It was a cloudy day. Nice, he thought,
no need for sunglasses. In the crosswalk, people passed him, nothing more than
the sound of footsteps, a glimpse of a face, and maybe the lingering smell of a woman's perfume. At the corner on the other side of the street, a man behind a cart offered him a
hot dog. Yeah, just what I need, the man thought,
miscellaneous pig on bread. His stomach squirmed at the idea. He shook his head and moved on. The front door of the apartment building had no buzzers, the door was
unlocked, and the lobby was
empty. The man walked to the elevator. The button to go up was already lit. He pushed it anyway. It was
hot under his thumb. "Light's stuck," he muttered. The man stared at his feet for a few seconds, watched the one on the left tap out a tune. He looked up and met his own eyes
reflected in the bronze doors of the elevator shaft. He thought about the
empty hole back there, and walked across the lobby, through the stairwell door.