Free Downtime by Tamara Allen

skin… hell, no sun at all, I thought, looking up at the overcast sky. But the food was decent and the bed was comfortable. That was a start.
     
    It was time to begin improving the situation exponentially. “Any place around here a guy can get a cold beer?”
     
    “Cold beer?” Derry looked perplexed. “Whatever for?” He looked at Ezra, who was equally mystified.
     
    “Cold beer, warm beer, I don’t care. Beer and food. In that order. How about it?”
     
    “We can’t take him to dinner, dressed as he is,” Henry said. “He’s barely fit for an eating-house, never mind a respectable restaurant.” He drew out his watch to check the time, then snapped it shut decisively. “We’ll have to take him home for a change of clothes.”
     
    Ezra shook his head. “If we do that, there won’t be a table for us anywhere.”
     
    “Right, then,” Derry said, a wicked light in his eyes. “Down to Covent Garden for a sixpenny plate, just as we did when I was a boy.”
     
    “That’s not amusing,” Henry retorted as Ezra laughed.
     
    “Oh come,” Derry said, grinning. “It’ll be a lark.”
     
    “The Albion?” Ezra ventured.
     
    Henry vetoed that suggestion. “Over-cooked communal mutton and rancid stout. I think not.”
     
    Derry dropped his chin to his chest with a groan. “One night of it won’t do you any harm, man. If we stand about arguing, even those tables will be taken and we’ll be reduced to plundering Morgan’s hamper.”
     
    Henry didn’t argue, but kept up his sulk all the way over on the bus. I was at their mercy, being the stranger in town, but I sensed I wasn’t going to like this place any more than Henry, albeit for different reasons. The cheaper the eats, the less sanitary the kitchen; and in this particular century, roaches were the least of my worries.
     
    The Albion turned out to be less of a roadside dive than I expected; just crowded, like any good New York restaurant, and redolent with the mouthwatering smell of roast beef and hot bread. I found myself shuffled in between Derry and Ezra as they left their hats on a gleaming brass perch running the length of the wall and we were ushered to a table away from the worst of the noise and cigar smoke. A primly smiling waiter handed us white cards labeled “bill of fare.” It looked like tonight’s dinner came down to either beef or fish.
     
    “Stout all around?” Derry asked as we gave our order. There was a faint smile on Ezra’s face as he put in an additional request for a pint of bitter and Henry seconded that.
     
    When the drinks came, Ezra switched mine with his. “You’ll prefer it.”
     
    “Yeah? What makes you think so?”
     
    “A little bird told me.”
     
    Wise guy. All right, so maybe it was marginally more palatable than the sludge Derry was drinking. It wasn’t the ice cold beer I knew and loved. What disturbed me even more was that Ezra had bothered to order what he thought I’d like. Maybe he was still trying to get on my good side, so I wouldn’t keep bashing him in front of the others.
     
    Problem was, I didn’t have a good side where con men were concerned. “Any likelihood there could be more than one copy of that book floating around?”
     
    Henry shrugged, letting Ezra field the question. Ezra seemed nearly as reluctant to hazard a guess. “We may have some luck in the older shops.”
     
    I nodded. “I understand it’s hard to say when you have no idea of the name of the book.”
     
    A small crease appeared between his brows. “I did apologize,” he said with mild reproach.
     
    “An apology’s not what I’m looking for. You’re a psychic. Can’t you just come up with the name?”
     
    “It doesn’t quite work that way.”
     
    “It never does.” I sucked down a mouthful of beer. Damn, I was still tired. Worst case of jet lag I’d ever dealt with.
     
    “You have a terribly suspicious nature, Mr. Nash.”
     
    Ezra sounded as bone-weary as I felt, but I was in no