“Why would you ask me that?”
He knows, he knows!
I’m pacing the room with my hand on my chin, looking down, just listening to pretty boy flying too close to the sun.
“I’m worried about you, that’s all. You’re probably around people who’re watching you all the time.” He wipes the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. “A new high roller, eccentric businessman like you surely attracts a lot of attention.”Surely? That’s the first mistake of someone who’s lying. They overplay their part with fancy language they rarely use.
Carter gazes at me, and I can see the panic creeping from behind his eyes. I make a shush gesture to him.
Finally, an answer comes from the other end. “Okay, yeah. That’s where I’m at right now. Got the biggest room and a fancy car.”
Carter seem to be relieved, and I mouth to him to keep talking. We need more.
“Hopefully you are enjoying that life, even if it’s just a façade.”
“You can’t enjoy stuff here unless you are a real piece of shit. As soon as you move out from downtown Riyadh to the outskirts, you get to see therealSaudi.”
“That sounds sad,” he says, and Ifacepalm.
“Are you okay, Carter?” Bruno asks.
“Yes, don’t worry about me.” He scrunches up his face in embarrassment.
Yeah, you should be embarrassed, motherfucker.
“All right, gotta go. I’ll be in touch when this is over.”
What? No!
“No, wait!” Carter yells.
“What?” Bruno snaps.
“Shouldn’t we have a way to communicate just in caseplan Adoesn’t work?”
That was good, pretty boy.
“That’s actually not a bad idea. Looks like you’ve learned something after all.” I can hear Bruno smiling from the other side of the line. “I’ll text you the details. Bye, Cuz,” he says quickly then hangs up.
Carter double checks the call is not connected anymore and lies back on the bed.
“I was jacking off over there,” I joke.
“Ugh!” Carter rises faster than a corpsman ready for PT in the morning. “That’s fucking disgusting.”
“You are the one who barged in uninvited!”
“I’ll have to burn this T-shirt now! And I fucking love this T-shirt!” he cries, leaning on the wall with his arms crossed. “What now?”
“That call gave us a few big pieces of information. He’s in Riyadh.”
“Yeah but we knew that already,” he says.
“We did, but now we know for sure he’s staying downtown, driving an expensive car for Saudi’s standards.” I pull on my pants. “What’s the latest on Sarah?”
“Still sleeping.”
“Good.” I picture Sarah, soundly asleep, relaxed and comfy. Her black hair tangled over her pillow, a cute snore coming from her throat.
