The shark glass is thicker than my hand, and the sharks swim close enough that I can see the seams in their skin.
I cleaned this tunnel six nights a week. Not for the pay. It had the best sightline in the city.
My supervisor came up the steps with both night cleaners behind him, and he was already smiling the way he smiled.
He asked if I called that clean. He said his drunk ass could do better.
Then he said the glass was full of fucking streaks, and that I was a useless bitch. A useless fucking bitch, he said, in front of both of them.
The two cleaners looked at the wall. Nobody said anything.
He told me to say something. His fingers were tight on my wrist, and the skin went white, then red.
It would leave marks by morning. I let him keep it.
He put his face right up to mine and said if I kept it up he would write me up, then dump me in the tank, and nobody would find me.
I got him. I could have put him through the glass in two seconds. My hands knew how.
I kept my hands on the mop and said nothing.
That was the job. The job was being nothing.
At eleven the crew went home and the lights dropped to blue.
Then the lower gallery doors opened and he walked in.
Ettore Malandri. Jacket off, sleeves rolled to the elbow, one hand loose at his side.
I had watched him for four years. Twenty feet above him, it got worse. I wanted his hand on the back of my neck, and I hated how much.
Two of his men stood behind him. A man in a gray suit did the talking.
Ettore listened with his head tilted, like the words cost him nothing.
Then he looked up. Straight up through the water, at the dark catwalk.
I did not breathe. He could not see me. He looked anyway.
That was when I saw the light on the far catwalk. A thin red dot on the rail, shaking.
A man lay there with a rifle, and the barrel pointed down through the tank at Ettore's chest.
He had a clear shot. I did not.
So I moved.
He heard my boots and rolled up. The stock of his rifle hit my mouth and split my lip open.
I tasted blood. I turned his wrist until the rifle dropped, and then my pistol was already out.
He called me a fucking cleaner bitch, spitting it through his teeth.
I shot him twice in the chest. Inside the tunnel the sound was huge.
His wild shot cracked the rail beside my head. Hot metal, then ringing.
He was still talking. He said I was dead, that his boss would skin me alive, and that he would be there to watch.
I put my knee on his chest and looked down at him until he stopped talking.
His hand had been closed on something. My cleaner badge. It tore off my shirt when he swung.
I did not look down. I was already crawling to the edge.
I looked down through the water. Ettore stood under the tank with his head tipped back.
He was not running. He was not shouting. He was staring up at the dark catwalk like he could feel me on it.
Ettore: Something's up there.
One of his men reached for a phone. Ettore put a hand on his arm and stopped him.
Ettore: Leave it. I want to see what it does.
I lay in the dark and watched him watch for me. My lip bled. My wrist ached. My badge was gone.