AllFreeNovel
Share Us
* * *
MIKE DIDN’T LIKE IT—not at all.
Their journey south through the snowy landscape couldn’t have gone any better. The white flakes coating the fields and decorating the trees had plunged them into their own personal and interactive Christmas card. With the heat blasting and music playing on an oldies station, Mike felt like he was exactly where he should be in retirement.
Except he wasn’t retired. He had one more job to do, and because this job had gotten personal, it was proving to be more stressful than all the assignments he’d had over the life of his career. Even more stressful than the previous one that he’d bungled.
Coming into the city, dressed in its holiday finest, had made it worse. The closer they got to the club, the more resentment he’d felt toward the Christmas shoppers with their normal lives and their normal families.
He used to feel that resentment because that normalcy was something he feared he’d never have. Now the resentment burned even brighter because he felt as if he were closer to it than he’d ever been in his life.
He’d found a woman, in Claire, who gave him hope that he could have a family without the expectations of perfection. He couldn’t do perfection, but he knew he’d never hurt Claire the way his father had hurt his mother.
The dissonant sounds of a saxophone in distress assaulted his ears, and he peered into the bowels of the dark club. “That sounds like an elephant in distress...or in love. I haven’t decided yet.”
Claire jabbed him in the ribs. “Have a little respect.”
“Do you see him yet?”
A pretty African-American girl with a hippie vibe approached them, the beads braided in her hair clicking. “Are you looking for a seat? There are a couple of tables near the bar.”
Mike shouted over the noise from the stage, “We’re meeting someone.”
Claire tugged on his sleeve. “I see him. Thanks.”
The hostess bowed her head and slipped through the black curtain that separated the front door from the interior of the club.
“This way.” Claire grabbed his hand and led him through the small tables where all the patrons sat facing the stage.
As they neared a table in the corner by a hallway, a young man half stood up, the whites of his wide eyes glowing in the darkness.
“Claire?” Hamid’s gaze darted toward Mike’s face.
“He’s helping us.” She pulled out her own chair and hunched over the table toward Hamid. “This is Mike. Mike, Hamid.”
Mike shook Hamid’s hand, damp with sweat or the beads of moisture from the drink he was nursing.
“You look good, Hamid. How’s school?”
“Are you serious?” Hamid glanced to his left and then his right, looking exactly like a fugitive on the run. “It was fine until a friend told me the FBI was looking for me.”
A waitress, balancing a tray of drinks on her hand, dipped next to the table. “What can I get you?”
The club had a two-drink minimum, but Mike had already discussed the importance of sobriety with Claire. His gaze dropped to Hamid’s glass, empty except for a few half-melted ice cubes. Obviously, the kid hadn’t gotten the memo.
“We’ll have a couple of beers, whatever you have on draft.”
She slapped down two cocktail napkins and melted back into the gloom.
Mike rapped his knuckles on the table in front of Hamid. “Someone gave you a heads-up about the FBI?”
“A couple of friends in Boston. I was already on my way to visit another friend in Queens.”
“Why’d you immediately take off, think the worst?” Mike folded over a corner of the napkin.
“I’m at MIT, not living under a rock. When that car bomb went off and killed the director of the CIA and then two FBI agents came looking for me, it gave me a bad feeling.”
“Had anyone been following you?”
“Following me?” He swallowed. “Why would they follow me? Wouldn’t they just arrest me?”
“Not sure.” Mike smoothed out the napkin. “Not if they wanted to see if you were meeting with anyone.”
The waitress returned and put two beers on the table, along with another cocktail for Hamid.
He folded both hands around the short glass and took a long drink.
