“Drink?”
“Coffee.”
“Be right up.”
The whole exchange had been done in the relative silence of the place, with an unabashedly interested audience and Clay’s irritation ramped up a notch.
It wasn’t until another customer came in, with a repeat of the whole rigamarole, that he realized he wasn’t as special as he thought. Everybody got stared at.
The coffee, when he tasted it, was bland. Like everything he’d put it in his mouth these last couple of months. Even with the ten sugar packets he added, it tasted like nothing, which didn’t bode well for his lunch. He reached for the paper.
Giving it a good shake, Clay skimmed a sports page to see that the World Cup had trumped baseball in the headlines. Not that there was much going on for the Orioles, but he could give a shit about what the U.S. team did in th—
His gaze caught on a photo and a headline at the bottom of the metro section:
ATF AGENT DIES IN FATAL CRASH
The few lines beneath gave zero details, mentioning only that Breadthwaite was dead—not where or how. Clay sat up, the coffee cup clattering to the Formica with a dull thud. Tunnel vision, heart beating visible wumps in the corner of his eyes. Tightness in his chest. Shit. Heart attack.
He stood, head wavering but feet slow, stuck in this morass with fuzzy blinders on his eyes making everything too far away.
“Take the check,” he managed, mouth moving, voice emerging in a rush, like water. No, not water. Hot puffs. Hot lips, dry mouth. More like lava. Magma? Was that the word? Was that even a word?
“All right, son?”
“Fine.”
“You want yer burger wrapped up?”
“Sure.” The path of least resistance. Outside. Get outside.
Clay pulled his wallet from his pocket, set a twenty carefully on the table, and picked up the paper.
“Here.” The guy handed Clay a Styrofoam box, eyeing him carefully. “You sure you’re—”
“Good.”
“I’ll get your change.”
“Forget it,” Clay said as he walked to the door, stiff and straight with ten pairs of eyes heavy on his back. It wasn’t until he made it outside that he remembered he didn’t have the truck. He’d have to walk back through town to his motel.
This didn’t bode well. Not at all, with the heaviness in his limbs and what looked like dust motes dancing in front of his eyes. His chest was tight, too tight.
He set off, breaths like hard little bullets in his lungs, hands grasping the box and the paper but feeling nothing.
Nothing.
He passed the coffee shop, then backtracked, blinking. Internet.
A look around showed no public computers.
At the counter, he asked one of those pierced kids, “Got computers here?”
“Um…” The girl stared thoughtfully at him, twisting one of those tunnel things below her bottom lip. In a surreal flash-forward, Clay pictured how that’d look in a few years, if she ever decided to take it out—skeletal teeth and gums a grisly peekaboo. The weird shit people did to their bodies. He almost laughed out loud at that—hysterical laughter. Not good. “Library, I guess?”
“Thanks,” he said, already halfway to the door.
“Nice tattoo, du—”
