Short-Story.Me!

I paused my wandering long enough to lean against a wall.  I decided three things as I closed my eyes to think.  Firstly, 30 minutes of maze was more than enough to cause hallucinations.  Secondly, my arrival here provided plenty of bafflement.  Thirdly, Ben's Breakfast Brunch was truly a bad idea.  I restrained my racing mind from contemplating a fourth point.  No more thoughts, I reflected sourly, concerning food.

Shea O’Brien was tired of listening to Kirill Sholokoff ramble about his prowess, all the girls he’s had and all the ones that still want to get with him.  Kirill smiled that gappy grin floating on gray stubble beneath his tall, charcoal hair, acting as if he had magical powers.  The guy was a major-league crime boss.  Yeah, he got pussy.  What’s the shock?

Kirill drifted into Russian with Anatoly – stocky, balding, brown goatee – and Vlad – slim and blonde – on either side of him in the booth.  Shea sat in a wooden chair on the opposite side of the table pretending he didn’t understand, but the Bureau had trained him for deep cover, making certain he was fluent in Russian.  The trick was not to let on to Kirill and his goons that he knew their language, so Shea had made an art of achieving a disinterested affect, even though his ears were constantly pricked.

Ding!

Adam despised the sound of a new incoming message in Laura’s smart phone.

Ding!

Adam didn’t need his eyes to know what Laura was doing right then. Her clothes rustled. The dimmed click-click-click. Yeah, Laura was reading her emails. Her short-lived snort meant bad news.

“I must go back to the office,” Laura said.

“I thought so.”

Laura’s warm lips lingered on his forehead. Adam felt a slight draft of air as she got up. Her sneakers squeaked away in the direction of the bedroom. Alone on the couch, he searched with his palms for the remote control.

“Beam me up, Scotty,” was the last dialogue he heard as he clicked the off button.