Free Screwed by Eoin Colfer Page B

to work on the toast, which is so good that I grudgingly enjoy it even though any respite is temporary.
    It’s fuel, I tell myself. There is a lot of business to get through before sundown. You still gotta make the trip to SoHo.
    I put down my cutlery and think about reneging on that deal. After my brush with the wrong arm of the law, I can’t help thinking that I could go fetch my weapons’ stash out of my locker at the bus station and deal with this Mike Madden situation myself. The Irish government spent a lot of money training me to do wet stuff and quiet stuff and it would be a pity to waste that investment.
    Better the devil you know, right? This touchy guy in SoHo could be some goodfella arsehole who will not give shit one about my lousy day.
    I go at the toast again and pour myself another cup of coffee, feeling the caffeine opening up my heart’s throttle all the way.
    Yeah. Just take Mike’s whole gang out, why not? Wouldn’t take more than an afternoon and a coupla clips.
    Maybe in a war zone. But this is New Jersey we’re talking about. Plenty of cameras and concerned citizens.
    And if you screw up?
    Then Mike will block the club’s exits and torch the place. Jason, Marco and the girls would be gone.
    Sofia. Don’t forget Sofia.
    Yeah. Sofia would be as good as dead.
    So, how’s about I just kill Mike? Cut off the snake’s head?
    Nope. Calvin is waiting in the wings. Maybe Manny too. There are plenty more snakes where Mike came from. And these guys love to make examples.
    I decide to text Sofia for no more practical a reason than to make myself feel better.
    So I send: ?
    That’s all, just a question mark. It used to be: Hey, what’s up? How are you? But we got a shorthand now and I guess that’s progress.
    A minute later I get back: ✓?
    Which means: I’m fine. How are you?
    So I send: L8R?
    And get back a big smiley face.
    Which is good. It means Sofia’s taken her meds, or at least is not in one of her near-suicidal troughs, and she wants to see me later.
    I feel a little guilty for making a date I might not show up to or be recognized at, but sometimes a man needs more than french toast to buoy him through the day’s shenanigans.
    While I have the phone in my hand I check for missed calls and see there are six from Mike and three from Zeb.
    Screw those guys.
    My malicious side half hopes that Mike takes Zeb hostage to hurry me along. A little light torture would not go astray on that guy. Nothing life threatening, but as far as I know Zeb rarely uses all of his toes.
    My Twitter icon is chirping, telling me that there is a Tweet from my psychiatrist, who is doing online wisdom now, which he assures me was inevitable, so he might as well be in the vanguard. I have never actually Tweeted, but I do follow Dr. Simon and Craig Ferguson, who is one funny Celtic fecker.
    There is something compulsive about Tweets, so I read Simon’s latest:
    Remember, my phobic posse: it’s always darkest before the dawn unless there’s an eclipse.
    I wonder who that’s supposed to comfort.
    I swipe back to Sofia’s brief final message and just the sight of that simple emoticon makes me feel a couple of degrees warmer.
    Sofia. Could there be a chance for us?
    Shit. I’m gonna be writing poetry soon.
    My proximity sense tingles and I know someone is standing before me. I know without looking that it’s a woman. My subconscious throws up the clues: perfume, footsteps leading up to this moment, the sound of her breathing. A woman, but not Mary.
    So, I look up and there’s a rich lady not three feet away, staring at me like she’s seen her maid in Tiffany’s. This gal is maybe forty but with ten years of that slate wiped clean by spas and exercise. She’s got burnished blonde hair framing her striking face, which is horsey in a good way, and a gym body being hugged very nicely by a red velour sweat suit that I just bet has something provocative writ large on the ass. I can tell this lady is rich by the