Steal the Lightning: A Field Ops Novel (Field Ops #3)(17)

She kept on looking at the screen.

“Good,” she said, eventually.

“Good . . . ?”

“You’ll need some help. It’s an opportunity. For both of you. As things are—well, from our point of view, this is damage limitation, and I understand you have experience with that?”

It took me a moment to realize she wanted an answer.

“Just some stuff last year,” I said.

“Chicago.”

“Yeah . . .”

The index finger tapped again.

“This isn’t what I do, you know.”

“I have been told,” she said, “that you’ve had some success in other cases.”

“It’s a matter of opinion.”

“I’ll send you the files. See if you can find our Mr. Appleseed before he causes any more problems, will you?”

I nodded.

She said, “And one more matter. You met Silverman?”

“What about him?”

“You know him well?”

“He made Rikers. It was on PBS.” When she kept staring, I said, “No, I don’t know him at all. We met the other night. He helped me out, when no one else would.”

“We’ve had an e-mail from him. He says you’re working on a documentary about your job with him. Is that true?”

“Hardly. He said he wanted to make a film. I told him, talk to my boss.”

“He took you literally.”

“OK.” I shrugged. “Call the legal people, get a cease and desist, problem solved. I’m certainly not making any film.”

“Don’t be so hasty.” She was reading something on the screen. “Apparently they like him. They say he has ‘integrity.’ He could be good for us.”

“Well, tomorrow, I am out of here, and tonight, I have no intention of sitting down and being interviewed by anyone. Except maybe a barman or two. So that’s that.”

It wasn’t, but I’d had enough.

“Send me the files,” I said.

I stood up, pulled my jacket on, and left.



There is a problem in Manhattan. Rents go up, and all the little shops and bars that made it so much fun are gradually eroding, while the chains are moving in. But I knew a couple of places I could get a drink and nestle in that cozy New York anonymity, where you can drink alone and not feel like a loser, or an alcoholic.

I had to pass the evening somehow.

The last thing that I wanted was to have to think.





Chapter 14

Reunion




She was due to meet me at the airport. New York to Detroit: one hour, twenty minutes, clean out of my life.

After so many air miles, I should have found a better way to pass the time. I used to read—the heavy stuff, Tolstoy, Dickens, Sartre—but this time, all I did was flick through a magazine, doze a while, and watch a sitcom with the sound turned off.

One day, I thought, I want that dead time back. Every flight, every bus ride, every train journey. Put in an expenses claim: five years in transit. Please recompense.

We landed. Disembarked. I scooped my luggage off the carousel and stumbled back into the real world.

Angel was there, leaning on a wall outside Arrivals, wearing an old black hoodie, faded jeans, and a Red Wings cap. She was watching something on her phone, her hip stuck out, her body in a graceful, athlete’s curve, and I wanted just to hang back in the crowd a moment, amazed that I even had a link to this extraordinary woman. I wanted—almost—just to slink away, to leave the scene as perfect as it was, before I’d had the chance to say the wrong thing and to ruin it.

I’d said the wrong thing lots of times before.

And done the wrong thing, too.

I’d walked out on her once—a long time back, but not too long for either of us to forget.

I had an awful sense of the fragility of life, how quickly and easily the good parts can slip between your fingers, gone before you’ve even noticed, and I teetered there, trapped in my own unease.

Then she looked up, and she saw me.

And she gave a big, big grin.

“Hey!”

I ran over. I dropped my bag. I threw my arms around her, felt the muscles moving in her back, and she hugged me like she was trying to squeeze the life out of me.

“I missed you. Riff missed you too.”

Riff was her pet pit bull, a grown dog with delusions of puppyhood.

“He gave me a message for you,” and she pulled back, just a moment, and I could see the mischief in her eye.

Then she stuck her tongue out and she licked me on the nose.



“Is it as bad as everybody says?”

“Detroit? Depends.” She pulled the car out of the parking lot. She wore shades and the cap and little gold studs shone in her ears. I had the coolest-looking chauffeur in America. “Depends on where you are. Who you are. Some’s worse, some’s better.” She spun the wheel. “Years since I was last there.”

“Didn’t inspire you musically?”

“Ha.” She hit a rhythm on the wheel with her hand. “Baby lo-ove, my baby love . . .”

She was very precise, very classical. I said, “You need to make it breathy. And, like, slur your notes more. Yeah?”