The Steel Kiss (Lincoln Rhyme 12)

As he opened the microwave's door, she dove forward and tackled him hard. They tumbled to the workshop's concrete floor as the ceramic cup inside the microwave exploded, sending a hundred pieces of shrapnel flying outward amid a searing cloud of steam.

CHAPTER 34

You all right, man?" Freddy Caruthers was asking.

Nick returned to the couch after letting the little guy inside. Looking particularly toady at the moment.

Judge Judy was on the screen. Nick said, "Wouldn't think I'd watch this, right? But I'm loving all the shows. Discovery Channel, A and E. I went in, there were fifty channels. Now, seven hundred."

"Only ten're any good. ESPN and HBO. All I watch. Big Bang Theory too. It's funny."

Nick shook his head. "Don't know it."

"You didn't answer me."

"Answer you?"

"You all right?"

"Good days, shitty days. Everything in between. This's a less-shitty-than-others one."

"That'd be a good self-help book. The Less-Shitty-Day-Than-Others Guide to Life."

Nick laughed hard. And let the subject go. He didn't explain that the shittiest days were the ones when he couldn't let go of the fact that life screwed him over; none of the shit that happened was his fault. Unfair. That was something he'd talked to the prison therapist about a lot. Dr. Sharana. "Life's unfair."

"Yeah, it can be. Let's talk about how you can deal with it, though."

He now explained to Freddy, "You never did time. It, what it does, is it resets you. Like you've got a clock in your gut or brain or somewhere and it turns a dial and life stops moving. Then you get out and, man, it's chaos. The traffic, the people moving." He nodded. "Just the TV programs. All those channels, I was saying. Everything. It can be too much. Like a mixture that's too rich in the carb."

But this gave him a moment's pause, since it put in mind Amelia Sachs, who was an expert at setting carburetors and getting even the most troublesome choke to do what she wanted.

"A book I read when I was a kid," Freddy was saying.

"A book?"

"When I was a kid. Stranger in a Strange Land. This alien comes to earth. Not like he's invading or anything, shooting people with a ray gun. It wasn't that kind of story. Anyway, this alien, he could change his sense of time. You go to the dentist, you speed things up and the visit goes by in seconds. You're making love, you slow it down." Freddy laughed. "I could use that, slow things down, I'm saying. Sometimes."

"That was in the book?"

"Not the dentist or the sex. It was a classy book. Science fiction but classy."

"Stranger--"

"--in a Strange Land."

Nick liked the concept. "That's just what it's like, yeah. Everything speeding up now I'm out. Get freaked some. I read a lot inside. But never heard of that one. I'll read it. Want a beer?"

Freddy was looking around the place. Nick had kept it as organized as his cell. Clean. Polished. Ordered. It was about as sparse as the cell too. He was going to borrow a car and go to Ikea. Inside, he'd dreamed about shopping there. Then Freddy glanced at his watch. "We should leave soon. But sure, one beer." And he looked relieved that it seemed the serious conversation was on hold.

Nick got a couple of bottles of Budweiser.

He church-keyed them, sat down and handed one over.

"You have booze inside?" Freddy asked.

"You could get 'shine. Expensive. Bad, real bad. Probably poison."

"They call it moonshine?" Freddy asked. This seemed to tickle him.