Sin City Baby

“I hate that you can do that,” I said, cringing at how well my friend knew me.

“It’s the only other skill you’ve got. Unless you wanna open up a martial arts studio or something.”

“Or a gym.”

Daniel grinned at me, and I shook my head. I didn’t smile nowadays. I couldn’t. But Daniel got me close sometimes. I stared out the window as our waitress approached us and gave her my order so I could get the hell out of there.

“How’s the new place?” he asked.

“We’re really gonna do this?” I asked.

“Yep. How’s the new house?”

“Decent enough. The owners have already informed me they would be willing to do a ‘rent to own’ situation,” I said.

“See? Something to work toward.”

“I’m not planting roots here.”

“Why not?” he asked.

“Why should I?” I countered.

“Because you supposedly have a job to do. How can you do that job if you don’t have a home base to do it at?”

“Why did you come to town again?”

“To check up on you, Graham. You have a nasty habit of falling off the face of the planet. I see you still have that truck.”

“Had the tags changed and replaced. Not a problem,” I said. “And if you can track me, so can they.”

“Hardly. I haven’t worked for the CIA for three months now.”

“What?” I asked.

“Yeah. Got tired of their shit too. Too many missions failing for no reason and with no one giving any straight answers,” he said.

“Well, damn.”

“Went through their whole ‘we gotta debrief you so you don’t say shit’ thing and then got the hell outta dodge.”

“Where you set up now?” I asked.

“I’m working on it. DC isn’t my kind of area for long-term shit, but it’s got some nice wooded areas around it.”

“Forever the mountain man.”

“Says the man with a beard four inches long.”

“Don’t like it, don’t look at it,” I said.

“Kind of hard not to. I mean, it’s impressive.”

Our food came, and we shot the shit, updating each other on our lives. I didn’t have much to talk about, and Daniel was a motor-mouth. That’s how I preferred it.

“Sounds like you got a mission of your own,” I said when he finished telling all the reasons he’d stopped trusting the Agency.

“I’m working on it,” Daniel said. “But not like you are.”