The Traveler

13

The front entrance to the four-story building that contained Mr. Bubble’s clothing factory was framed by two stone obelisks set into the red brick wall. Plaster sculptures of Egyptian tomb figures were in the ground-floor reception area and hieroglyphics were on the walls of the staircases. Gabriel wondered if they had found a professor to write real hieroglyphic messages or if the symbols had been copied out of an encyclopedia. When he was walking around the empty building at night, he would touch the hieroglyphics and trace their shapes with his forefinger.

Each weekday morning workers began to arrive at the factory. The ground floor was for shipping and receiving, and it was run by young Latino men who wore loose slacks and white T-shirts. Incoming fabric was sent up the freight elevator to the cutters on the third floor. Right now they were making lingerie and the cutters stacked layers of satin and rayon fabric on large wooden tables and sliced through the fabric with electric scissors. The seamstresses on the second floor were illegal immigrants from Mexico and Central America. Mr. Bubble paid them thirty-two cents for each piece they sewed. They worked hard in the dusty room, but always seemed to be laughing about something or talking to one another. Several of them had framed photographs of the Virgin Mary taped to their sewing machines and the Holy Mother watched over them while they stitched together red bustiers with little gold hearts dangling from the back zipper.

Gabriel and Michael had spent the last few days living on the fourth floor, a storage place for empty boxes and old office furniture. Deek had purchased sleeping bags and folding cots from a sporting goods store. There weren’t any showers in the building, but at night the brothers went downstairs and took sponge baths in the employee restroom. They ate doughnuts or bagels for breakfast. A catering truck was parked outside the factory during lunch and one of the bodyguards would bring them egg burritos or turkey sandwiches in Styrofoam containers.

Two El Salvadorans watched them during the daytime. After the workers went home, Deek arrived with the bald Latino man-a former nightclub bouncer named Jesús Morales. Jesús spent most of his time reading car magazines and listening to ranchero music on the radio.

If Gabriel got bored and wanted a conversation, he went downstairs and talked to Deek. The big Samoan got his nickname because he was a deacon in a fundamentalist church in Long Beach.

“Each man is responsible for his own soul,” he told Gabriel. “If someone goin’ to hell, then there’s more room for dah righteous in heaven.”

“What if you end up in hell, Deek?”

“Ain’t gonna happen, brutha. I’m goin’ upstairs to the good place.”

“But what if you had to kill someone?”

“Depends on the person. If he was a real sinner, den I’m makin’ dah world a better place. Trash goes in dah trash can. Know what I’m tellin’ you, brutha?”

Gabriel had brought his Honda motorcycle and a few books up to the fourth floor. He spent his time dismantling the bike, cleaning each part, and putting it back together. When he was tired of doing that, he read old magazines or a paperback translation of The Tale of Genji.

Gabriel missed the feeling of release that came to him whenever he raced his motorcycle or jumped out of a plane. Now he was trapped in the factory. He kept having dreams about fire. He was inside an old house watching a rocking chair burn with an intense yellow flame. Breathe deep. Wake up in darkness. Michael lay a few feet away, snoring, while a garbage truck outside the building loaded a dumpster.

During the day, Michael paced around the fourth floor while he talked on the cell phone. He was trying to hold together his purchase of the office building on Wilshire Boulevard, but couldn’t explain his sudden disappearance to the bank. The deal was falling apart as he pleaded for more time.

“Let it go,” Gabriel said. “You can find another building.”

“That might take years.”

“We could always move to another city. Start a different life.”

“This is my life.” Michael sat down on a packing crate. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and tried to wipe off a grease mark on the toe of his right shoe. “I’ve worked hard, Gabe. Now it feels like everything is about to disappear.”

“We’ve always survived.”

Michael shook his head. He looked like a boxer who had just lost a championship fight. “I wanted to protect us, Gabe. Our parents didn’t do that. They just tried to hide. Money buys protection. It’s a wall between yourself and the rest of the world.”