At 5:31 p.m. at the East Bank Club, the people Maxwell had mentioned over the past three weeks were especially present on Friday: a retired cardiovascular surgeon who swam sixty laps without breaking form or making eye contact with anyone in the building, two stockbrokers following identical programs on the treadmill, as if they had started competing against each other at birth and never stopped, and Arthur Greer, who was in the gym at his usual time, 5:28 p.m. on Friday.
Maxwell had finished three sets of his pull-up routine, his right hand in the same position on the bar that his firearms module had modified the week before. The grip was the same, but the pull was different when the water bottle fell on his left foot. It landed on his Nike training shoe from arm's length with the characteristic force of 700 ml of stainless steel, a less-than-ideal force.
He saw the bottle. He looked up.
The woman who picked it up was already bent over, her hand outstretched, her expression a split second behind her reflexes. She straightened up. She was twenty-seven, African American, and wore athletic wear that fit with the deliberate precision of a piece of equipment rather than clothing. When she picked up the bottle again, her face reflected Maxwell perceived it automatically first irritation, then apology, and beneath both, a brief, involuntary amusement, which he silenced with the skill of someone trained not to be the first to find something funny.
"It hit your foot," she said.
"Yes," Maxwell replied.
"I…" A pause. The sentence was restructured. "You were too close to the shelf."
Maxwell looked at the shelf. It was bolted to the wall. It had been there since the building was constructed. She looked at it. "The shelf is where it always is."
"I know where the shelf is."
"I was on the shelf because I was using it."
He opened his mouth. The joke resurfaced, this time with more force. He swallowed it hard. "I'm sorry," she said. "I want to make it clear that I'm doing a terrible job, but I intend to apologize formally."
"Understood."
"Your leg…" "It's fine."
"They're made of steel…" "My leg is fine." He looked at her for a second. "You read statements on the tablet on the treadmill."
Wait a minute. "You've seen me before."
"You've been here twelve mornings this month. You're always on the treadmill in the back. You always have a tablet. You read as if you're more focused on the technical glitches than the information." He paused. "Attorney."
She lifted her chin slightly; it wasn't an expression of surprise, but rather that of someone who had underestimated the conversation and was adjusting mid-sentence. "Adrienne Cole," she said. She extended her hand, not carrying a water bottle. The grip was perfect: firm, effortless. "Maxwell Dragoski."
"What kind of logistics?"
"Supply chain consulting."
He nodded as she twirled the weights. "You optimize your training sequences the same way you optimize distribution routes. The most efficient route, not the most convenient." A corner of her lips twitched. "And you've come here every morning this month and done the same sequence. That means you worked out the routine once and memorized it."
"Civil litigation," Maxwell said. "You argue on instinct, but you prepare with a process. A deposition on a treadmill is a cross-check, not a first read."
She looked at him for a moment. "Kaplan and Briggs, Michigan Avenue."
"Member or guest of the East Bank Club?" he asked.
"Member. Four years." Her eyes briefly flicked across the membership wristband on her keyring: three weeks old. She put it away without a fuss. "Good morning, Dragoski."
She picked up her bag. Maxwell said, "Your left knee is buckling inward when you squat."
She paused. She turned completely around. "Excuse me."
"I have medial valgus when I squat. Only on the left side. Mild with the current weight. It gets worse with heavier loads." He stared at her, unblinking. "I noticed it on Tuesday."
The expression on her face had become a little more complex: three things were reflected simultaneously in her features: suspicion, foreboding, and the irritation characteristic of someone who gets precise information without asking a stranger.
"You're watching my squat technique," she said.
"I pay attention to the details. That's why you saw I optimized my routine. We both paid attention." He returned to the bar. "It's your job."
Four seconds of silence.
"If I don't fix it, will it get worse?" she asked.
"With heavier weights, yes. Eventually, it becomes a knee problem."
More silence. She looked at her left knee. He looked at her. "Okay," she said. It wasn't an agreement or a thank you. It was the words of someone who had absorbed the information and decided to do something about it, without intending to make a big deal out of it.
She walked to the treadmill. After three steps, her left knee adjusted: the valgus corrected, the alignment neutral. The change was so immediate and complete that Maxwell, seeing it, knew that Adrienne Cole was one of those people who noticed the improvement and worked on it even before the conversation officially ended.
He committed it to memory. He resumed his bridge routine.
He thought: He'll be here on Monday.
He finished his game. He went home, showered, made breakfast, a perfect shakshuka, seasoned to perfection, with the eggs cooked just right, a culinary masterpiece that would have amazed him fourteen days earlier, and went to work.
Reinhardt's situation changed at 10:45.
An email from Klaus Werner arrived in Maxwell's personal inbox. Four sentences. Reinhardt's board of directors had reviewed Maxwell's analysis of the Pacific Northwest. They were requesting formal approval of the proposal. Maxwell's analysis was specifically cited as the basis for the board's confidence in the expansion.
His name. Reinhardt in the board records.
He forwarded it to his Hartwell email, creating an internal record, and replied to Klaus from his personal email: Understood. The proposal was coordinated through Hartwell at the end of the month.
Then he went to Hartwell's office and knocked. Hartwell, wearing his glasses, read the forwarded email. He lifted his chin as he read Maxwell's name. He took off his glasses. "Werner specifically asked for you," Maxwell said carefully. "He requested Hartwell's proposal." "My name is there because I prepared the analysis. The deliverable is a company document." "Yes." He put his glasses back on. "From now on, I'll have to include it in Werner's correspondence." Maxwell said, "Absolutely." He walked back to his desk at the same pace he had for fourteen months in this building. He opened the notes on his phone: JH requests CC in KW Communications 10:51 a.m., Friday, March 16. First example. He looked at the note for a second. She thought about Greg Paulson and the closed-door meeting on Monday and the three screen checks. She thought about the gray jacket on Dearborn Street on Tuesday. None of these things were connected yet. Most of the patterns weren't really patterns at all, but coincidences that looked like patterns because the human mind is a meaning-making machine operating in a world that is often just noise.
But the texture was strange in a particular way. She filed it away and kept working.
When he arrived home at 6:44, the Range Rover was in parking space number two.
The system panel read 4:55 as he was in the elevator going up to the Hartwell parking garage; the small transparent lobby door displayed four seconds before opening.
[Hidden Reward Unlocked]
[Condition: 120 Consecutive Morning Visits to the East Bank Club (sessions of at least 45 minutes, no missed days)]
[Reward: 2012 Range Rover Sport HSE]
[Color: Santorini Black Metallic]
[Mileage: 0 (New)]
[Suggested Retail Price: $62,475]
[Title & Registration: Pending] Taxes: $0.00 (Host's Responsibility)
[Location: Parking Space 2, 1440 N. Lake Shore Drive, Chicago]
He parked the BMW in space number one, turned off the engine, and looked at the Range Rover in space number two.
Santorini Black. Zero miles. Brand new, parked in its parking space in his building overlooking the lake, it looked exactly the same as before: the second step on a ladder leading from a secondhand 328i to another place, the outline of which he was only just beginning to glimpse.
He walked around it. He checked the fit of the rear panels: perfect, identical. He looked at the wheel wells. He rested his hand on the roof like his father used to on the door panel of a BMW. He wasn't sure if he was looking at the car or just admiring it.
He went up to his room. He prepared dinner: perfectly seared roast chicken, fondue sauce, and roasted vegetables. He ate at the counter.
His phone rang. Daniel: "I called Priya. She said, and I quote, 'Whoever recommended him to you was right to be upset.' Max. Max."
Maxwell texted: "That means you called the right person. Have her read this."
"Okay, okay, okay. And yes. Why is there a brand-new Range Rover in the parking lot of your lovely building, the one I saw on my way home?"
Maxwell put down his fork.
"I was just passing by! It's a public street! And I remembered your BMW license plates because I have eyes and I noticed, and Maxwell, there's a Range Rover with your plates in that parking lot."
"You saw my plates."
"I didn't see your plates; I just have a good memory."
Daniel.
"A BMW and a Range Rover, Maxwell. At a building on Lake Shore Drive. I need information."
Maxwell stared at the lake for a moment. He picked up his fork.
He typed: Good night.
This isn't over yet.
I have some questions.
Many questions.
He hung up the phone. He finished dinner. Outside, Chicago buzzed with activity on a Friday night: the lights, the traffic, the distant sounds of the city, vast, carefree, and the perfect size.
He washed the dishes.
He watched the Range Rover from the kitchen window, which offered a small view of the parking garage entrance, fourteen floors below.
He thought: I have a BMW, a Range Rover, a lake, a warehouse that pays me $18,400 a month, a coworker checking my screen, a man in a gray jacket who's probably nobody, and a lawyer whose knee was popped back into place before he could finish the sentence.
He fell asleep. He was asleep when Daniel sent him his third message, which arrived at 9:30 in the morning and said: Well, I've decided I'm happy for you, but I'm also going a little crazy. Good night.