The Man With the Keys

Emani peered through the keyhole of the apartment.

The tall, hard-faced man who had knocked on the door a few seconds before now stood further down the hall, tapping his foot frenetically. His dark suit was clean and tight. It looked new and expensive, to Emani - but she wasn't really sure. At any rate, she thought that the man didn't much fit in these surroundings.

The apartment complex her mother had chosen was dated, to say the least; Emani wasn't sure their were any other buildings left in the whole downtown with keyholes old and large enough to peer through. There was a slightly more modern deadbolt set higher on the door - but you couldn't see through that one, and she would've had to stand on her tippy toes to even reach it anyway.

But this place was the cheapest and least flashy, her mother had said - and those two things mattered more than all else, right now.

The door to the stairwell opened suddenly. The tall man turned to face the door, before curtly greeting the character emerging from it onto the scene.

"So you're the man with the keys?"

"That'd be me, sir."

The man with the keys looked to be in his mid-sixties. His smudged, dark green shirt, tucked into belted cargo shorts, bore a battered magnetic name tag with the name 'Lenny' scrawled across it. Emani thought that he looked a little bit like a really shorter version of the angry man on the TV, whom her mother said didn't like people like her.

Lenny twisted to unclip something from his back belt loop. Bringing it round, Emani saw that the man bore a comically huge collection of keys - at least fifty, all attached to a mess of keychains hooked around one giant orange carabiner. The keys jangled like the handbells in her music class at school, as Lenny brandished them about.

"They never got 'round t'makin' a master key...some s'pokesman from the company said they're workin' on it...but that must'a been last April at least."

Emani shifted as silently as she could, sore from awkwardly half-squatting by the keyhole. She squinted out at the man with the keys, reevaluating. His face was heavily lined and a little odd, but his voice sounded kind.

The tall, hard-faced man huffed.

"It's fine. So long as one of those gets this door open..."

The two figures then suddenly made for the apartment door. Emani stayed frozen in place, not daring to move and potentially make noise. Mother had said she should always pretend not to be home - especially now. But she wouldn't be seen though this tiny keyhole, surely...

The hard-faced man was so tall that his head and shoulders shifted out of view as he approached. Lenny, however, was short enough that Emani could still see his face as he moved.

While continuing towards the door, Lenny's eyes shifted downwards - and looked right through the keyhole, directly into Emani's. His eyes widened slightly.

With a silent gasp, Emani whipped away from the door,

She heard the voice of the hard-faced man. "What was that?"

Lenny's voice responded. "I - what d'you mean?"

The tall man sounded even more curt than before. "Don't play games with me, man. You just twitched like I tased you or something."

There was a pause. "Yeah...yeah, I s'pose I....yeah, I get little tics sometimes, if y'gotta know. Genetic. Nothin' anyone can do."

Another pause. Emani tried not to breathe.

"Whatever. You got the right key in that mess?"

Emani squeezed her eyes shut, her heart beating fast. She had been so sure that the keyhole was big enough for anyone to notice her peering out of - stupid, stupid, stupid, she cursed to herself. But why hadn't the man with the keys just told on her..?

"Yeah, I s'pose so..."

It was difficult to hear Lenny over the jangling of the keys that he was undoubtedly ruffling through. He continued speaking, quite slowly now.

"What's y'reason for needin' t'get inta this place, anyhow?"

"We have reason to suspect that some of these units might be housing dangerous illegals."

Illegals. Emani had heard that word on the television a lot, lately. She could feel her heartbeat in her throat as the men's conversation continued.

"Ahh." The keys kept jangling. "You lot need some kinda warrant for that stuff, though, right..?"

A harsh laugh rang out - mirthless, more like a bark.

"We've got a warrant, man. Don't worry about it."

Jangle. Jangle. Jangle.

"O'course, o'course...jus' tryin' to do my job as an upstandin' citizen an' all. Realized the boss told me to help you out with openin' up this door, without me ever askin' why."

Emani was sure now that the tall, hard-faced man was just the sort her mother had told her might come to take her away.

Yet in this moment, the door remained locked - as Lenny kept chattering over his chorus of keys.

"If you don't mind me askin...what kinda warrant do y'all have, then?"

"An administrative warrant. We are within our rights to make arrests regarding civil immigration."

The jangling stopped.

"But not t'enter a private home without consent, I believe?"

Dead silence.

What was happening?

The floor creaked slightly outside the door; Emani suspected the tall man might have taken a step closer to Lenny.

"You know the way things are right now. You obstruct our operations and you could end up with a warrant for your arrest, man."

Every second felt like a lifetime to Emani. A bead of sweat rolled down her forehead, then down the bridge of her nose.

'Oh well, far be it from me t'obstruct the good and helpful operations of our well-intentioned government, sir." Lenny's voice was as chipper as anything. "Just tryin' to remain faithful to good ol' due process'n such...now where is that gosh darn key?"

The jangling resumed in earnest.

Emani swallowed the ache building in her throat. This was it.

Then the noise of the keys stopped once more.

"Aw shoot...y'know what? This is one of those gosh darn new deadbolts - they just installed these a couple'a months ago. Manager says he's got the spare keys for them on backorder, but they haven't gotten'em yet."

Emani blinked slowly. Was she hearing correctly?

"You've got to be joking," came the tall man's exasperated hiss.

"I'm 'fraid not, boss - wish I'd remembered 'bout the deadbolts earlier, that's m'bad."

"Try the rest of your keys."

"I'm telling you, none'a the rest of these'll work on that door."

"Try them."

"C'mon man, y'see how many I've got here? You wanna be here all day?"

Without warning, there rang out a terrible pounding:

BOOM BOOM BOOM.

Emani put a hand over her mouth as the old door rattled on its hinges; she was certain the tall man was slamming his fist against it. She slid further down the wall, her eyes darting to the little kitchen window across the room. Would I be okay dropping from that one..?

Over the door's rattling, a cry rang out - from the man with the keys.

"Calm down, man! Y'wanna bust down the freakin' door?"

The pounding on the door abated.

"No...no. I haven't got that kind of warrant..."

The tall man's heavy breathing faded slightly as he moved a little away from the door.

"...yet."

After another pause, the creaking floor alerted Emani of the men's imminent departure. The two did not speak as they walked back down the hall.

"I'll be back. Make sure you have the right damn key before I am."

The hallway door slammed. Silence.

Lenny had followed the man out, evidently.

Emani exhaled, long, loud, and slow. Her whole body was aching from being tensed and pressed against the wall.

She did not have the luxury to process what had just happened.

She was sure her mother would have them pack up that very evening.

It would be sudden, it would be scary, and it would be necessary - so said mother, the last few moves.

Where they would go, she could not know; how long they had, she did not dare guess.

Why the tall, hard-faced man and the angry man on TV wanted to find her, she still did not understand.

All that she did know was that she and her mother had a few more moments of safety because of the man with the keys.