Free Cold Open, A Sam North Mystery by Greg Clarkin Page B

and looked him over. “A street-savvy shooter now training the beautiful people. What happened to you?” I asked.
    “Was going to ask you the same thing. You look like crap. But you still got the nice suits.”
    “It’s important to look good,” I said.
    “Feel good, being a big-shot reporter again after that Steele story?”
    “Nice to get a win every once in a while.”
    “I know the dude you bought it off, Wade. Crazier than my ex-wife.”
    I scanned the area looking for somewhere private. “Got a place we can talk in here?”
    Freddie nodded toward the juice bar, which was the size of a restaurant, and we went and took a small table in the rear corner. It was tucked to the side of the counter and out of earshot of the handful of others scattered around the room.
    He went to a large glass refrigerator and took out two containers of juice and brought them over.
    “Orange guava,” he said, handing one to me. “Keeps you alert.”
    “I need all the help I can get.”
    “I remember,” he said.
    I tried my guava drink and swore I felt more alert.
    “Been like what, a year?” he asked. “Why’d you come find me?”
    “Got an offer for you,” I said.
    “Uh-oh.”
    “You’re going to love it.”
    “Like I said, uh-oh.”
    I waved an arm around the sleek tables of the juice bar. “It will take you away from all this … this slickness … and …”
    Across the juice bar in the lobby area a woman walked by in an outfit that someone had apparently painted onto her.
    “And all these beautiful people,” I said.
    “Which could only mean I’m working with you,” he said.
    “There’s an insult in there somewhere.”
    “Still sharp as ever,” he said.
    “Plus, it gets you back to your roots,” I said.
    “We going to Puerto Rico?” he asked.
    “No, I mean as a cameraman.”
    “I’d rather go to Puerto Rico,” Freddie said.
    “There’s some more you need to know.”
    “Now I’m worried,” he said.
    I leaned in and took a quick around at the neighboring tables, then filled him in on the call from Robbie Steele and my visits to Dr. Webber and the Show Doctor.
    “You come uptown to fill me in on this?”
    “It gets better,” I said.
    “I hope so, because so far all we got is you running around because Yoga Babe made eyes at you.”
    “That’s what I was afraid of, at first. Until …”
    “Until what?”
    “Until some guy takes an interest in what I’m doing.”
    I told him about the guy in Starbucks.
    “So you think you’re onto something?” he asked.
    “Yes, I think I’m onto something. I don’t know what it is. It could be big, or it might not be. But I got a feeling.”
    “Yeah, I remember what that was like. Always meant I was driving somewhere and shooting someone who preferred not to be on camera.”
    “So you in?”
    Freddie looked past me to the open lobby area of the club. “Hmm, let’s see, the boring, middle-aged white guy, or the lovelies at The Club. Who do I want to spend my time with?”
    “I’m not middle-aged,” I said.
    “Fifty is middle-aged.”
    “I’m mid-forties. You can say ‘on the cusp of middle age,’” I said.
    “Whatever.”
    “This may be a chance for some excitement,” I said.
    “Lack of excitement ain’t exactly a problem these days.” Freddie knocked off the last of the orange guava mix. “How you doing this and keeping a regular reporting gig?” he asked.
    “Actually, that’s been a bit of an issue. Daniels gave me some time to chase it and see what I come up with.”
    “When you got to report back?”
    “Soon.”
    “You think you got enough to keep going?” he asked.
    “You betcha, big guy.”
    “Unless of course somebody shoots you or something.”
    “That would certainly present a change in plans. But that’s exactly why I need you.”
    “That’s what I was afraid of.”
    “I’m just a simple reporter. Someone’s got to look out for me,” I said.
    “Oh boy,” he said.

Chapter Seventeen
     
     
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