Page 28 of The Deeper Game
Zeus grabbed a pizza box and opened it up. Just crusts. He smelled one.
“That was from before I left,” Bolo said. “I swear! You can call PizzaMiza.”
“I don’t need to,” Zeus said, smashing it between his fingers, creating a small stream of crumbs that fell down to the floor. “Wednesday.”
“Yes! Which is when we left. See?”
“Only proves you’re a slob,” Zeus said.
“How’d you know that was Wednesday’s crust?” Bolo asked, careful to look anywhere except at me. “Why not Tuesday’s or Thursday’s?”
“Shut up,” Thor said, ice blue eyes fixed on the guy’s face.
Odin came in with a to-go coffee. “This is from today,” he said.
“Yes, yes!” Bolo exclaimed. “I bought it before I left, with a credit card.”
“You have a receipt?” Zeus asked.
“No, but online. I can prove it online.”
Odin pulled out his phone. “Go into your credit card and show us the charge.”
Bolo tapped the screen with shaking hands. Eventually, he got his password right and got into his account. “There! Six in the morning. Starbucks. Grand Mahaj hotel.”
“Where’s the hotel charge?” Odin asked.
“I paid cash for the room.”
Thor snorted. “You paid cash for the hotel room and not the coffee? Why would you do that?”
“I lost all my money the previous night,” Bolo said.
Odin frowned. “Abe Lincoln mean anything to you?”
“Umm…he was a president?”
“That’s it?” Odin said.
Bolo looked confused. “He’s on the penny?”
Eventually we left.
When we were back in the Nav, I asked, “How can you tell today’s coffee from yesterday’s?”
Zeus seemed calm for maybe the first time that day. “State of the dairy. Evaporation rate. In a heavily air-conditioned environment like that room, you’d have a ring above the liquid line. It was maybe five hours old. No more. And he has a coffee maker there. It did make me think he didn’t wake up there this morning.”
“And the pizza crust?”
He shrugged.
I said, “You have a mobile lab I didn’t see?”
“I have the power of observation,” he said. “And that Lincoln stuff. He didn’t know. They could be unrelated, but I don’t think either offense was him.”
“Now what?” Thor asked.
“Home. I’m going to check out his alibi, but I suspect it’ll check out,” Zeus said. “Once he’s cleared, we’re beating the bushes at Guvvey’s. This is somebody from our circle.”
