Murder in the Magic City: A Micah Brantley Story

front of the building at night required one of a variety of specific codes given to each resident at the time they signed their mortgage. They simply input the codes into a small keypad next to the front doors and watched as their world opened. This provided inhabitants of the luxurious abode a laughably false sense of security.
The fact of the matter is, if someone really wants to get into your home, they’ll do it. You can pull out all the stops to deter wrongdoers from gaining access to your belongings but, as the saying goes, where there’s a will, there’s a way. Micah was not one who suffered from a shortage of will, and he was certainly no stranger to doing his homework prior to plunging headfirst into a job. This was no different. He knew there would be roadblocks in his path, but he had no intention of halting his progress for them.
Certain that no one was watching him, Micah slipped past the front of the building and stealthily made his way into the alley. A dim exterior light provided the only break from the darkness in the slim divide between absurdly priced luxury condos and the wall opposite them, which held at bay the perceived madness on the other side.
I guess questionable lightning is a requirement for an alley, Micah thought.
To the most casual observers, the alley was hidden when viewed from the front of the building. It would be a sore sight for the eyes of the moneyed people who lived in the concrete castle on its border, the goings on within it beneath the station their egos placed them on. Despite that, it was a necessary evil whose existence far outweighed their disdain as the daily operations which took place in the dark corridor ensured the condominium was in tip-top shape every moment of every day.
Micah approached a door with black painted letters announcing it as an EXIT ONLY. Below that were smaller letters which showed the location of the entrance. The sole light in the alley sat atop the door and cast a small circle of clarity on the ground below. Micah crouched against the wall opposite the door. He wore a white oxford shirt tucked into black slacks. A pair of black leather gloves and equally dark shades completed the motif. The shadows rendered him nearly invisible. He was contemplating the myriad ways in which to take care of Cagney when the door burst open and a bell hop stepped out with a cigarette in his mouth. The man looked down absentmindedly as he fumbled for his lighter.
Micah slowly crept up behind the man an inch at a time, careful not to expose his presence. When the man stopped moving around and leaned forward slightly to light his cigarette, Micah stepped right behind him. He wrapped his right arm around the man’s neck, introducing the man’s throat to where his forearm and bicep met. He braced the back of the man’s head with his left hand and applied pressure. Slow at first, causing the man to struggle. The pressure increased as the flow of oxygen to the man’s brain dwindled.
After a few unpleasant minutes, the man collapsed like a deflated balloon in Micah’s arms. He removed the red vest the man had been wearing and put it on. With it, he hoped to be mistaken for one of the condominium’s many employees. Of course, if the security guard were worth his pay and applied even a moderate level of scrutiny, he would spot the discrepancy. Micah had measures in place to take care of that problem, but hoped that it wouldn’t come to that. He dragged the bell hop’s body to a nearby dumpster, heaved him inside and quietly closed the lid. Content with the way the night had gone to that point, he brushed off the vest and walked inside.
The guard on duty paid him no attention. The mindless infomercial playing on the screen at his desk engrossed him. Something about rubber that sprayed out of a can being sold by a guy who didn’t seem to understand what it meant to maintain composure. The guard did not know that the man who just walked in wasn’t the man who had left a few minutes prior. Not that it mattered. He had to call the number on the screen to get the best bang for his buck before the timer reached zero. It was the outcome Micah had seen as the least likely, but fate had other plans for him. He walked over to a nearby elevator and pressed the call button.
Moments later, the elevator deposited him on Cagney’s floor. The décor in the hallway was rather spartan. An emerald green rug ran from the elevator to the only door on this side of the penthouse floor. A beautiful orchid in a plain pot rested on either side of the door. Aside from that, the only other thing of note were nondescript paintings hung at random intervals. Micah walked over to the door and tested the lock. As expected, it didn’t budge. This wasn’t the Midwest. Forgetting to lock your door in Miami was about as good an idea as posting flyers informing people of a garage sale at your home that was full of free items. Even in a building with supposed top-flight security, nothing was off limits. He glanced both ways before picking the lock. It offered little resistance. Without the lock hindering his path, he stepped inside and locked the door behind him.
Cagney was a man of peculiar taste. He couldn’t settle on just one style for his home’s interior design. Instead, he invested in pieces from many different, and sometimes contrasting, styles. To the left of the entrance was a Mediterranean themed kitchen. To the right, a modern living room with only the essentials. Judging by the framed canvas paintings with Kanji at the end of the hallway on the opposite side of the condo, Micah could only