Jakob Ynman, Assistant Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Hannifer Associates, Twenty-first floor, closed his eyes and rubbed his temples as the elevator slowly moved up to the twenty-first floor. It was dark. One light stayed on, five doors down the hall, flickering uncertainly in the 11:30 hour.
Bing! Announced the elevator, rolling back the faintly reflective gray doors. The elevator its self was on the outside of the building, one of the ones with glass windows all around. Its floor was industrial strength dusk blue carpeting, with small gray zigzags waving diagonally across it. It's doors revealed another man. Dark, combed back hair, with a leather jacket over his dark blue button-down shirt and tie. He was reading a newspaper, the Daily Chronicle, at half-arm's length, though small, wire-rimmed glasses.
Jakob walked into the elevator. His finger extended, it brushed over the keys until it found the one, and then jabbed it. It lit up, and the elevator began to move slowly down. He tried to relax, to figure out how he could stop having to stay up so late every day, but he couldn't.
The presence behind him was like an ominous cloud. He was obligated to speak. "Late night?" he said, tiredly, like an overly articulate sigh.
"Oh, yes. Usually is. Still, though, I'll be glad to get home." Said the stranger, his voice clear and deep.
"Really? Strange that I've never run into you. I have to stay late nearly every night." Commented Jakob.
"I normally use a different elevator." Jakob silently thanked the man for the dismissive comment.
"Oh." Said Jakob, finally glad to be left to his own thoughts.
The elevator rolled down a few more floors. The two men stood in silence, one reading a paper at half-arm's length, then other lost in thought. Both men had their backs to the glass wall, with the lights of the city slowly rising up towards them.
The dial moved, down, one second 18 the next 17, always down. Jakob was worried. His forehead wrinkled in the faint light from the one overhead light. He was betting to himself that his wife would be giving him the divorce papers today. Or tomorrow morning, just to ruin his day. Jakob loved his wife. He hadn't ever cheated on her, but she had definite ideals to the contrary, and nothing he could do so far could convince her, even, probably, the bouquet of flowers and the note that said, "I will love you forever" that would be arriving tomorrow, thanks to Roseland Florists.
The elevator rolled down more floors. From 14, to 13, then 12, and 11.
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There was only one time in his life that Jakob had heard a gunshot. Police had confronted an escaped criminal in the big intersection at Main and Fifth. Jakob had been at a coffee and newsstand across the street. The criminal, whom Jakob remembered as a very rural looking man, had pulled out a small revolver and shot it at the four police cars, which blocked his only exit.
He remembered it as loud. Air filling, the crack of an explosion. It seemed to erupt in your ear, instead of coming to it. It pierced through every other sound, every feeling.
Part of it was the silence. Right after the shot, everything was so quiet, you could hear the windows all the way across the block slowly closing.
The police had returned fire, and the criminal had run. Jakob thought that it would have been a horrible feeling, to die with that sound still bursting inside your head.
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The gunshot in the elevator, however, was different. It started at the edges of his ears, and slid slowly inwards, muffled. The bullet, he guessed, flew through the air to hit him in the back, because all at once his entire body seemed to be on fire, then aching, then just as suddenly, not there at all.
Ironically, the last words on his lips were his wife's name, who was sleeping at home, divorce papers having been left just inside the door.
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The man in the leather jacket, an assassin, reached down to Jakob's body, and deftly pulled out the wallet. He had never liked checking corpses, but he had been taught that there was nothing more embarrassing than having supposedly killed a man, only to meet him the next day.
The wallet was black leather. In the middle was a series of pockets, to the right a picture of Jakob's wife, and to the left, his driver's license. As the assassin read over the words, "Jakob Ynman" he winced.
But surely this couldn't be Jakob Ynman. The information had been specific: He'd be the only one in Elevator #3 at sometime after eleven o'clock at night. He was the president of Schaffer & Schaffer Incorporated, software and hardware developers. His name was Daniel Cleski, and this man was not him.