“You know, pal,” he said, rising from behind the desk and walking towards him, laying his arm across Scott’s shoulder. “I’ve really missed you.”

            “Same here,” Scott faked, rising from the chair and stepping towards the door.

            “So what have you been up to lately? Found yourself a lady?”

            “Not just yet. I’ve been working a lot.”

            “That’s no reason not to have yourself a woman,” Shane said, opening the door and stepping out into the main room. All of the phone operators were staring intently at the clock mounted on the wall, pensively staring at Shane as he entered the room.

            “I thank all of you for your hard work today, and I expect more of the same tomorrow.”

            None of them moved as they all just stared at him.

            “Who was our top seller today?”

            One of the men in the suits piped up from the back of the room. “I’ve got one with six back here,” he shouted.

            “I’ve got one with seven,” another called.

            “Ten here,” a slender woman in a skirt suit chimed in from just to his left.

            “Can anyone beat ten?” Shane shouted.

            There was a chorus of ooh’s and ahh’s, but it appeared that no one could.

            He pulled the hundred dollar bill from his pocket and straightened it our, folding it lengthwise down the middle and brushing it off on his pant leg. Handing it to the woman, he nodded approvingly as she passed it on to a rather meek looking middle aged man. He rose from the desk, nearly knocking over his almost completely filled ashtray, and gave a curt bow to the rest of the group who clapped and hooted before beginning to file through the side door that opened into the parking lot on the side of the building.

            “Can I talk to you for a moment, Mr. Corso,” the brunette in the skirt suit said, taking him by the arm. Her bright red nails ran up and down his thigh as she gave a gentle tug.

            “Why don’t you give me a few minutes to wrap things up here,” Shane said, looking to the woman. “I’ll meet you outside in say… ten minutes?”

            She shook her head, licking her ruby red lips.

            “Give me fifteen,” he said, allowing himself to be led into the office. Scott could see him walk around to the chair behind the desk and sit down in the chair. The brunette followed him, dropping to her knees behind the oak desk as he opened up the top drawer once again.

            Scott whirled towards the door, a sudden and embarrassed redness rising in his cheeks. Walking past the rows of now empty desks towards the front lobby, only the supervisors in their suits remained, wiping clean their chalkboards and sifting through the white recipe cards that contained their contacts. Breezing through the wooden door and across the darkened lobby, he stepped out into the howling wind once again.

            The flakes had gotten larger since he had first gone in, blowing straight from behind him as the bitter wind raced down the front slope of the Rockies. Rolling, black clouds choked out every ounce of light from the sky, the only dim rays filtering through the night from the street lamp across the street in front of the vacant docking bays of what appeared to have once been a small shipping business.

            His previous footsteps were already filled with snow in the walkway as he bounded towards the Cherokee, his hands shoved tightly into his pockets. He could see Harry watching him intently from the vehicle, his palms raised upwards in a “what happened” gesture.

            Throwing back the door, he hopped into the warm car as the heat burst past him, dissipating across the whipping wind.

            “Well?” Harry asked as Scott closed the door.

            “We’re meeting him for drinks.”

            “Did you tell him anything?”

            “No.”

            “So what’s going on then?”

            “He’s got some, uh, business to take care of really quickly and then we’re going to follow him to some bar or something.”

            “Okay,” Harry said dryly, staring through the front windshield as the wet snow caked the glass in patches, their warm breath fogging it from the inside.

            They sat in silence for several minutes; both of them too tired to try to force the conversation. The green digital display of the clock on the dashboard slowly crept by, fifteen minutes passing as though it had been thirty.

            “How long did he say he was going to be?” Harry finally asked, breaking the silence dulled only by the heat blowing from the vents in the dash.

            “Fifteen minutes,” Scott responded, staring down at the clock.

            Movement to his left, across the street, caught his attention. Rubbing the steamed window with his elbow, he watched as the brunette who had led Shane into the office appeared through the front door. She turned her key in the lock on the glass door, giving the handle one final tug to ensure that it was locked. Turning back to the night, she lowered her head from the snow the swirled around her as she buttoned the top couple of buttons on her blouse and zipped her jacket up to right beneath her chin.

            “Oh,” Harry mused. “I understand.”

            Scott just chuckled to himself as with Shane that was how it had always been. Growing up, no matter where they had gone, be it the mall, a party, or the youth group their parents often used as a punishment, Shane had seemingly never left alone. It was apparently his gift. He had that certain mixture of confidence and cockiness that most seemed to find irresistible. He’d never been able to understand it, nor had he ever tried to emulate it.

            The woman ducked around the corner and into the parking lot, walking out of view behind the corner of the building. A plume of smoke appeared over the flat roof of the warehouse; the dull glow of headlights appearing just before the car as it drove to the end of the lot, throwing on its right blinker. Pausing for a moment, the car turned onto the slick street, the rear end bucking back and forth for just a moment before gaining traction and heading off into the night, the red squares of the tail lights slowly fading into blackness.

            Glancing at the clock, Scott stared at the edge of the building, waiting for any other signs of movement. Beyond the building, the foothills rose steeply towards the cloud covered mountains, the white capped masses of pines and other tall evergreens standing out sharply against the pinkish hue of the stone quarry carved into the steel slope behind them. One minute turned to five, and five to fifteen, as Scott and Harry took turns staring from the side of the building to the clock to each other. Finally, he shot Harry a somewhat concerned look and shoved the gears into drive.

            Their headlights flashed across the front of the building, reflecting blindingly off of the front glass doors as the popped up slightly on the opposite curb before straightening out and heading in the opposite direction. He slowed at the entrance to the parking lot, staring through the waves of flakes that gusted straight towards them at the sole car in the darkened parking lot. It was clear in the back, nearly around the back of the building at the edge of the eight- foot tall chain link fence that surrounded the snow filled parking lot.

            Climbing over the curb, Scott guided the car into the deserted parking lot, square patches of lightly snow- dusted asphalt lined either side of the lot from where the cars had been parked for most of the day, their tracks matting down the snow in criss- crossing lines.

            A thin line of smoke plumed from the tail pipe of the snow covered 3000 GT. The front windshield wipers dredged back and forth, piling the snow into a thick frame around the window. The inside of the fogged vehicle was completely dark, though they would have seen little through the darkly tinted windows regardless. Hanging drifts of snow sloughed from the roof of the car, exposing small patches of the cherry red paint job beneath.

            Flashing his lights a couple of times as he slowly cruised through the lot, Scott waited for a response. The packed snow crunching defiantly beneath the rolling tires, they stopped right next to the Mitsubishi, flashing the brights through the windows to verify what they could already tell: the vehicle was empty.

            Scott looked over at Harry, who wore the same puzzled expression. “I’ll be right back,” he said,

Вы читаете The Bloodspawn
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