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“Please, call me Justice.”
“He needs some hy-dration, Ruth. Major Hummer said when you’re sick you gotta keep hy-drated.” Dougie put the bottled water to Justice’s mouth. Justice guzzled down nearly half the bottle. He was breathing hard when Dougie pulled it away.
“Thank you, Dougie.”
“I remember my wife wanting me to change jobs,” Dougie said, shaking his head, making the towel list to the left. He straightened it. “I don’t remember what I was doing that upset her or what she wanted me to do. It was a long time ago, ten years, twenty? I don’t know. Do you remember, Hummer?” Dougie craned his head around to look at him. Major Hummer shook his head, said, “Don’t worry about it, Dougie. Time doesn’t mean much. All that’s important is what’s here and what’s now, and who cares in the end? There’s always an end, isn’t there?”
Ruth said, smiling at Hummer, “Yes, but the end isn’t now, not for Justice. How do you feel now, Justice?”
“Agent Ruth, ma’am, I’m okay. My nose throbs, you know, and my leg sort of aches, but it isn’t bad. Can you find out who’s after me?”
Savich said, “We can and we will, but first, Justice, you’ll need to help us. Who were you meeting at the Blaze Café Tuesday afternoon?”
Justice didn’t meet his eyes, but he slowly nodded. “I really don’t have a choice, do I? All right, I’ll tell you the truth. I was really pissed at my wife for giving me that ridiculous ‘time-out,’ for acting like my job isn’t important enough. It really is, I mean, it’s about keeping us all safe. So when this pretty woman asked me if I’d like to have coffee with her after work on Tuesday, I said yes. I didn’t plan to sleep with her, believe me, but I was pissed. I wanted to spend some time with someone who appreciated who I am and what I do. So we made a date to meet at the Blaze Café, but she didn’t show. I waited, then walked outside, looking for her, and that’s when I spotted them—a man and a woman, looking at me, but trying to be cool about it. But I’m a CIA analyst, I know all about surveillance and how it should be done, and they’d screwed up. So I ran. Took them off guard, but they ran after me. When I came out of that alley I looked back and saw them. I ran into the street and hit a car, your car, you said, Agent Sherlock, and I flew off the other side of the hood. My leg was hurt, my nose was bleeding something fierce, but there were so many people running this way and that, talking on their cells, shooting videos, total chaos, so I managed to get away. I ended up here, and Major Hummer and Dougie took care of me.”
Savich said, “A man and a woman? Strangers to you?”
He flushed, nodded. “At first I thought maybe they were there because of the woman I was supposed to meet, maybe she was married and they were private investigators and that’s why she didn’t show up. But only for an instant. Even though they were wearing sunglasses I could tell their faces had that fixed look I’ve seen on faces before, giving nothing away, except they were there to take me, or worse.”
Savich said, “Can you describe them to us, Justice?”
“He was wearing a ball cap. I remember thinking he was bald because all I saw was scalp around the cap—not naturally bald, I remembering thinking, more like he shaved his head, but I could be dead wrong. And he had a big mustache. The woman had on a beret thing so I couldn’t see her hair, it was all tucked under the beret. They were average size, I guess, and both of them were wearing dark sunglasses. The woman was smaller than he was.”
Sherlock said, “Excellent, Justice. Tell us the woman’s name—the one you were supposed to meet?”
“Christy, her name was Christy Blake.”
Savich pulled out his cell and scrolled to a photo, showed it to Justice. “Is this Christy Blake?”
