Dead at First Sight

95 Friday 12 October

Matt Sorokin downed two whiskies, followed by two miniature bottles of shit wine, closed his eyes and tried to sleep. The movie he had been watching on the transatlantic flight from JFK to London was shit. The seat he was in, sandwiched between a fat guy with bad BO, who was snoring loudly, and a woman on his left who smelled like she’d tried every perfume in the duty-free shop, was shit, too.

He’d pulled off the headphones and stuck them in the pocket in front of him, reclined his seat, ignoring the protest of someone behind him, and closed his eyes.

The Neanderthal behind him was now kicking the back of his seat. Kick. Kick. Kick.

Matt unbuckled his belt, turned round and leaned over his headrest, staring at the man, an angry-looking guy with bulging, thyroid eyes. ‘You got a problem, buddy?’

‘You put your seat back,’ he said.

‘Yeah. I put my seat back. I paid for my seat and I paid for the button that puts it back. You gotta problem with that?’

‘I do.’

‘Yeah?’

‘It doesn’t give me any room.’

‘That’s the airline’s problem, not mine,’ Sorokin said. He turned away and let his seat back even further, as far as it would go.

The man behind him remained silent.

He closed his eyes again. Thought about his plans. His connecting flight to the island of Jersey. His lunch date at a fancy restaurant with Steve Barrey, whose name and contact details had been given to him by Jersey States Police Financial Crimes Unit. He’d approached Barrey in the guise of a bent cop, working in the NYPD Money Laundering Team, in the pay of a major New York crime family, and Barrey, who had fingers in the financial services world, had swallowed the bait. Sorokin was really looking forward to meeting the bastard.

And hey, the menu looked good, too. Shame, if his plan worked out, that he’d never get as far as ordering.

He drifted back into sleep, waking an hour later with a raging thirst and a blinding headache.