Born to Run

Chapter 32

Jack caught up with Theo for lunch at the Royal Castle.

Northwest Seventy-nine Street and Unity Boulevard was Theo’s old neighborhood, a hardscrabble part of town where deadly race riots had made Liberty City synonymous with violence in the 1980s. Over the years, crime had shut down or driven away scores of mom-and-pop businesses, but Royal Castle hamburgers-palm-sized patties with pickles, onions, and mustard-have been served at the same location for over half a century. The orange bubble letters on the windows and vintage sixties posters on the white tile walls were a nice touch of nostalgia, though the world’s last existing Royal Castle restaurant did not have a spotless past. It had taken a civil rights protest march to bring down the sign on the counter that had once proclaimed WHITES ONLY. Theo’s great-uncle Cy had been one of the first persons of color to sit himself down on one of ten chrome stools at the red-and-white counter, and he’d been coming for lunch every Friday since.

Theo kept eating, but Uncle Cy was so happy to see Jack that he got up and hugged him so hard that the old man accidentally farted.

“Ooops, my bad.”

Theo nearly burst with laughter, and Cy slapped him across the back of the head, as if he were ten years old again.

“Ain’t funny. Gettin’ old sucks.”

“You can say that again,” said Jack.

Cy introduced Jack to the waitress, a striking young woman who looked like a young Vanessa Williams and whose name was Brandy.

“Brandy?” said Jack.

“Yes. Brandy.”

“A fine girl,” said Theo.

“And what a good wife she would be,” said Jack.

“Huh?” said Brandy.

Jack was feeling all of forty again, referencing a pop song that was almost as old as he was to a woman who wasn’t even old enough to know Red Hot Chili Peppers unless they were on her nachos.

“Jack, take my seat,” said Cy. “I gotta run. You can have that last burger if you want it.”

Theo snatched it from the old man’s plate and stuffed his face.

Cy swatted him across the backside of his head again. “The boy’s hopeless,” said Cy.

“This, from a man who just blew his trumpet at the counter,” said Theo.

Cy swatted at him again, but this time Theo ducked.

“Not even my aim’s what it used to be,” said Cy. “I’ll see y’all later.”

Jack placed an order with Brandy-two burgers for himself and three more for Theo. Theo slurped down a root beer as Jack told him all about the visit from Sofia. Theo was Jack’s unofficial investigator, so, technically speaking, telling him about Sofia wasn’t a breach of the attorney-client privilege. More important, Theo knew a thing or two about people on the run, and Jack needed some insight.

“You scared?” said Theo.

“A little. She did say I could be next on the killer’s hit list.”

“Or he might just wait for you to die, now that you’re forty.”

“Go to hell.”

“So, you’re sure that the cause of everybody’s problems-yours, Sofia’s, Chloe Sparks’s-is all the same person?”

“I’d bet my Mustang on it.”

“It’s this Zorba guy?”

“Yeah. The Greek.”

“You know, it’s funny,” said Theo. “I once impressed the hell out of a chick by humming the theme from The Munsters and joining it seamlessly with ‘If I Were a Rich Man.’”

Jack pressed between his eyes, staving off a migraine. “First of all, I don’t even remember the theme from The Munsters. Second, ‘If I Were Rich Man’ is from Fiddler on the Roof, not Zorba. You’d know that if you were forty. And, third, why the hell are we talking about this?”

“Sorry. So, after talking to this Sofia, are you going to call the cops?”

“I was thinking about talking to Andie first.”

“To get protection for yourself, or to tell her what Sofia told you?”

“I’m still sorting that out.”

“Don’t you have some attorney-client issues?”

“The privilege starts to break down when your client is talking about a future crime.”

“Except that she’s not the one who is going to commit the crime. It’s someone else.”

Every now and then, Theo raised a legal issue that made Jack realize why his prison mates had called him “Chief Brief.”

Jack said, “It’s a gray area.”

Theo checked out Jack’s hair at the temples, searching for a pun, and for a brief instant another “forty” joke seemed imminent. He let it go.

“Meanwhile, Sofia is where?” said Theo.

“Hotel San Pietro.”

“You want me to talk to her?”

“How could that possibly help?”

“You got me off death row. She might trust you better if she meets someone who trusted you and won the lottery.”

The server put the burgers in front of them. Jack poured ketchup on his plate as he considered Theo’s remark.

“That’s not a terrible idea,” said Jack.

Theo grabbed a handful of Jack’s fries. It never seemed to matter to Theo that he had his own plate of food. Jack didn’t even bitch about it anymore.

“Here’s the thing,” said Theo. “You could force her to go to the police or to go see Andie. But you know what would happen.”

“She wouldn’t talk,” said Jack.

“And if she won’t talk, you can’t get her in witness protection.”

“That’s the worst of all worlds,” said Jack. “She’s clearly afraid of this guy. If he thinks she’s talking to the police but I can’t get her protection, she’s dead.”

“So you have to convince her that she wants to tell the police what she knows,” said Theo. “Let me talk to her.”

“I want to think more about that.”

Theo finished off his root beer, sucking air through the straw.

“Meanwhile, what do you do about protecting yourself?” said Theo.

“I do keep a gun in the office.”

“When’s the last time you shot it?”

Jack had to think. “Been a while.”

“Dude, you need a bodyguard.”

“I can’t afford that.”

Theo put on his dark sunglasses, folded his arms across his chest, and flashed a Secret Service expression.

“No way,” said Jack. “I’m not going there.”

“Will work for tequila.”

“Theo, forget it.”

“Suit yourself,” he said, then downed his last burger in one bite.

Jack said, “Can you come back to the office this afternoon and help with the packing?”

“Not today, dude. I have a jazz bar to run.”

“You’re taking this personally, aren’t you?”

“Me? Nah. You don’t want me to talk to Sofia. Fine. You don’t want me to be your bodyguard. That’s fine, too. I’m just stepping away from the plate before it’s strike three.”

“Theo, come on.”

“Later, dude. Brandy, see ya, girl. It’s back to my life, my love, and my lady, the sea.”

“Huh?”

Jack let him go. Theo didn’t pout often, but ignoring it was the best strategy.

“Anything else?” said the server.

“Just the bill.”

Jack took it. Somehow, he had ended up paying for himself, Theo, and Uncle Cy. Only then did Jack realize that all the pouting had been a ruse.

Theo Knight, you are one smooth operator.

Jack drove his Mustang back to the office, and again he was having second thoughts. Ever since he had decided to buy the fastback, Miami had seen nothing but cloudless blue skies and seventy degrees. It was enough to make him long for his old convertible. Andie would have called it another “Jack Swyteck/grass is always greener moment.”

He parked in front of the office and went inside. The only light in the room was a hint of afternoon sun filtering through the closed blinds, but when he switched on the desk lamp, nothing happened.

“It’s broken,” a man said.

Jack started and turned to see a stranger in the shadows across the room. He held the lamp cord in one hand and a gun in the other.

“Not another step.”

Jack froze. He tried to place the accent, but he could only guess. Sicilian?

“Take whatever you want,” said Jack.

“Sit down,” the man said. “You and me need to have a nice long talk. About Sofia.”