In the street two joggers who were caught unaware by the sudden shower walked briskly by. They too passed with a hostile stare.
“Jesus, what?” Nina said out loud, facing her palms upward. “Don’t look at me like I took a shit on your carpet!”
Gretchen bit her lip anxiously, “Go ahead, alienate your neighbors, lassie.”
“Man, I don’t give a shit. That schoolyard-eyeing-me bullshit won’t work on me,” Nina frowned. When she turned, she bumped into the static stare of another face, startling her and Gretchen out of their wits.
“Jeeesusss,” Nina exclaimed again, holding her hand to her chest.
Mrs. McLaughlin chuckled heartily to Nina’s embarrassment and surprise.
“Oh, I’m not that good just yet. I still have to buy my wine,” the estate agent joked back.
Gretchen burst out laughing, but Nina was still reeling from her inappropriate exclamation right in the stately dame’s face. And a dame she was, Mrs. Laughlin. Even to an astute academic, billionaire’s ex, like Nina, the Oban native who sold her the house held a regal air. She reminded Nina of the late actress Grace Kelly.
“I’m so sorry! You scared the life out of me!” Nina apologized while her friend was still lame in the legs from laughter.
“No worries, Dr. Gould. I’m a refreshing variety of atheist, contrary to the locals here,” she smiled and ushered the two ladies from the sweeping wetness that sprayed lightly onto the porch. “Come claim your abode, Dr. Nina Gould. This house was built just for you!” Mrs. McLaughlin threw her sales-pitch voice like a game-show host as the two women entered the house through the creaking main door. Impeccably dressed in her red, tapered suit and not even one make-up smudge in this weather, McLaughlin looked back one more time at the gathering outside growing to a small crowd. She narrowed her green eyes at them.
“Sold.”
Chapter 5
A knock at Sam’s door gave him a start, reminiscent of the dreams he had been having lately. Dreams of guilt, dreams that mull over relationships gone awry and unintentional affiliations; those were the weave of Sam’s tapestry lately. He sat up in alarm, still emerging from his sudden slumber on the couch that he did not deliberately undertake. Unkempt and greasy, Sam’s hair stuck to his unshaven face as he gasped. Under his open shirt. his chiseled chest heaved and he wiped his eyes while piquing his ears to see if the knock, too, had been part of his dream.
But it came again, this time accompanied by a familiar voice that instantly set him at ease.
“Open the door, you daft arse!”
“Hang on, I’m coming!” Sam cried, as he quickly kicked the empty bottles under and behind the couch. Barefooted, he slouched toward the front door in loose jeans. The seams chafed on the floor around his feet as he moved and Sam wiped his eyes and hair all at once as best he could to make himself look as composed as a hungover mess possibly could.
“Crikey, Samuel! What dog spat you out?” Patrick Smith asked when he beheld his red-eyed friend. “You look like shit, pal. What is it with you?”
“Bruich, mostly,” Sam fibbed slightly.
“What’s wrong with Bruich?” Patrick asked, as he set down a six-pack and leftover pizza from the night before that he carefully preserved in a Tupperware container.
“Vestibular disease, they say. My poor cat, Paddy! You should have seen it. Bloody awful not to know what is wrong with your pet and just hoping for the best. Floppy head, dizzy eyes, fatigue… I thought he was done for,” Sam whined, running his fingers through his hair in a daze that would not leave him be.
“And? Where is he now? Please, God, don’t tell me… ” Paddy started. Being the cat’s unwritten godfather and constant host when Sam went off on global excursions, he was as concerned for the poor beasty as his best friend.
“No, no, don’t worry. He is all right. The vet is treating him at the animal hospital for the next week or so,” Sam sighed, eyeing the food in the plastic tub. He had not eaten for more than a day after he came home from the vet and drinking on an empty stomach took him everywhere but the kitchen until he passed out on the couch.
“Do you even know what day it is?” Paddy asked.
Sam looked at the small window over his front door. “It’s night, Patrick.”
“I see you are further gone than I initially reckoned, old boy,” he told Sam, shaking his head while cracking open a brew. “Here. Hair of the dog.”
Sam’s stomach twisted at the thought of beer, at least for now. With a sharp eye he took the can from his friend and sighed, “This could very well end up on your shoes. Just a heads-up.”
“Get some food in your stomach too, please. When I did not hear back from you on Friday, I didn’t let my concerns overwhelm me so much, but by this morning I was certain you were dead in a ditch somewhere… again,” Paddy rambled into Sam’s aching head. He watched Sam wolf down a slice of Italian cuisine and chase it with half a can of beer as if it were his last meal.
“It’s just been a tough month is all,” Sam mumbled through the pulp of cheese, olives, and salami that filled his mouth.
“I don’t get it. You are famous now. Pretty bloody well off too, if I may say so. The book is a bestseller, and here you are, looking like an incontinent hermit on a booze binge!” Paddy said calmly as he sat down with a beer in his hand.
“Fame and money! Who gives a shit?” Sam muttered indifferently.
“People who don’t have what you are fortunate to have, Sam, they give a shit. People who have, never care. You were never like this. The last time I saw you like this… ”
“You have a fag? I’m dry,” Sam interrupted him, so that he would not have to hear that he had not been this emotional screwed-up since Trish’s departure. He knew full well that Paddy thought that publishing the long-awaited book on their exposure of the arms ring and her consequent demise was the cause of his hideous state. But he could not bring himself to admit that it was Nina Gould’s absence in his life that had him in such a twisted demeanor. He did not want to discuss the beautiful historian right now, or anytime really.
“I don’t smoke anymore, Sam,” Paddy reminded him. “Maybe you should give it up again.”
“I need at least two bad habits to sustain my multifaceted life, my friend. And I’ve picked this,” he held up the beer can, “and fags.”
Patrick Smith, agent for the British Secret Service and part-time darts champion with a difficult best friend, sat forward, pondering something. He cleared his throat and looked at Sam standing over at the counter, chewing like a caveman.
“Look, I don’t know what you are fighting against at the moment, but I have a freelance job you might be interested in,” Paddy said nonchalantly. “The book is out on the lists and the money is coming in. It’s not as if you have to work for this and that paper anymore. You get to take on assignments you want, right?”
“Aye. And right now I don’t want anything. All I want is my bloody cat to get well so we can watch sports together again,” Sam said plainly.
“Sam, I don’t know half of what you’ve been through, mate, but I do know the extent of danger you and Nina were in those two times when I was involved in what you guys had to get through,” Paddy told Sam sincerely. “Deep Sea One was a nightmare and that close call you had in Romania would have had me retire right away, had it been me. I won’t lie about that, but you… Sam, I’m not you. You live for this stuff. You thrive on that dangerous line between curiosity and revelation, and I have always admired you for that. No, I have envied you that.”
“You’re right. You don’t, literally, know the half of it, Paddy. I’m done. I’m fucking exhausted and all I want is some time to be away from the world and get my head straight, man,” Sam explained. He could see his old mate was driving toward something, tiptoeing for his sake. He appreciated Patrick’s respect not to ask about the rest of the matters and not directly pry into what was really bothering his friend, but he had to make it clear to him without allowing him to know that Sam was simply pining for a lost love and feeling awful about betraying the rival for her love, perhaps to his death.