Dan Sanic wished for a brief moment that he’d not drunk as much bourbon as he had. He wasn’t drunk, but he wondered if maybe alcohol was the wrong thing to do to a stomach that felt queasy at the prospect of deposing Lee. The possibility of dying like one those rats was real too, he reminded himself.
Each as dangerous as each other, he thought.
He’d been at a loss for something to do for most of the afternoon after having dismantled another of Lee’s meth labs. The stocks of chemicals had been stored for use at a later date, and unless Lee called him for a specific task he’d be at a loss for something to do for the rest of the evening. Just one more he thought, as he lifted his empty glass in the direction of Bo’s enquiring eye.
Bo poured two more nips into the small glass as he quietly suggested.
“I can make you coffee if you’d like, Mr. Sanic?”
Dan picked up the glass and drained it before he considered its emptiness.
“As usual Bo, you are right. Coffee is a good idea. While you’re going, you might heat me one of those chicken rolls, eh?” He wasn’t hungry, but the hope that food might help settle his restless belly allowed him time to shift his thoughts. The interval was short lived, as after some minutes watching Bo’s activity behind the bar, his mind once again chose its own path.
Dan felt wetness at the end of his fingers, and his eyes strayed to the reflection held in a small lake of spillage on the bars top. Maybe he should forget about popping Lee. Just take the terrorist’s unspoken advice and leave the city, at least until its future was certain. He considered the options, and welcomed the thought of the easy way out, as well as the relief of worry that accompanied it. For a brief second he almost made a decision to leave his life as it was, uncomplicated in its entirety.
He smiled inwardly, then outwardly as a sense of relief seemed to descend upon him. Its invisible cloak enveloped him like a veil of warm security.
His return to relaxedness was suddenly interrupted by the vibration of his mobile phone. Dan lifted it to his ear.
“Dan, I’ve just seen the dead rats on the T.V, and they say that the bomb thing could be near me, and I rang Tom and he said that I should go away by myself ‘cause he reckons that it’s better for me, but I think he knows about me playing up, and I reckon that he wants me out of the way and I don’t know what to do and I’m scared and….”
“Whoa whoa. Hold up a minute. Just calm down and take a deep breath.” Dan turned away from the bar and walked towards the glass windows, where he watched the busy street while he waited for Sally to console herself.
“You better now?” He asked.
“Yes,” She sniffled.
“Right. Now listen. Don’t worry about the rats. If the terrorists decide to blow up the bomb they won’t do it out in the suburbs, will they? They’ll want to do it right in the heart of the city. Doesn’t that make sense?”
Sally thought for a moment before she offered a quiet and un-assured, “Yes.”
Dan looked about him for his own reassurance, noting quickly that no one was within ear shot before he spoke.
“What did Tom say?”
“He said that I was free to go where I want to, but it wasn’t what he said, it was how he said it. He told me that a man named Sandwich had used his company to bring the bomb thing into the country, and that the police were after Tom because of it, and that was why he said that I would be better off away from him, but I think, by the way he said it that he’s trying to dump me.”
“What makes you think that he knows you’re seeing someone else?”
“I told him that I thought he was getting me to go away so that he could say that I’d shot through on him, so he’d have a reason for a divorce. He asked me in his smart arse, know it all voice, if I’d done anything to deserve being divorced. Then he asked, “Have you Sal?” I didn’t know what to say, and then I realized that he’d given me a trick question. If he wasn’t sure before, then he knows now that something’s going on. I told him that I reckoned that he had another woman, and that he was trying to get me out of my house to make way for her.”
Nice house too, Dan thought before he began to visualize himself enjoying its comforts.
“What are we going to do Dan?” Dan’s silence stretched as he took up the strain in the tug of war between what to do and what not to do. He felt the weight of conscience fall upon him as he explained.
“I’ll have to carry out the plan that I told you about, and I will have to do it tonight. After it is done, I’ll come to you.”
He felt a tingle in his loins as she goaded him on with a low deep throated purr.
“Mmm Dan, my big man. Come to pussy.”
“I’ll be there baby. Now you don’t worry about a thing. Dan will fix it.”
“Hurry Dan,” she said before Dan broke the connection. As he returned to the bar and his now hot chicken roll, a small voice cried out in his brain. Wrong way, go back, but his ears were no match for the tingling sensation in his loins when it came to a common sense debate.
While he slowly ate his chicken roll he devised the plan that when successful, he the heir apparent would have all that Lee had owned. He couldn’t remember the name of the old black and white movie, in which the town crier had called out the phrase, but he had no doubt that he would fit the title.