Brian’s left shoulder and knee hurt where he had landed. A brown scuff marred the seersucker at his knee and the jacket’s seam had torn at the shoulder. His bowtie needed attention. The office door hung from a single hinge; its shattered glass glittered on the floor. The finely made chair, one leg broken, lay on its side. His wallet’s contents spilled across the coffee table like a gutted fish, beside his, car fob, iPhone, and portfolio. Beneath the table, Raul’s cigar smolde

Raul Mendoza picked up his cigar, lay across the couch and blew a plume of smoke toward the ceiling. “Please, Brian Newell. Tell me how I can help you.”

Raul Mendoza pushed his office door closed, barely muting the sound of files grinding to dust in Nelly’s office. He turned the deadbolt’s knob; its bolt clicked home. Rounding the coffee table, he dropped onto the couch. Its cushion hissed like air escaping a punctured tire.

Nelly Sheridan grabbed another arm load of manila folders and tossed them into The Exonerator. The machine roared and growled, grinding what may once have been evidence into fairy dust. “See,” she said. “That’s how we do it.”

Brian Newell approached a frosted glass door with The Honorable J. J. Carpenter in brassy gold leaf across it. A grinding noise came from inside. He waited for the noise to stop and knocked.

On the security counter’s far side, a woman watched Brian Newell’s approach. Red lipstick outlined her mouth. Rouge smeared both cheeks. Wearing a blue nylon jacket with City of Miami stitched in white script on the left and Sylvie on the right, she adjusted the quilt on her shoulders and pointed to a worn wooden cigar box. “Folder under the box. Keys, wallet, phones, anything metal, goes in the box.”

Brian Newell caught his reflection in City Hall’s double glass doors. Straightening his bowtie, he reassured himself that its red and navy stripes achieved a classic look — a handsome pairing with his blue on white seersucker suit — his old-school homage to a more elegant past.

Brian Newell turned left onto Pan American, the long formal drive to Miami City Hall. At its end, he wheeled around the traffic circle fronting the building.

Early that Thursday morning, Brian Newell’s pristine, cobalt blue Camry hybrid idled noiselessly at the red light on 17th.