rose above the surrounding buildings when he was on his first assignment; but as it came into full view, he noticed that it was under construction of some sort. It looked like they were moving the entrance back and expanding out the other side of the building. A sign describing the ongoing renovations mentioned that there would be a new statue out front designed by some new artist Pierce had never heard of. He couldn't quite tell what it was supposed to be when he examined the picture, but it made him uneasy.
The cathedral's cyclopean front doors were opened wide, and he heard the voice that came from inside. It was rhythmic and forceful, filled with conviction, and fairly deep for a woman's voice. She preached, "As the New Church we must fight. We fight the old guard who preached hate. Those brutes who called out the oppressed, we curse all those self-righteous fools. Remember this, my lovely flock: our god is full of love, not hate."
He glanced around the inside of the large cross-shaped building filled with a mixture of older elegant furnishings and new bright-colored banners with slogans exhorting the viewer to join the crusade of the New Church against the Old.
After an alter call to make a commitment to fight injustices and hate, the organ played a song that Pierce knew from when he was a child, but the words that some of the congregants muttered did not match his memories. He watched as several people came to the front, weeping. After the service was over, he looked around the room, and someone caught his attention with a delicate wave of her gloved hand. She was older than he was by about ten years, but her smile radiated a warmth that immediately put him at ease. If this was Adrian Belle, maybe he was wrong about her, maybe she wasn't crazy. Maybe today wouldn't be as bad as he thought. She winked at him, then beckoned him over.
Her voice was very similar to the preacher's, but with a more calming and seductive tone. "Agent Pierce, I presume?" She reached out her hand and he shook it.
"Yes ma'am."
"You're more handsome than I pictured you."
"Thank you, ma'am."
"And much too formal," she laughed. "Call me Adrian, not ma'am."
"Yes ma'am."
She face-palmed and chuckled. "You are really tired from your first week on the job, aren't you? I heard about what happened at the bank. You've been busy doing an excellent job for the company. You'll have no problem becoming a regular agent."
The preacher walked up to them both. Adrian greeted her, "Hello, Janice, that was a lovely sermon today."
"Glad you liked it. Who is this good-looking gentleman?"
"He's my SSC escort for the day. I'm going to give him an extra job later, if he's up for it," she said suggestively, then winked at him again.
What is she thinking? Pierce thought. The company doesn't allow us to be that kind of escort.
"Oh, I understand you," Janice laughed. "Just don't get yourselves caught."
"He is a professional."
Pierce was uncomfortable.
After a brief conversation where the two sisters caught up with each other's lives, Adrian and Pierce walked arm in arm down the street to a high-end restaurant on the street corner. Its elegant brick outside led to a rather sleek and modern dimly-lit atmospheric eatery. Adrian had made reservations for two previously, and the waiter led them to a more secluded corner of the place. Pierce had never been at a restaurant this nice, with a live jazz band and all. There were some wealthy people relaxing for meals, dressed in suits worth far more than his, discussing in low tones whatever rich people discuss.
When they sat down, Adrian began, "So I know you think you're here to be my bodyguard for the afternoon, but that isn't really true. I actually wanted to properly thank you for what you did for Miss Fluffles the other day, saving her from that crazy old man." The man was certainly old, but Pierce had looked in his eyes. He had seen crazy before, and that man was not crazy. Miss Fluffles, though, still haunted Pierce's dreams. "That, and you need a break. First the old man, then the Elder Mafia? Too much for a newbie with the company, if you ask me."
"It's no big deal," Pierce said, "I can handle it."
"Oh, I'm sure you can, but everyone needs rest, Mr. Pierce, and right now, resting is your job. Relaxing with me. Do you understand? I want you to order whatever you want. I'm buying."
Pierce sighed, resigning himself to his fate. "Thank you, Miss Adrian."
After a delicious high-end steak dinner (Adrian drank wine while Pierce just had water), the two took a stroll about the East Side, eventually ending up in a somewhat poorer section of town. The weather had grown quite warm for an autumn day. "Pierce, you remember what I said about having an extra assignment for you?"
"Yeah," he said, hoping it wasn't what he thought it was going to be.
"Now, you are under no obligation to do this, but if you do it, I will pay you well."
Pierce shifted nervously.
"I have a problem. You see...there's this guy I like, but I'm somewhat of a nervous wreck when I'm around him." He had a hard time imagining that considering how flirty she had been so far today. "You see that building over there?"
Pierce nodded. It was an apartment complex, much less ritzy than the one that belonged to her cat. Probably nobody rich enough to own an AI lived in there.
"I need you to go up to the top floor. There's an air duct that feeds into the hall and it connects to the duct for apartment 17A."
Where is this going? Pierce thought.
Adrian took a small unmarked bottle out of her purse and held it before him. "This is a love potion I brewed up."
Pierce blinked and stared at her. "Ma'am, I can't..."
"Before you turn me down, you should know that I am willing to give you ten thousand credits for this job. Like I said, I'm not going to make you do it, but it would certainly help you with your sister."
However she knew about that, she was right. He sighed, "Are you sure it's not some kind of poison? You're not having me kill this guy so the NSPD doesn't come after you when he dies, are you?"
"Of course not, it's just a love potion, I swear. You see, I really fell for this guy a while back when he came to protest my appointment to the City Planning Committee. I mean, there were other protesters, but he stood out. He was big, strong...he took down at least four police officers unarmed."
Oh, I see. "Then why don't you go do this yourself?"
"Funny story about that..." she laughed nervously. "I'm legally not allowed to be within one hundred yards of him." Pierce was dumbfounded. "You see, I may have tried to woo him on several different occasions. He didn't reciprocate, and the court granted him a restraining order against me."
"That's crazy," Pierce muttered as he realized all his misgivings about this woman were correct.
"I know! I think there are certain players in the government who are out to get me."
At this point Pierce really wanted to not be there, standing next to that woman. But in truth, he was grateful for the meal, and he definitely needed the money. He decided to trust that she was not crazy enough to kill through him, especially since she seemed so into the potion's target. Pierce sighed, "What if he's not the only one in his apartment?"
"The potion only works on him. Intention is a large part of magick, you know, and my intention is for him to love me."
He stood there for a moment, thinking. "How will you know if I've actually done it?"
"Believe me, I'll know." She looked straight into his soul, her eyes suddenly cold and sinister, her smile gone. A chill shot through his spine.
"Alright, I'll do it."
The smile immediately returned. "Terrific, I'm going to walk around the block while you do that." She handed him the bottle. "Good luck, Pierce. And, thanks." She leaned in and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.
Pierce stood there for a moment looking at the vial in his hand as Adrian Belle walked away. He examined the pink liquid with a haze coming off of it, the cork keeping it all inside the glass.
He put the vial in one of his suit jacket's inner pockets and walked up to the apartment complex and through the front door. There were elevators, but they all either had an "Out of Order" sign or looked like they should. He looked around and saw there were no security cameras. That was a plus in his book. He walked down the long hall to the stairwell. On his way, an old man came out of an apartment and glared at him as they walked past each other. I look out of place, he thought as he unconsciously adjusted his nice suit jacket, his suit being the only nice clothing he had. He wished he had worn something that stood out less, just in case he was actually pulling off a hit.
He began his long walk up the stairs to the seventeenth floor. As he was on the final climb between floors sixteen and seventeen, he heard talking in the hallway ahead. It was a conversation between two tenants about something, he couldn't make out what. He waited, his heart beating heavily in his chest. They continued talking. Then they talked some more. A door opened several floors below him, and he heard footsteps beginning to climb. They kept climbing. He realized they were probably coming to the top floor. He couldn't just stand there waiting for the conversation to end at this point; he had to make a move.
He walked with an air of confidence up the rest of the stairs and into the hallway. He nodded at the conversing couple as he walked by. The way they looked at each other, they were definitely in love. The man turned to Pierce with a smile as he passed and said, "Hi!"
Pierce walked to the other end of the hall, where he saw the vent. He turned briefly toward the man, "How's it going?"
"Fine. How are you?"
The man who had come up the stairs behind Pierce entered his apartment.
"Terrific..." Pierce said, feeling ironic.
The questioning man, now disengaged from the conversation with his girl, walked up behind Pierce as he was looking at the vent cover that he had to remove.
"So, uh, who are you?" the man asked.
"Mmm...Maintenance man."
"Why are you in a suit?"
Pierce sighed. Was this man going to pester him all the way through this job? "I didn't have time to change after my other job."
"Ah, okay." There was a brief awkward pause. "So what are you fixing?" Pierce hated this.
"The landlord says this vent needs a look."
"Oh." He really hoped this guy wasn't the landlord. "Do you have a work order?"
Why is this guy so curious? "I do, but I didn't have time to pick it up from my place on the way over."
"Tools?"
"Same deal. Landlord said there is a tool bag somewhere?"
"Oh yeah, but that's in the supply room off the main lobby." Pierce let out a sigh and wiped the nervous sweat from his brow.
The man looked him over with a questioning look on his face. Suddenly he said, "Your last job must have you beat. Here, I'll go down and get it for you."
Pierce couldn't believe it. "Thanks," he said, and meant it. The man walked to the stairwell and began his decent. His girl followed him out.
Pierce breathed a sigh of relief. This might work. He took out his multi-tool pocket knife and opened up the screwdriver. He unscrewed the four screws holding the grille in place as quickly as he could, then set the grille to the side. He put his head inside the vent, the cool air from the system hitting the side and back of his head as he looked for the vent that led to 17A. It was a lot higher than he had hoped, though not higher than he had expected. He knew that there was no way he could nicely set the bottle down up there. If the vent opening were big enough for him to get through and stand on the ledge with his whole body inside the vent, that would be a different story. He stood there nervously, wondering what to do. He considered whether or not he could use his shoelaces to tie his wrist and the bottle together and make a toss, and if the vial didn't make it he could try again. But he decided he would look highly suspicious if he got caught with his shoelaces off, and he had no idea how much time he had: someone could come up the stairwell or out of an apartment at any minute. Eventually he decided to just go for it.
He took out his handkerchief and secured it around the glass bottle. He weighed the bottle in his hand to get a feel for it, then uncorked it, putting his thumb over the top. He reached his whole arm into the vent, and lobbed the bottle in an arc that would give it enough horizontal momentum so that it would make a minimal amount of noise. There was a soft metallic thud as the open bottle made it into the shaft leading to 17A. Pierce breathed a brief sigh of relief and quickly began putting the grille back. As he was finishing with the last screw, he heard quick steps in the stairwell.
The man was back with the tool bag. He handed it to Pierce. "You went up and down the stairs pretty fast," Pierce said, everything in its proper place.
"Yeah, well, I like to keep in shape," the man smiled. His girl came out of the stairwell with a glass of water and handed it to Pierce. He accepted and took a drink. These people may be annoying, but I guess they've made up for it, he thought.
He handed the empty glass to the woman and put the bag on the ground and pulled out a screwdriver. He began unscrewing the grille again. "There was supposed to be an odd sound coming from in here when the system is blowing, but I haven't heard a thing." He set the grille aside once more and stuck his head through the opening, looking around. He then withdrew, and began screwing the grille back on. "There's nothing I can see that would be causing it, and I haven't heard anything strange."
"I guess there's nothing you can do then?" the man asked him.
"Yup." He put the screwdriver in the bag. "Thanks for your help, you two."
"Absolutely," the man said, and Pierce shook their hands.
"Take care," the man said as Pierce entered the stairwell.
Pierce walked out of the building and sighed, happy that such a crazy scenario ended well. He looked around for Adrian, but did not see her. He walked a little ways and saw her in an alley between two old buildings picking up what looked like a dead rat and putting it in her purse. Pierce shook his head in disgust. As she turned around, she saw him and waved to him with a smile. She walked over to him and asked, "So, how did it go?"
"It's done," he said. Then he walked her home.
To: #M1487
Subject: Probationary Assignment #3: VIP Escort
One of our VIP clients, Adrian Belle, has requested an armed escort for the afternoon. She requests that you meet her at the Cathedral of the Resurrection after the service.
That is all. And remember, we have high hopes for your success.
-SSCX
The sun shone brightly nearing its zenith, and the air was crisp and cool as Pierce made his way on foot to the East Side. His eyes were downcast and his body was tired. The combination of physical and mental stress that the first couple of jobs had put him through was taking a toll on him. And now he had to meet Adrian Belle, the crazy cat lady. But he was beginning to catch up on his payments to the hospital, and he couldn't let his mind or body quit.
He brought his attention back to the present and began scanning faces and body language. As he made his way down the streets leading to the church, he noticed that everyone else looked happier and better rested than he felt. If there is a God, he thought, He must not like me very much.
Eventually, the Cathedral of the Resurrection came into view. It was the same church he had caught a glimpse of as its Gothic spire rose above the surrounding buildings when he was on his first assignment; but as it came into full view, he noticed that it was under construction of some sort. It looked like they were moving the entrance back and expanding out the other side of the building. A sign describing the ongoing renovations mentioned that there would be a new statue out front designed by some new artist Pierce had never heard of. He couldn't quite tell what it was supposed to be when he examined the picture, but it made him uneasy.
The cathedral's cyclopean front doors were opened wide, and he heard the voice that came from inside. It was rhythmic and forceful, filled with conviction, and fairly deep for a woman's voice. She preached, "As the New Church we must fight. We fight the old guard who preached hate. Those brutes who called out the oppressed, we curse all those self-righteous fools. Remember this, my lovely flock: our god is full of love, not hate."
He glanced around the inside of the large cross-shaped building filled with a mixture of older elegant furnishings and new bright-colored banners with slogans exhorting the viewer to join the crusade of the New Church against the Old.
After an alter call to make a commitment to fight injustices and hate, the organ played a song that Pierce knew from when he was a child, but the words that some of the congregants muttered did not match his memories. He watched as several people came to the front, weeping. After the service was over, he looked around the room, and someone caught his attention with a delicate wave of her gloved hand. She was older than he was by about ten years, but her smile radiated a warmth that immediately put him at ease. If this was Adrian Belle, maybe he was wrong about her, maybe she wasn't crazy. Maybe today wouldn't be as bad as he thought. She winked at him, then beckoned him over.
Her voice was very similar to the preacher's, but with a more calming and seductive tone. "Agent Pierce, I presume?" She reached out her hand and he shook it.
"Yes ma'am."
"You're more handsome than I pictured you."
"Thank you, ma'am."
"And much too formal," she laughed. "Call me Adrian, not ma'am."
"Yes ma'am."
She face-palmed and chuckled. "You are really tired from your first week on the job, aren't you? I heard about what happened at the bank. You've been busy doing an excellent job for the company. You'll have no problem becoming a regular agent."
The preacher walked up to them both. Adrian greeted her, "Hello, Janice, that was a lovely sermon today."
"Glad you liked it. Who is this good-looking gentleman?"
"He's my SSC escort for the day. I'm going to give him an extra job later, if he's up for it," she said suggestively, then winked at him again.
What is she thinking? Pierce thought. The company doesn't allow us to be that kind of escort.
"Oh, I understand you," Janice laughed. "Just don't get yourselves caught."
"He is a professional."
Pierce was uncomfortable.
After a brief conversation where the two sisters caught up with each other's lives, Adrian and Pierce walked arm in arm down the street to a high-end restaurant on the street corner. Its elegant brick outside led to a rather sleek and modern dimly-lit atmospheric eatery. Adrian had made reservations for two previously, and the waiter led them to a more secluded corner of the place. Pierce had never been at a restaurant this nice, with a live jazz band and all. There were some wealthy people relaxing for meals, dressed in suits worth far more than his, discussing in low tones whatever rich people discuss.
When they sat down, Adrian began, "So I know you think you're here to be my bodyguard for the afternoon, but that isn't really true. I actually wanted to properly thank you for what you did for Miss Fluffles the other day, saving her from that crazy old man." The man was certainly old, but Pierce had looked in his eyes. He had seen crazy before, and that man was not crazy. Miss Fluffles, though, still haunted Pierce's dreams. "That, and you need a break. First the old man, then the Elder Mafia? Too much for a newbie with the company, if you ask me."
"It's no big deal," Pierce said, "I can handle it."
"Oh, I'm sure you can, but everyone needs rest, Mr. Pierce, and right now, resting is your job. Relaxing with me. Do you understand? I want you to order whatever you want. I'm buying."
Pierce sighed, resigning himself to his fate. "Thank you, Miss Adrian."
After a delicious high-end steak dinner (Adrian drank wine while Pierce just had water), the two took a stroll about the East Side, eventually ending up in a somewhat poorer section of town. The weather had grown quite warm for an autumn day. "Pierce, you remember what I said about having an extra assignment for you?"
"Yeah," he said, hoping it wasn't what he thought it was going to be.
"Now, you are under no obligation to do this, but if you do it, I will pay you well."
Pierce shifted nervously.
"I have a problem. You see...there's this guy I like, but I'm somewhat of a nervous wreck when I'm around him." He had a hard time imagining that considering how flirty she had been so far today. "You see that building over there?"
Pierce nodded. It was an apartment complex, much less ritzy than the one that belonged to her cat. Probably nobody rich enough to own an AI lived in there.
"I need you to go up to the top floor. There's an air duct that feeds into the hall and it connects to the duct for apartment 17A."
Where is this going? Pierce thought.
Adrian took a small unmarked bottle out of her purse and held it before him. "This is a love potion I brewed up."
Pierce blinked and stared at her. "Ma'am, I can't..."
"Before you turn me down, you should know that I am willing to give you ten thousand credits for this job. Like I said, I'm not going to make you do it, but it would certainly help you with your sister."
However she knew about that, she was right. He sighed, "Are you sure it's not some kind of poison? You're not having me kill this guy so the NSPD doesn't come after you when he dies, are you?"
"Of course not, it's just a love potion, I swear. You see, I really fell for this guy a while back when he came to protest my appointment to the City Planning Committee. I mean, there were other protesters, but he stood out. He was big, strong...he took down at least four police officers unarmed."
Oh, I see. "Then why don't you go do this yourself?"
"Funny story about that..." she laughed nervously. "I'm legally not allowed to be within one hundred yards of him." Pierce was dumbfounded. "You see, I may have tried to woo him on several different occasions. He didn't reciprocate, and the court granted him a restraining order against me."
"That's crazy," Pierce muttered as he realized all his misgivings about this woman were correct.
"I know! I think there are certain players in the government who are out to get me."
At this point Pierce really wanted to not be there, standing next to that woman. But in truth, he was grateful for the meal, and he definitely needed the money. He decided to trust that she was not crazy enough to kill through him, especially since she seemed so into the potion's target. Pierce sighed, "What if he's not the only one in his apartment?"
"The potion only works on him. Intention is a large part of magick, you know, and my intention is for him to love me."
He stood there for a moment, thinking. "How will you know if I've actually done it?"
"Believe me, I'll know." She looked straight into his soul, her eyes suddenly cold and sinister, her smile gone. A chill shot through his spine.
"Alright, I'll do it."
The smile immediately returned. "Terrific, I'm going to walk around the block while you do that." She handed him the bottle. "Good luck, Pierce. And, thanks." She leaned in and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.
Pierce stood there for a moment looking at the vial in his hand as Adrian Belle walked away. He examined the pink liquid with a haze coming off of it, the cork keeping it all inside the glass.
He put the vial in one of his suit jacket's inner pockets and walked up to the apartment complex and through the front door. There were elevators, but they all either had an "Out of Order" sign or looked like they should. He looked around and saw there were no security cameras. That was a plus in his book. He walked down the long hall to the stairwell. On his way, an old man came out of an apartment and glared at him as they walked past each other. I look out of place, he thought as he unconsciously adjusted his nice suit jacket, his suit being the only nice clothing he had. He wished he had worn something that stood out less, just in case he was actually pulling off a hit.
He began his long walk up the stairs to the seventeenth floor. As he was on the final climb between floors sixteen and seventeen, he heard talking in the hallway ahead. It was a conversation between two tenants about something, he couldn't make out what. He waited, his heart beating heavily in his chest. They continued talking. Then they talked some more. A door opened several floors below him, and he heard footsteps beginning to climb. They kept climbing. He realized they were probably coming to the top floor. He couldn't just stand there waiting for the conversation to end at this point; he had to make a move.
He walked with an air of confidence up the rest of the stairs and into the hallway. He nodded at the conversing couple as he walked by. The way they looked at each other, they were definitely in love. The man turned to Pierce with a smile as he passed and said, "Hi!"
Pierce walked to the other end of the hall, where he saw the vent. He turned briefly toward the man, "How's it going?"
"Fine. How are you?"
The man who had come up the stairs behind Pierce entered his apartment.
"Terrific..." Pierce said, feeling ironic.
The questioning man, now disengaged from the conversation with his girl, walked up behind Pierce as he was looking at the vent cover that he had to remove.
"So, uh, who are you?" the man asked.
"Mmm...Maintenance man."
"Why are you in a suit?"
Pierce sighed. Was this man going to pester him all the way through this job? "I didn't have time to change after my other job."
"Ah, okay." There was a brief awkward pause. "So what are you fixing?" Pierce hated this.
"The landlord says this vent needs a look."
"Oh." He really hoped this guy wasn't the landlord. "Do you have a work order?"
Why is this guy so curious? "I do, but I didn't have time to pick it up from my place on the way over."
"Tools?"
"Same deal. Landlord said there is a tool bag somewhere?"
"Oh yeah, but that's in the supply room off the main lobby." Pierce let out a sigh and wiped the nervous sweat from his brow.
The man looked him over with a questioning look on his face. Suddenly he said, "Your last job must have you beat. Here, I'll go down and get it for you."
Pierce couldn't believe it. "Thanks," he said, and meant it. The man walked to the stairwell and began his decent. His girl followed him out.
Pierce breathed a sigh of relief. This might work. He took out his multi-tool pocket knife and opened up the screwdriver. He unscrewed the four screws holding the grille in place as quickly as he could, then set the grille to the side. He put his head inside the vent, the cool air from the system hitting the side and back of his head as he looked for the vent that led to 17A. It was a lot higher than he had hoped, though not higher than he had expected. He knew that there was no way he could nicely set the bottle down up there. If the vent opening were big enough for him to get through and stand on the ledge with his whole body inside the vent, that would be a different story. He stood there nervously, wondering what to do. He considered whether or not he could use his shoelaces to tie his wrist and the bottle together and make a toss, and if the vial didn't make it he could try again. But he decided he would look highly suspicious if he got caught with his shoelaces off, and he had no idea how much time he had: someone could come up the stairwell or out of an apartment at any minute. Eventually he decided to just go for it.
He took out his handkerchief and secured it around the glass bottle. He weighed the bottle in his hand to get a feel for it, then uncorked it, putting his thumb over the top. He reached his whole arm into the vent, and lobbed the bottle in an arc that would give it enough horizontal momentum so that it would make a minimal amount of noise. There was a soft metallic thud as the open bottle made it into the shaft leading to 17A. Pierce breathed a brief sigh of relief and quickly began putting the grille back. As he was finishing with the last screw, he heard quick steps in the stairwell.
The man was back with the tool bag. He handed it to Pierce. "You went up and down the stairs pretty fast," Pierce said, everything in its proper place.
"Yeah, well, I like to keep in shape," the man smiled. His girl came out of the stairwell with a glass of water and handed it to Pierce. He accepted and took a drink. These people may be annoying, but I guess they've made up for it, he thought.
He handed the empty glass to the woman and put the bag on the ground and pulled out a screwdriver. He began unscrewing the grille again. "There was supposed to be an odd sound coming from in here when the system is blowing, but I haven't heard a thing." He set the grille aside once more and stuck his head through the opening, looking around. He then withdrew, and began screwing the grille back on. "There's nothing I can see that would be causing it, and I haven't heard anything strange."
"I guess there's nothing you can do then?" the man asked him.
"Yup." He put the screwdriver in the bag. "Thanks for your help, you two."
"Absolutely," the man said, and Pierce shook their hands.
"Take care," the man said as Pierce entered the stairwell.
Pierce walked out of the building and sighed, happy that such a crazy scenario ended well. He looked around for Adrian, but did not see her. He walked a little ways and saw her in an alley between two old buildings picking up what looked like a dead rat and putting it in her purse. Pierce shook his head in disgust. As she turned around, she saw him and waved to him with a smile. She walked over to him and asked, "So, how did it go?"
"It's done," he said. Then he walked her home.