Maxwell had been awake since 5:47.
He had turned the system on twice, turned it off both times, made himself a coffee, stood by the window, staring into space, and made himself another coffee. Now he was still standing by the same window, staring into space, the apartment at 1440 North Lake Shore Drive etched in his mind, like a large piece of furniture in a small room that had to be circled repeatedly.
He owned a lakeside apartment valued at $487,000. He had gone there yesterday afternoon, picked up the keys from a woman who spoke to him exactly as he expected, stood by the window, looked at the lake, opened the refrigerator, and returned to Logan Square to eat Thai chicken under a patch of Texas-style dampness.
He was still thinking about the logistics when his phone rang.
The contact name was: NATE.
She answered. "You're up early."
"I need your help, and it's urgent."
Maxwell looked at his coffee. Nate Cross considered almost everything urgent. The parking ticket was urgent. The sale at Dick's Sporting Goods was urgent. Last September, he'd texted Maxwell at 2 a.m. with just the word URGENT, and the next message was about a faulty smoke alarm at the fire station that turned out to be a spider in the sensor. "So urgent."
"I met someone."
"You meet someone every ten days."
"This one's different. Well, her name's Patrice. She works at Walgreens on North Avenue, and I went to get some Advil on Thursday, and we were talking at the register, okay? And then she says..." Nate paused to build suspense, which was his intention... "'You have good energy.' What does that mean, Max? What does it actually mean?"
"It means you have good energy."
"But what does that mean?"
"Nate. It means she enjoyed being with you."
"Is that okay with you?"
Yes. It's definitely nice.
But she didn't give me her number. She just took my Advil and said... and then a line formed behind me, and I... Another pause, this time longer. I bought the Advil and left. Maxwell put down his coffee. He held two fingers to his forehead. Nat Cross was one of the nicest men he knew; he'd been his best friend since they were eleven and rode bikes around Wicker Park, he'd been there unsolicited through every tough moment of Maxwell's adult life, and somehow, even at twenty-five, the idea of asking a woman for her phone number still struck him as odd. Call Walgreens. Ask Patrice. Ask for her number.
Couldn't you just... call a business and ask a particular employee?
People have been doing that for fifty years.
Doesn't that seem weird to you? To him? "He told you that you have good energy at Walgreens at eight in the morning. It wouldn't seem strange to him."
Silence. Then, the surprise of a man who has just received information that has completely changed his perspective on the situation: "Okay. That's obvious. It's a very clear solution, Maxwell."
"Don't thank me."
"Of course, I thank you. You saved me on Sunday. Wait... Daniel texted me last night. Did you buy a BMW?"
Maxwell's jaw tightened two millimeters. "Yes."
"A 3 Series? Maxwell. Where...?"
"Bye, Nate."
"I'm calling to give you an update from the Walgreens parking lot..." He hung up. He finished his coffee. He put on his oldest jeans and a UIC sweatshirt with frayed cuffs and drove to Pilsen.
The F-150 was a 2004 beige model with 143,000 miles on it, and its transmission had failed around 142,600 miles and was no longer functional. It belonged to Eddie Reyes, who had been bringing vehicles to Dragowski Auto for twelve years and had dropped the truck off on Friday like someone leaving something important at a hospital.
Maxwell changed his clothes in the back room, where he kept an outfit, just as he kept a collection of fond memories, both frequently present and needing no explanation, and lowered the F-150 onto the tow truck while Robert placed the tools on the workbench with the care of a surgeon. It had been the same for thirty years. Every tool in its place. Robert had never considered a change.
They worked. The silence between them was well-earned; not a lack of conversation, but a different way of speaking, cultivated after years of working in the same place, at the same pace. Robert made sounds that served as a vocabulary: a low buzz indicated a plug, a second buzz an extension cord, a short exhalation meant "give me what you already have."
At 10:15, the transmission was on the workbench.
"The torque converter's blown," Maxwell said from under the truck.
"The third clutch pack's blown too," Robert said from the bench.
A pause.
"Yes," Maxwell said.
This was their most technical conversation in months. It included everything that needed to be done.
Maxwell was tightening the clutch housing at 11:09, lying on the gurney, his hands at an angle that his left shoulder would comment on tomorrow morning when the alarm went off.
She was reading the panel from her current position, which was about forty degrees from horizontal. This was new.
[Hidden Reward Unlocked]
[Condition: 2,555 consecutive days of skilled volunteer work in exchange for family benefits, with no pay, complaints, or absences]
[Seven years. On every visit to Dragoski Auto, Maxwell Dragoski worked. Not once did he look away.]
[Reward: Full acquisition of the property: Commercial storage and logistics facility]
[Address: 3200 S. Halsted Street, Chicago, Illinois 60608]
[Type: Commercial/Industrial. 28,000 sq ft warehouse + 4,200 sq ft office space]
[Occupancy: 100%. Three active tenants.] Lease agreement for 18 to 36 months.
[Current monthly rental income: $18,400]
[Market value: $2,340,000]
[Title: Registered in the name of Maxwell Dragowski]
[Deed and documentation: Chicago Title & Trust, 33 N. Dearborn Street]
Maxwell lay on his back, staring at the panel.
He was six inches from the underside of his 2004 Ford F-150. His left elbow rested on the concrete, which had been cold since October. He had transmission fluid on his left cheek, something he'd known for forty minutes and hadn't addressed because stopping to fix it would have meant admitting he'd seen it, which, under the circumstances, seemed like a concession he wasn't willing to make.
He now owns a $2.3 million commercial property on Halsted Street.
He'd been generating $18,400 in rent a month since that morning; he checked the date on the dashboard paperwork. Nate had called earlier that morning to ask about Patrice.
Robert's hand appeared above him, holding a three-quarter-inch pipe wrench.
Maxwell took it without adjusting it.
"Thanks," he said.
He continued working.
They stopped in the afternoon. Robert took two containers of baked beans from the office refrigerator, a machine of unknown age that operated at a temperature somewhere between cold and, technically, room temperature, which Robert defended with the unwavering determination of a man for whom it always worked and for whom "always working" was a complete sentence, and two cans of ginger ale. They ate at the workbench in front of the disassembled transmission.
Robert took three spoonfuls. He looked at the clutch.
Then: "Your grandfather, my father's father, when he came to Belgrade from the village, before I was born, your great-grandfather told me this." He drank a ginger ale. "He said the hardest part wasn't growing up in the city. He said the hardest part was that the city was huge and he was the only one who knew he belonged there." He paused. He looked at the torque converter. "It took someone else three years to figure it out."
Maxwell looked at his father.
Robert was eating beans again. He offered no details, no explanations, no hints that he meant anything beyond the words he used.
Maxwell finished eating and thought about Belgrade, 3200 South Halsted Street, and being the only one in the room who knew.
�� Power Stones: Let's talk about this.
Maxwell Dragowski had just inherited a $2.3 million commercial warehouse that generated $18,400 in passive income per month.
He was lying on a gurney under a Ford F-150.
His cheek was stained with transmission fluid.
When his father asked him for a three-quarter-inch socket wrench.
He took the wrench. He kept working. He said nothing.
This is Chapter 9. Chapter nine. We're here.