I switched from looking at people’s information to looking at apartments for rent.  There were actually a few decent options with nice, open balconies with good, tactical views of the surrounding area.  I also checked into those that would have a good view for Lia because she wasn’t going to be able to go out much—too dangerous.  I wrote down a couple addresses to check out the next day.

Odin snuffed and sneezed all over my boot then looked up at me expectantly.  As soon as I started going toward the leash, he started running around in a circle by the door.  I paused for a minute, not sure if leaving Lia asleep and alone was the best of ideas, but Odin hadn’t been out for a while, and I didn’t want to wake her.  I’d only be in the park behind the building.

I snapped the leash onto Odin’s collar and quietly closed the door.  I made sure it was bolted before heading to the elevator and down to Lake Shore East Park.

As soon as I walked into the green area, I glanced around a little to see if anyone was nearby.  It was the middle of the night and no one was out, but I couldn’t help but wonder if anyone would recognize me as the guy who shot up the place a month ago if they did see me.  There weren’t any other people or dogs in the dog run, so at least I wasn’t going to meet up with the woman with the terrier I tried to shoot.

I took off Odin’s leash and watched him run around, sniff, and water the trees.  He took a big dump right in the middle of the place, which I cleaned up with one of the plastic baggies from a dispenser on the fence before I sat back on the bench and lit a cigarette.  I cradled the glowing tip against my palm to keep it less visible.

Being in the same area where I’d lost my shit not all that long ago felt odd, to say the least.  My nerves were frayed, and I kept glancing all around me like I was waiting for enemies to pop out from behind one of the bushes and start firing.  It was similar to the way I felt before the doctors at the military hospital put me on medication, and I didn’t like it at all.

I pulled my gun out of my shoulder holster and checked that there was a bullet in the firing chamber before putting it back.

“Whassup, brotha?” a familiar voice called out.  “When did you start smokin’ again?”

I didn’t startle, but I was no less caught off guard as Jonathan Ferris walked around the edge of the fence and opened the dual gate of the dog park.  He flipped his hair out of his eyes as he walked over and sat down next to me.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Your phone ain’t workin’,” Jonathan responded.

“I think the cops still have it,” I replied.  “Took my Barrett, too.”

“That sucks.”

I looked down toward the ground and took another drag of my cigarette.  It occurred to me that the action made me look nervous, and I started to straighten up and get myself in check but changed my mind.  It would be better at this point to be considered nervous in front of Jonathan, considering his source of income was the same as mine.

Jonathan was Rinaldo Moretti’s chief information man.  He had been your typical bored and brilliant teen with a propensity for hacking into various computer systems around the world just to show that it could be done.  Now he did the same for our boss, either to find out the things Rinaldo wanted to know, break into banking systems to help out with a little money laundering, or sometimes just to use his phone to get a seat at a busy restaurant without having to wait.

He was also about the only person in the world I would consider a friend.

Deceiving him wasn’t an easy thing to do, but I was going to have to try.  Jonathan was a perceptive guy though most people’s first impressions dismissed him as a backwoods hick.  He sounded like one, but behind the thick accent was an exceptional mind.  I needed him to believe I was still pretty much off my game so he could report the same back to Rinaldo.

I kept my eyes down, blinked a few times, and took another drag without saying a word.

“I didn’t really think I’d find ya here,” Jonathan said.  “I figgered you’d go back to your apartment, but not come out here.”

I moved my head slowly to look up at him.

“Don’t have much of anyplace else to go,” I commented quietly before looking back to my shoes.

“How ya feelin’?”

I thought about it and decided to answer him honestly.

“Like I’m waiting to start seeing shit again,” I said.  “I’ll know it isn’t real, but I’m still waiting to see it, you know?”

Jonathan nodded.  He’d been with me at the shooting range once when I started seeing images of insurgents coming out from behind the targets.  I’d just stopped taking the meds the military doctors had given me, and I wasn’t completely prepared for the consequences.

“Did you see shit out here?” he asked as he nodded his head around the park.  “I mean, when you decided to blow the place up?”

“Not really,” I said.  “I was hearing a lot of stuff, and that fucking garage door kept going off and sounding like a perimeter alarm.  There was already so much other shit in my head.  I hadn’t slept, and I just…I dunno.”

“Cracked.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“It’s all right, brotha,” he assured me.  “Shit happens.  Rinaldo understands, even if he is kinda being a dick about you.”

“How so?” I asked.  I looked up at him because I had no idea what he was talking about.

Jonathan shrugged and shifted his position on the bench to bring one foot up on the seat.  He took out another smoke, patted Odin’s head as he came by, and leaned back.

“He’s pissed you didn’t come to him first,” Jonathan said.  “I told him it don’t work like that, but ya know—he feels bad he didn’t see it was coming that quick.”

“Feels bad?” I laughed.

“He does,” Jonathan said with a nod.  “He’d take you over Nick right now, that’s for sure, with him datin’ that Russian bitch.”

I wasn’t expecting him to bring up Nick, and since I had just been thinking about him and his girlfriend’s connection to the Russians associated with Greco, I took the opportunity to plant a little more information in Jonathan’s head, assuming he’d take it back to Rinaldo.

“Yeah, I hadn’t gotten around to telling him about that night at Sweetwater.  I could’ve taken her brother out then, but Nick asked me not to.  He was already on my list, and I should have done it.  The Russians are gaining too much control around here.”

“True dat, but you had other shit on your mind.”

“Yeah, I did.”

We sat in silence for a minute while Jonathan finished his smoke, and I lit another one.

“You sure did leave a disaster at the office,” he said quietly.

I didn’t have to ask what he meant.  Killing Terry and Bridgett in the storage room at the bottom of Rinaldo’s office wasn’t so bad, but leaving the bodies behind instead of cleaning up my mess—that was a fairly serious faux pas.

“Is that new girl ya got a hooker, too?”

I flinched and turned to glare at him.

“She’s not a fucking hooker,” I growled.

“Easy.”  Jonathan put his hands up in the air in a surrender gesture.  “Just askin’.”

“Well, she ain’t.”  Fuck, I was already picking up that stupid, contagious accent of his again.

I knew he was just posing the question, but the idea that anyone would think of Lia in such a way pissed me off.  I went back to my smoke and hoped he would go away soon, but of course, he didn’t.

“You gonna treat this one better than the last one?”

“Fuck you!” I snapped as I stood up.  He stood as well, and towered over my six-foot-two frame by a couple of inches.  “She was feeding information to Greco!”

“Yeah, I ain’t talkin’ about takin’ her out—that needed to happen.  Kinda surprised you did it yourself, but it still had to happen.  I just meant in general.  You treated her like shit and then took her around so everyone knew she was with ya.  Might as well have just painted her with a fuckin’ bull’s-eye in case Terry didn’t get the hint.”

I was fuming, but where other people would have cowered under my anger, Jonathan stood his ground.  I knew why, too—he was right, and he had no doubt about it.  He must have also assumed it wasn’t a death-warrant kind of remark because he had to have known I’d be packing.

“She was a fucking hooker,” I reminded him.  “It wasn’t a goddamned relationship.”

I chose my words intentionally—Jonathan hated it when people broke that particular commandment.  He didn’t give a shit about most of the rest of them, but that one was a sore spot.  I didn’t know why, but saying “goddamn” definitely pissed him off.

It did earn me a nasty glare, but he didn’t say anything about it—he just went right back to me and my issues.

“So the new, non-hooker—what’s that?”

“Fuck off,” I grumbled as I sat back down.

“Seriously, man,” Jonathan said as his voice softened, “you were locked up.  Where’d she come from?”

“Arizona,” I mumbled without thinking.  I should have realized someone as perceptive as Jonathan would put it together.

“Holy shit!” he exclaimed.  “She’s the pussy you got while you were out in the middle of nowhere?  What’d she do?  Track ya down?”

I closed my eyes and silently berated myself for giving away too much.  This wasn’t information I wanted him to take back to our boss, and I had to try to play it down as much as I could.  If I blew it off too much, he’d know I was hiding something.

“Something like that,” I said.

Jonathan let out an artillery-burst-like laugh.

“That’s custom!”

I rolled my eyes.

“Damn, bro.”  He whistled and leaned back against the bench again.  “So what are you gonna do with her?”