Page 83 of Swerve
“Definitely,” he says, wondering why the owner of such a place would find his presence here concerning. Had she spotted him on a security camera? Or just happened to be walking his way?
“Well,” he says, “I’d better get back to my dinner date.”
“Enjoy,” she says, waiting at the top of the stairs as he starts his descent.
He can feel her gaze on his back the entire way down. Security conscious management? Most likely. But he can’t shake the feeling that there was something odd about the encounter. She’d been sizing him up, evaluating his presence and what it meant.
At the table, Emory looks up at him with a question in her eyes. “Find anything?”
He sits down, picks up the bourbon he’d ordered before leaving the table and takes a leveling sip. “I met the owner,” he says.
“And?”
“I think she minded my looking around.”
“Why?”
“Just the feeling I got.”
“Did you ask her about Sergio?”
“No,” he says, shaking his head. “Wasn’t sure I should play that card with her yet.”
Two men appear at the restaurant entrance, the hostess hurrying over to greet them. Knox notices, starts to look away, and then recognizes one of them. Senator Hagan. Shit.
“What is it?” Emory asks.
“Karma,” he says. “Ready to order?”
The Senator
“… the devil doesn’t come dressed in a red cape and pointy horns.
He comes as everything you’ve ever wished for …”
?Tucker Max
THERE WAS A limit to what one should be willing to do for one’s country.
Hagan thought he was reaching his own limit tonight.
So maybe personal interest was first and foremost, but still, listening to this young windbag go on about his civic duty for the past hour was nearly enough to make him ditch the whole plan.
He wondered how this generation had gotten so full of itself. Maybe it was the fact that they’d taken so many selfies that they’d started to believe their own hype.
Arrington actually thought he had the answers to all of the country’s problems. Hell, the world’s problems, for that matter.
Arrington sat across the table, cutting his green salad with knife and fork, taking one delicate bite of arugula at a time, droning on and on in that annoyingly Harvard-educated voice of his, as if he actually had a prayer of changing his mind about the vote.
Hagan kept his own expression placidly interested, nodding when appropriate, trying not to let his gaze fall on the glass of red wine to the right of Arrington’s plate. He did let himself glance at his phone screen, noting the time at the top. Twelve minutes from now, the waitress would approach their table to let Arrington know there was a call for him on the hotel’s house phone.
Once the arrogant ass exited the dining room, Tom would add the contents of the vial in his jacket pocket to the glass of red wine.
And only then would the night get interesting.
Knox
“It’s choice – not chance – that determines your destiny. ”
