The potted plant fell from the sky and shattered against the patio, launching ceramic shards across the concrete and ripping Tony from a gin nap. He started from his chair, spilling his drink across his pants, and groped frantically before spotting the shivering mess in the corner. Probably some kind of fern, though hard to tell because it was night and his patio light was off. But sleep and liquor still sluiced through his head and dragged his consciousness down towards the black, so he gulped the watery remains of his drink and stumbled inside to bed.
 

He didn’t come back out until next afternoon. Two or so, when it got too hot to sleep in the apartment. The breakfast shake tasted chalky, like it always did, and he was genuinely surprised when he saw the planty carnage through his sliding glass door. It wasn’t until a few minutes later, as he toed the pieces of the pot into a little pile, that he made the distinction between the plant crash and the various other boozy hallucinations that had lately passed for his dreams.

Tony lived on the ground floor of a ten-story building and his patio extended out farther than his upstairs neighbors’ porches—maybe a night gust or an errant elbow had knocked it off. But why didn’t someone come to apologize, make sure the pot hadn’t cracked his skull? Wasn’t very neighborly of them, but maybe they were out of town or maybe they knocked on his door while he was sleeping.

He inspected the plant. Skinny zigzag vines with stubby leaves, all a yellowed, sickly green. The pale roots looked shriveled and naked as he shook the dirt loose. He debated throwing it away—finding the owner would probably be more trouble than it was worth—but instead went inside and grabbed a bowl, then scooped in as much dirt as he could and packed it around the roots. The plant spilled over the top as if looking to escape and Tony couldn’t help but sympathize.


TV got boring around four, after the soap operas ended and the talk shows began, so he decided to find the plant’s owner. He grabbed the bowl and walked down a short hall to his building’s lobby, an uninviting checker-floored room with copper-flecked mailboxes on one wall and a series of typewritten signs from the landlord posted on the other: Parking Garage automatic door will be operational 9/30, please open manually until then; Politeness Kills: Do not let in strangers to building; Help Us Help You! by not using bleach in the washing machine. Hieroglyphical scratches were etched into the Plexiglas entrance door, which was flanked by two small plastic pine trees and looked out onto an empty sidewalk giving off wavy heat lines.

Tony inspected the directory board, pointlessly. He didn’t know anybody in his building. There was Min, the guy across the hall who would sprint—sprint!—to his apartment and lock his door if he ever saw Tony in the lobby. Then there was an older lady with Cadillac-gray hair who once invited him up to her apartment to play ‘Bango’—Tony didn’t know what that was, and wasn’t about to find out—but otherwise he’d had no interaction with anyone besides the occasional nod or awkward conversation-avoiding sidestep at the door.

He looked at each of the apartments directly above his, those that ended in ‘05’, but the names meant nothing to him and neither the plant nor the pot had a helpful label. Plus his own apartment was listed under ‘C. Teabody’ so the thing hadn’t been updated in a few years.

He stood in the lobby for fifteen minutes, holding the plant and smiling broadly at the few people who walked by, in hopes that someone would recognize it. How could someone recognize a plant? Tony had never owned one himself, but thought that maybe the owner would have some kind of mystical connection, like mother to child, like moon to tide, like dreams to life. But no one did.

Hannah called when he stepped back into his apartment. He stood with his finger poised over the ‘talk’ button for three full rings before finally answering.

She sounded faraway and muffled, as though talking through a cardboard tube. Speakerphone. “Tony? Hey, it’s me.” She’d be at her desk in the stuffy back office, her blue uniform untucked and her black hair pulled into a matronly bun. “You busy?”

He set the plant on the table and plopped onto the couch. “Yeah.”

“I just, I didn’t like the way our last conversation ended.” She left the last word hanging, like a question.

Tony scoffed. “Huh. I’m sorry firing me was such a traumatic experience for you.”

“You can’t even try to be adult about it? I fired you cause you were a lousy locksmith. If I send you out to unlock somebody’s house, I expect you to do it in a courteous manner. Berating the customers for their stupidity is no way to represent my business.”

“They should use a rock if they need in that badly. Why should I help people too dumb to get into their own homes?” Outside, the late afternoon light had become the unnatural, smog-infused orange of a glass of Tang. “How’s Thad? He still picking up my extra shifts and duties?”

“Listen, asshole, don’t forget I’m the one who tried to separate our personal and professional lives. You broke up with me.”
“What choice did I have? Stay with a woman who doesn’t respect me enough to keep me gainfully employed?”

Tony imagined Hannah biting a pencil eraser with her nubby teeth, face tired and lined with a faint rim of sweat. “Screw your pride, Tony. That’s what got you fired in the first place. You could get another job. You looked at any openings at the other shops?”

“No,” he lied.

“Well, not like you were that attached to locksmithing.” He let her suffocate in the silence, heard her shift in the chair. “I need those tools back, too. They’re property of the shop, and I could take you to court if I had to.”

“You’d really take me to court?”

Papers shuffled. A sigh. “No. But just come back to the shop and bring the tools. We could talk, too.”

“We’re talking now.”

“Face-to-face.” Another long pause as Tony flicked on the TV. “Tony, it’s hard. I still…I could still use you around.”

“Is this the ex-boss or the ex-girlfriend speaking?”

“It’s both.”

“Then fuck you to both.”

He threw the phone into a couch cushion without hanging up. Then, as Hannah kept calling his name, he grabbed a pillow and smothered her voice until she stopped.

The next afternoon when he woke a half-dozen paperbacks were scattered across his patio. Some opened to the colorless sun, exposing their pages lewdly, while others lay facedown and broken-looking, their backs to the world as though trying to hide. He collected them—mostly science fiction, with pictures of phallic-looking spacecraft firing neon beams at one another on the covers—and saw an inscription inside The Shadow of Xanthoid: “To Chelsea, may the Shadow of Xanthoid never fall upon our love. Happy Birthday, David.”

There was no Chelsea or David on the directory board so Tony decided to start with the apartment directly above his own. It was the first time he’d ridden in his building’s elevator. He carried the books in a plastic sack and cradled the plant in his other arm as the elevator knocked and banged its way upwards, the cabin musty and smelling faintly of burning plastic.

Tony set the books down and knocked on the door to 205. Inside, a stereo blasted odd calliope music and he had to pound until his fist ached before someone came: a heavyset woman with a face the color and texture of a catcher’s mitt who peered out from behind the door’s chain lock. She inspected him with a mixture of fear and anger, red veins worming from the edge of her eyes to her dark irises.

Tony held the plant up. “Are you Chelsea?”

Her voice was screechy, insistent. “No!”

“Does David live here?”

“No David!”

Tony swallowed the ‘fuck you’ that bubbled in his throat. “Is this your plant?”

“No it’s not my fucking plant thank you fucking much!” She slammed the door.

Tony tried the rest of the apartments above his. They only people who answered were a harassed babysitter in 405 too busy trying to peel a set of twins off her legs to talk and an elderly couple in 1005 who didn’t understand his questions and instead showed him pictures of their deceased fox terrier until Tony sprinted away to the elevator, like Min would have. No one answered in the other apartments; it was 2:00 P.M., so they must’ve been either at work or smart enough to know that nobody you want to talk to knocks on your door in the mid-afternoon.

Back in his apartment he gave the plant some water and spent the rest of the day reading The Shadow of Xanthoid.

 
A crash woke Tony up again but he was instantly alert, having only drunk beer that night, and he popped out of the chair and leaned back against his patio fence. “Hey!” he shouted up. “Stop throwing shit!” No lights from the apartments above him. No snaky, silhouetted movements against the night sky. No whoosh of a sliding glass door. He stood in silence, poised for more domestic fallout, for a half hour before creeping back to his chair. He sat and waited and drank beer until rosy scars scabbed over the edge of the sky, sneaking sleep in behind them.

He awoke in his chair in a sweaty, beery haze that afternoon and examined what fell: a picture in a frame, a close-up of a couple caught in mid-laugh. The man was handsome, with a tan and spiky blond hair and thin birdy lips above a solid jaw. He had his arms looped around the woman’s neck as though riding piggyback. The woman’s features were hard to make out because her face hinged open into an explosion of laughter, the inside of her mouth dominating the shot, but she had wavy brown hair and a set of clear braces on her teeth. The wooden frame was black and cheap, and a single crack jagged across the plastic, cutting her mouth in two. Tony set the picture facing the plant so the couple could look upon what was probably once a symbol of their love.

Then, after a nap, he picked it up and inspected it again. He liked Chelsea’s expression, the way she bared herself to the camera, not bothering to hide her braces. She looked like the good-natured sort that could knock back a few beers and laugh at all the right jokes and not give a guy shit about the cleanliness of his apartment.

The dude, though, was too pretty. Any guy with a deep tan and gelled hair was trying too hard. Tony ran a finger along his own hairline, feeling the steady backwards creep he’d been attempting to ignore the past five years. David didn’t deserve a girl like that. Chelsea needed someone real, someone more concerned with living life than looking good. He had to find out where she lived.

Admittedly, the idea wasn’t that great. Just too simple not to work. Using his neatest handwriting, he created a sign-up sheet on yellow lined paper and hung it up in the lobby. Free Chocolate! Please put your name and apartment number below for a free sample delivery of Keyman’s World Famous Choctastic-Basket! It didn’t look very professional, but what kind of fascist would question free chocolate?

He checked back at two, and only Victor Rodriguez in 209 had signed up. At four Victor had been joined by Erik and Maddy Jensen in 313 and Tony Hussein in 110—another Tony on the same floor, and he hadn’t even known. But no Chelsea. He went back to his apartment and cracked open a beer to quell the impatience that bubbled like soda water in his stomach. She’d be at work, then. He had a while to wait. He drank through the afternoon and into early evening, watching TV and napping fitfully until eight. Names scattered across the sheet, written in loops through the margins and into tiny vertical crevices. And there, underneath Vera Jones-Kubota in 621 and above, improbably, Min Shen in 104, was Chelsea Rogers. Apartment 905.

He grabbed the list and rushed back to his apartment. The books, plant, and picture all fit in a cardboard box he’d found in the dumpster. Nerves shuddered through him as he waited for the elevator. What if she didn’t want the stuff back? Maybe it would be too painful. Would she thank him for not reporting her to the manager? Or would she think he was some kind of weirdo for collecting it all? Besides, it was late and he hadn’t showered in a few days so his appearance and smell wouldn’t make for a great first impression. The elevator’s ‘ding’ nearly made him drop the box and the door gaped open forebodingly. He rushed back to his apartment, deciding to give himself one more day to strategize his approach.

Tony awoke to a loud noise, frightened and disoriented as something constricted around him. He thrashed and nearly screamed until he realized he was in bed and wrestling his sheets. He’d gotten used to waking up in the chair.

Another knock at the front door and Hannah’s voice called out. “Tony? Wake up. Come talk to me.”

He dashed out of bed and slipped on a pair of shorts, then tiptoed out to the living room and waited until she knocked again to mask the sound of the sliding glass door. A stuffed lion crouched on all fours on the patio, looking perfectly intact and ready to pounce. The smile on its face was more playful than predatory. “Don’t maul me,” Tony said. He hopped over the short chain link fence separating his patio from the alley, nearly slicing open his leg at the top, and walked in his bare feet out to the street, ignoring the pokes of gravel and grit between his toes. He peered around the edge of the building, breathing heavily, and waited for Hannah to come out.

After a few minutes she did, looking focused and official in her bright blue uniform. A heavy guilty feeling bounced against Tony’s gut but he remained hidden until she drove away in her blue pickup with the “Clampett’s Lock & Key” decals on the sides.

He’d grabbed the lion and set it next to the plant when he spotted the note under his door. Tony –You can only sleep for so long before you start missing the world. I’ll be back for the tools.

What did she know about missing the world? It was the first time since childhood that Tony had been able to sleep in. No alarm, no insistence; sleep dictated his schedule. Who needs money when you can sleep until you wake up? Isn’t control over your leisure time the true measure of wealth, hell, of freedom?

But she was right; he was missing something. He flicked the TV to the Home Shopping Network to fill his apartment with the urgent voices of the announcers. He looked in his fridge, decided it was too early to drink, and reached instead for his last breakfast shake. “I’ve never seen a samurai sword this beautiful being sold for this little. Ha! Has our boss gone insane? Ha! Let me ask her: Hey Josie, have you gone insane? Ha!” The day stretched out flat and featureless in his mind. His books were old, it was too hot to go outside, and he felt too restless to comb through the job postings again.

She wanted the fucking tools, eh? He reached behind his toilet to where he kept the slim leather pouch. The picks and wrenches were aligned in the pocket by height, a perfect military order to their edge and shine. Forget what Hannah said. He was a good locksmith. He knew how to use those things better than anyone else in the shop. Pick a lock in a minute flat. Get in anywhere, at any time.

Oh, shit. Of course.

He wore his old “Clampett’s Lock & Key” uniform to alleviate any suspicion. It itched everywhere, since he’d never washed it, but he still looked good. Legitimate. The elevator was empty and he approached 905, metal tools jangling on his belt. A quick knock, to be sure. Nothing. He looked at the crack between the doorjamb and door, nearly breaking into laughter when he saw that the deadbolt wasn’t locked. A simple job, now, just a tumbler lock the type he’d done hundreds of times before.

Tony took out his tools and crouched. He twisted the tension wrench in the keyhole and used the pick to rake across the pins. The two back pins caught on the shear line and he went to work with the pick to clear the rest.

He’d always liked the exclusivity of being a locksmith, the ability to obtain the unobtainable, to break into areas inaccessible to normal people. That which was off-limits to everyone else was open to him. People would stare at him reverentially after he had managed to open their vehicles or homes, allowing them to drive, to live, with little more than two small pieces of metal. He felt a tiny vibration along the pick and then a slight click. He finally exhaled as he twisted the knob and pulled open the door.

He had an odd moment of dizziness as he stepped in. It was his own apartment, but different. The same layout: kitchenette on the right of the entrance with the same urine-yellow tiles and the incongruously new oven, living room on the left with an L-bend around to the bedroom and bathroom. It was better kept, obviously, and the couch and TV were on opposite sides of the living room from Tony’s, but it still gave him an eerie feeling.

Purple-hued paintings of flowers covered the living room walls and photographs lined the bookcase: Chelsea and a few other girls dressed in Raiders uniforms for Halloween, down in awkward three-point-stances as though ready to play; Chelsea trying to pull the sword out of the stone at Disneyland; an off-centered sunset disappearing behind a field of flesh-colored wheat.

The balcony looked out over the graylit sprawl of strip malls and backed traffic that stretched as far as he could see, everything still and unappealing as though in a poorly-funded tourist brochure. Multicolored Christmas lights draped across the ceiling and he saw a brown ring etched into the shelf of the balcony wall. A brown ring the exact size of a plant pot.

Tony looked down and saw his own patio, the gray cracked concrete and the edge of his partially obscured chair. Could she see his feet jutting out on the nights he passed out? He went inside, grabbed a book from her bookcase, and dropped it over the edge. It took a long time to fall, flipping and spinning, its pages fluttering as though trying to fly, before finally smacking against his patio. When it hit something shaky ran along Tony’s spine and he dashed out, barely remembering to shut and lock the door behind him.

The second time he broke into Chelsea’s apartment he was just trying to see if he could pick her lock more quickly than the day before. He didn’t want his skills to get rusty. He’d talk to her, eventually, but this way he’d get to know her, maybe figure out how to make his approach. Peer into a person’s bedroom and you know her intimately—the bed she sleeps in, the clothes she wears, the window she looks out every morning. Wouldn’t that knowledge be increased exponentially by peering into her refrigerator, and DVD collection, and medicine cabinet?

Chelsea’s bedroom, when he finally opened the door, was exactly how he pictured it: matching mahogany bedframe and nightstand underneath framed black and white cityscapes spaced symmetrically on the walls, with a small wall closet in the corner closed off by a hanging pink sheet. No soap scum or toilet rings in the bathroom, and her perfumes, gels, and cosmetics all stood in perfect order next to her sink.

The comforter of her queen-sized bed felt fat and pillowy but had a deep residual chill. Too much bed for one person. He pulled back the sheets and had begun to lie down when some kind of maniacal alarm, a bleating techno cacophony, shot throughout the room. He dropped to the side of the bed and had started slithering underneath when he realized it was his cell phone. ‘Hannah’ flashed across the screen, and continued to flash even after he pushed the ‘silence’ button.

 

Hannah started leaving him a voicemail everyday, sometimes when he was inside Chelsea’s apartment. “Please try to be mature about this. We can work something out; give me a call.”

He’d only go for a half hour at a time. Pick through her bookcase, drink a glass of tapwater from her faucet, check out the view from her balcony. Nothing weird, no rooting through her panty drawers or trying on her makeup. He liked the feel of otherness, the way the surroundings felt like a disorienting, bizzaro version of home. He’d step inside and be acting in a movie about his life, only the set had been designed in Korea to incorrect specifications.

“Hey. Thad quit so…you know…there’s an opening here part-time. If you want it. Whatever.”

He’d lay on her bed, taking care not to disturb the sheets, and imagine what it felt like to wake early, kiss Chelsea good morning, and be on his way to work. A job in an office somewhere, sitting at a desk, talking authoritatively into the phone and making demands. And then having those demands met. Dark-colored slacks and skirts dominated her closet, the kind worn by the businesswomen that used to pace impatiently as Tony unlocked their cars, sometimes stretching a thirty-second job to fifteen minutes just to watch them squirm.

“Hey jackass. You wanna ignore me, fine. But I’m coming to get those tools.”

He’d sniff her citrusy perfume. No more shit tossed onto his patio; she was probably over David. Or getting close. Maybe ready to move on, maybe ready to rush into a rebound relationship. Before he’d leave he’d shift the order of the magazines on the coffee table, or leave one drawer slightly open, or click the TV onto a different channel than she’d left it. Just little hints, the kind she’d find only if she wanted to.

On the weekend, when Chelsea was home during the days, he slept in for as long as he could and spent the rest of the day doing pushups and situps with the TV on full blast. At night he carried his phone out to the patio with the intention of getting drunk enough to call Hannah back—though he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to tell her to stop calling or to come over—but he always stalled somewhere around the third drink and instead let the dewy night and the liquor help him drip into sleep.

 

The deadbolt was set at 305 but it only took him an extra minute to get in. Why not? It was Monday. Nobody was around. He was bored. He’d already been to Chelsea’s apartment and now he wanted to see the other apartments above his. He wanted to tour the other sets for his movie.

Inside 305, an earthy stink rose from the middle of the living room, where a purple human-shaped bruise stained the carpet. The ragged cloth couch and wooden chairs were backed against the walls as though cowering away from it.

Apartment 505 had an orange and white splotched cat that mmmrrrowed seductively when he walked in. As soon as he tried to scratch its back it hissed and made a satanic face that sent him rushing out.

A mannequin dressed in a full baseball uniform sat on the bed in 805, arm posed upwards as if asking a question in class.

But none of them held the same excitement as Chelsea’s. They were new and different and strange in their own ways, but none had that same sense of home. Even his own. After making his rounds he’d go back to her place each afternoon, to the clean, sacred scent like a library, and say out loud “Chels, I’m home.” He was close to being ready to talk to her, so close, just another week absorbing her smell and reading her books and he’d finally know her. Then he’d walk up to her door with all her stuff and never go back downstairs again.

He finally called Hannah one afternoon while trying on a black pinstriped suit he found in the closet of 705. He couldn’t squeeze into the pants, but the shirt and jacket fit and he admired the cut of his shoulders in the mirror.

“I’m together with someone else,” he said as soon as she answered. “You’ve got to stop calling me.”

A squeak in the background as she shifted in her chair. “How? Where?”

He had tied the shimmery blue tie in a bulging knot and he tried to straighten it out. “In my building.” He tightened it again, and again it came out in a ragged lump.

“Your building? You don’t know anyone there.”

The man in the mirror had the look of a person involved. In business, in life. Someone with somewhere to go. “I’ve been making more of an effort lately. Meeting some really interesting people.” God, he wished he’d shaved. Then again, wasn’t the scruffy look popular now? After that prettyboy, Chelsea’d probably be ready for something different.

Hannah’s voice sounded, not sad exactly, but hollowed-out. “What’s her name?”

“Chelsea.”

She sighed. But this was no time for sentimentality. Places to go, things to do.

“So, you know, there you go. Talk to you later.”

“Tony, wait, the too-” He hung up quickly and decisively, like a man in a good suit should.

He wore the suit up to her apartment, imagining he had just come home from a long day at the office. But he was too energized to be tired; instead, he was just getting ready to leave in the morning. He even made coffee in her Kenmore and drank it while pacing back and forth, reminding himself to call Anderson in accounting. He spilled some water on the jacket cuffs while washing the coffeepot, but it was dry enough by the time he hung it back up in 705 that he didn’t think the owner would notice.

 

The next day he was ready. He had combed the thrift stores on Overland until he found an affordable suit that looked similar enough to the one in 705: sleeves a little long, pants a little short, but it’d do. He decided to wait until after eight, after she’d had enough time home from work to eat and relax. He had two drinks to loosen the clench in his brain; he didn’t have a set script, and he wanted to keep the conversation light and loose.

At the last minute he decided not to take the stuff up with him. It’d guarantee him another visit, later, after he introduced himself and explained that no, he wasn’t angry that she almost killed him with massive blunt force trauma to the head, he just wanted to make sure she was doing alright. He knew what it was like to get lonely, and he’d be happy to talk about things if she needed. He doubted she’d want to come back to his place to pick the stuff up, not yet, but he wiped the crumbs off his couch and pushed his other accumulated shit into the hall closet anyway.

The elevator’s floor lights lit up like a bingo flashboard, slowly, arduously. Purposeful stride down the hall, deep breath, and a knock.

He smelled her perfume before she opened the door. She had her hair tucked into a ponytail and wore a gray track jacket and sweatpants. She was translucently pale and moles dotted her cheeks in what would be, if connected, an upward extension of her smile.

She looked him over, and he was suddenly self-conscious about the suit. “Yes, hello?” she said in a sing-songy kindergarten teacher voice that surprised him. Taller than he’d imagined. And not as alone as he’d imagined—the man who must have been David peered over her shoulder, eyebrow cocked. Unmistakable prettyboy features and gleaming white teeth set off even more by his man-tan.

Words congealed in Tony’s throat. “Hi, I, uh, I’m from the room downstairs, and I’m sorry to bother you, but KARF!” The cough he’d tried to smother came out clipped and wet.

She ran her pinky nail between the wire over her front teeth. “The room downstairs? Is that that homeless organization? You want a donation?”

“No! No, I actually live downstairs, and I have some things of yours.”

Her eyes widened. “Is this about that chocolate basket I signed up for? I’ve been waiting weeks for that. I almost called the Better Business Bureau. But then David said since it was free I couldn’t complain about it, even if it was a scam.”

“Oh, no, it’s not a scam.”

“So you do have it? You’re the Keyman?”

Tony considered the question. “Look, Chels, I really need—” He stopped. Had she caught his pet name for her? Was it wrong to call her that?

The what-the-fuck-did-you-just-call-me look on her face answered the question. David moved in front of her and gripped the door proprietarily. “Look buddy, it’s a little late to be knocking on people’s doors.” A lilting drawl, possibly southern.

Chelsea stood behind David. “Weirdo,” she mumbled as she took the TV remote from his other hand and moved back towards the living room.

David wore an expensive-looking silk shirt, unbuttoned to the stomach, showing off a toned, hairless chest. “Come by in the afternoon sometime and maybe we’ll help.” He shut the door.

Tony wanted to barrel down, shatter the door, and burst into the apartment, using his momentum to hurl David off the balcony and splatter him against the ground-floor patio. But instead, he stood with one hand poised to knock again and listened to the sickening click of the locks as they resonated throughout the hall.

Tony felt tired and hollow-headed on the elevator ride down. When he got to his apartment the door was open. Inside, his coffee table sat upended on the carpet and the cottony innards of his couch cushions sprawled over the floor. His cabinets splayed open and the dishes lay smashed throughout the kitchenette. Shirts, pants, and underwear covered everything. He heard a noise from the bedroom and rushed through the door.

Hannah held his sock drawer in her hands, emptying it onto the bed, and dropped it when he dashed in. Dots of perspiration soaked through her uniform and her shoulders heaved with each breath. Her eyes looked frantic, red-rimmed, and she held her palms up in defense. “I was waiting until you left. I just needed the tools. But.”

He stared at her and shook his head. “Take them. Take anything you fucking want.” He removed the leather pouch from his jacket pocket and threw it on the ground in front of her. She false-started on a sentence and he left the room before she got it out.

It had just started to get dark, and the Christmas lights were on over Chelsea’s porch, creating an illuminated target. He put her things on his nap chair. Nine stories was a long way up, but he’d been a pitcher in high school and still felt the same fire running through his arm as he snapped the picture frame straight overhead like a ninja star. It hooked over the balcony on the fourth floor and clanged into something metal. The lion was next; he twirled it by the tail and tossed it underhand, but released too late and sailed it behind him into the alley.

Hannah stood in the doorway, face scrunched in confusion. She leaned out and saw the lights, saw Tony heave a book that bounced off the building’s back wall and skittered into the parking lot. “You really think you can get something up there?”

He ripped the plant from the bowl, shaking off the excess dirt. Of course he could. He had all night.