Chapter 2 - The Bowl of Porridge
The knock came at 9:15 p.m.
Tristan sat in his wheelchair by the small wooden table, an unlit cigarette resting between his fingers. The light in the hallway flickered twice through the crack under the door.
In his line of work, a knock on an unlisted door in a South Side slum meant one of two things: Knox bringing intelligence, or an assassin coming to finish what Celeste started. His hand drifted downward instinctively toward the frame of his wheelchair, where a compact 9mm automatic was strapped inside a hidden leather sheath.
"Who is it?" Tristan’s voice was dry, low, and cut through the dark like rust on iron.
"It's... your neighbor," a female voice answered. It was soft, raspy from exhaustion, yet surprisingly clear. "From apartment 4B. I brought you something warm."
Tristan’s brow furrowed. Knox had assured him the neighbors on this floor were quiet, terrified people who kept their doors locked and their heads down.
"I didn't ask for anything," Tristan replied, his hand resting firm against the cold steel of his weapon. "Go away."
There was a brief silence on the other side of the wooden door. Tristan expected the footsteps to recede. Instead, there was a quiet, tired sigh, followed by the soft clatter of a ceramic bowl being set down on the floor outside.
"You've been coughing for two hours," she said through the wood. "The radiator in your unit doesn't work—I know because it broke in mine two years ago. The heat is coming off this bowl. Eat it while it's hot. You don't have to talk to me."
Her footsteps moved away, light and hurried, the sound of her door closing down the hall marking her departure.
Tristan waited two full minutes. The building was dead quiet except for the faint hum of distant traffic from the expressway.
Slowly, carefully, he unlocked the safety of his sidearm, held it beneath his left arm, and used his right hand to roll his wheelchair to the door. He unlocked the bolt with a sharp metallic slide and pulled the door open an inch.
There was no ambush. No gunmen in the hallway.
Only a simple white ceramic bowl sitting on the dusty floorboards, steam rising from it in delicate white curls. Inside was coarse, hot rice porridge, seasoned with a pinch of green onions and a few drops of sesame oil.
Tristan stared at the bowl for a long time. For three years, his meals had been prepared by five-star private chefs, served on sterling silver platters in rooms guarded by men with assault rifles. Yet, sitting on the filthy linoleum of a condemned building, this six-cent bowl of hot rice looked stranger to him than any assassin’s blade.
He leaned forward, reached down with his good arm, grabbed the bowl, and pulled it inside, locking the door behind him.
He rolled back to his desk, picked up the plastic spoon left beside the rim, and took a small bite.
It was hot, salty, and simple. But as the warmth spread down his chest, reaching the deep, aching void where his shoulder wound still throbbed, something inside Tristan’s icy chest cracked open just a millimeter.
May you like
He looked toward the concrete wall sharing space with Apartment 4B.
"Who are you?" he murmured to the empty room.
