Free Someplace to Be Flying by Charles De Lint Page A

Well, I’ll let you get to it, then.”
    Rory sighed. “But what I’m doing now, and it’s way more interesting, is talking to you.”
    “Oh.”
    “So what’s up?”
    Lily hesitated. “I just wanted to talk to you about the other night… .”
    When her voice trailed off, Rory gave her a couple of moments before jumping in.
    “I told you,” he said. “I’m okay with it. You can talk about it when you’re ready, or not at all. We don’t have a problem with it.”
    “But I do want to talk about it. I mean, that’s why I’m calling.”
    Rory couldn’t remember Lily ever sounding this unsure of herself. He wished they were talking face-to-face so he could better gauge how she was doing, then realized that was probably why she was doing this over the phone.
    “I’m listening,” he said.
    She laughed, a nervous sound. “I don’t know where to begin.”
    Rory didn’t press, thinking it was better if  she did this at her own pace.
    “Remember the cabbie I told you about?” she said after a moment of dead air.
    “Sure.”
    “He called me today and we got together at the Cyberbean. And then later he came back to my place for soup.”
    “So … do you like him?” Rory asked.
    “It’s not like that—or at least it’s not like that yet. Who knows? His name’s not Joey, by the way. It’s Hank Walker.”
    The name rang a bell, but it took Rory a moment to place it.
    “I know him,” he said. “He’s what? Medium height, short brown hair, brown eyes. Sort of tough-looking, but not mean.”
    “That’s him. Where do you know him from?”
    “He does some work for Marty Caine.”
    “Who?”
    “You know, the lawyer I was doing all that research for last winter, the original ‘Mr. No Comment.’ Walker’s done investigative work for him from time to time—background checks, legwork stuff. Sort of what I did, except he did it on the streets while I used the libraries.”
    “So what do you think of him?”
    Rory had to smile. No, she wasn’t interested in him. Right.
    “He wasn’t exactly the sort of person you got to know,” he said. “He didn’t really mix with the other people in the office, but he was good at what he did, so it wasn’t like Marty was going to complain.”
    He looked across the room, remembering. He’d made some comment to Marty about Walker’s standoffishness one day and Marty had said, “I’ll tell you what’s important, Rory. Hank doesn’t play the middle ground. If you’re his friend, he’ll stand by you no matter what comes up; if you’re not, if you threaten somebody he cares about, he’ll take you down and he won’t care what happens to himself in the process. And that’s why he’s so good at this kind of work. I can only get him to take a job on if he believes in the defendant, but when he does, he gives it a hundred and ten percent. Now tell me, whose side would you rather he was on?”
    “So he’s driving a cab now,” Rory found himself saying.
    “I get the sense he does a lot of things,” Lily said.
    “Only you didn’t call me to talk about him.”
    “No. But he’s involved. I guess it started with those stories Jack was telling me.”
    Rory smiled. “Now we’re talking real characters. I keep telling Christy he should get together with him. I mean, you have to wonder. Where does he get that stuff?”
    “Well,” Lily said. “I think I know.”

    Rory was quiet for a long moment when Lily had finished her story. What he wanted to say was, Be careful, Kit. Walker moves in a rough crowd. You don’t want to get caught up in it. But that wasn’t what she needed to hear right now.
    And then there was this other stuff, right out of stories that Christy or Jack would tell.
    “I believe you, Kit,” he said instead.
    “Really?”
    “Why would you lie?”
    “I wouldn’t. It’s just … I don’t know if I’d believe myself. But I was there and I saw what happened.”
    “I can see why you needed time before talking about it.”
    “I know.