Never Go Home Read Online Free

three
times.
    “Come in,” she
said.
    I opened the
door, and said, “Give a guy a badge and a gun and all of a sudden he’s…” My
words tapered off. I hadn’t counted on another person being in the room.
     

Chapter 4
    Sasha and
another woman sat in chairs positioned in front of Sasha’s bare desk. The view
behind her empty high-back leather chair was of the Thames. Dark clouds
gathered in the distance. The other woman faced the window.
    “Jack,” Sasha
said. “You met Marcia Stanton earlier.”
    Marcia turned
toward me. She smiled. She could have been a toothpaste model.
    “Yes,” I said.
“We had a cup of coffee together.”
    “Right,” Sasha
said. “Forgive him,” she added. “He’s American.”
    The way she
said it made me feel like I should apologize. Fortunately, that sensation
passed quickly. I grabbed the empty chair and placed it three feet between and
in front of the women. We formed a triangle.
    “What’s this
about?” I asked.
    “I wanted to
thank you,” Marcia said.
    “Just doing my
job,” I said.
    “You’re too
gracious,” she said.
    “Jack’s one of
the best operators I’ve ever met,” Sasha said.
    “I believe it,”
Marcia said. “I’ve never seen someone act so decisively.”
    “I froze,” I
said. “And while I enjoy having my horn tooted by two attractive women as much
as the next guy, I can also tell when I’m being buttered up for something. So
cut the crap and tell me what’s going on.”
    The women
looked at each other for a moment, then turned toward me.
    Sasha said,
“Marcia feels that—”
    “Allow me,”
Marcia interrupted. “Mr. Noble—”
    I held my hand
up and looked at Sasha. “You told her my name?”
    “It’s OK, Jack.
She checks out.”
    I shook my
head. “Anyway, continue.”
    Marcia glanced
toward Sasha, then back at me. She smiled. It wasn’t the winning grin she had
displayed a few minutes ago. The woman felt nervous now.
    “I’m going to
assume you know my story. Most of it, at least. What you don’t know, Sasha will
fill you in on after I’ve left.” She uncrossed her legs and leaned forward.
“I’ve pissed off a lot of people, Jack. Some of those people want me dead, as
you are well aware. They are getting closer and closer to being successful. My
concern grows larger day after day. I go to sleep wondering if I’ll wake up. I
wake up wondering if I’ll live to go to sleep. I’m not sure how I even survived
that scenario today.”
    “Neither am I,”
I said.
    “What do you
mean?” she asked.
    “You go have
coffee at the same place every day this week.”
    “I’m trying to
reach out and become a part of this community so I can win the election.”
    “You hire
amateurs for your security detail.”
    She
straightened up and crossed her wrists at her waist. “They came highly
recommended. I was told they were the best in the business.”
    “Then you were
duped. Those two guys out in front of the cafe, they were goons, Marcia. They
harassed old ladies, for Christ’s sake. You got a guy that gets up and goes to
the bathroom. Another leaves the table and bullies a man who was already shaken
by the thugs out front. That leaves you with two bodyguards, and that’s after
two-thirds of the staff behind the counter disappears. Frankly, Marcia, I’m not
sure how either of us is alive right now.”
    The woman said
nothing. An awkward silence ensued. Sasha tried to break it.
    “What Jack is
trying to say is—”
    “There’s no
trying. I said what needed to be said. And I’m going to add to it. You’re
stupid for following through with this whole election. You’re going to end up
dead. Maybe not this week, or the next. Hell, you might make it to and through
the election. You might even make it through a term or two. But the longer
you’re in, unless you go the way of most other politicians, you’re going to
keep pissing off the wrong people and one day it’s going to come back to bite
you on the ass.”
    Marcia