“Wallis never got to be queen, Ned-lee,” said Wallis, giving Ned a friendly tap on the shoulder. “Got you last,” she said, smiling. Ned quickly tapped her back.
“You’re it,” he said. They had been playing this game for years, just the two of them. Norman found it pointless. Wallis couldn’t remember how it had started and it never really had an ending. Ned was as competitive as his mother and would wait hours if he had to, to catch Wallis off guard and swipe her in the arm as he ran off, never saying a word. Wallis usually tried to swat him back before he was out of range. Ned loved to quietly tap his mother in public firmly enough so she’d know the game was in progress, even if it really wasn’t his turn. He knew she was too conscious of what it would look like if she were to go out of her way to get him back, especially when no one had seen him do anything. Sometimes, to even the score, Wallis would claim she had tapped Ned while he was asleep and Ned would protest it couldn’t possibly count.
“Why not?” Wallis would ask, raising an eyebrow, “You were there.”
“Not all of me,” Ned would answer. He was known to hit extra hard after bouts of logic he didn’t feel he was winning.
Wallis tapped Ned on the arm with her left hand, knowing he would quickly counter. She tapped him hard with her right, momentarily winning before Ned grazed her arm and backed up out of the way. She leaned in and caught him on the top of his head, turned and ran out of his room before he could get her back. She went down a few steps before turning back. “Socks and shoes now, Ned,” she said, making him stop at the top of the stairs as he seemed to realize she was using their little game to get him downstairs faster.
“I know what you’re up to,” he said.
“You only think you do,” said Wallis, turning to walk down the stairs. “Bring your backpack with you and come on.”
“What’s for breakfast?”
“Like I’d know.”
“Other mothers cook,” he called out to her retreating back.
“And that means?”
“I’m going to win, you know,” he yelled.
“Let me know when,” she said, rounding the corner and walking into the kitchen.
Chapter Six
“He’s not going to like this.”
“When has he ever liked any news? When has he ever liked talking at all?”
“No, this is different. They’re getting closer. Do you think they suspect him?”
“No, if they did, he’d be dead,” said Mark, putting out his cigarette. “That’s why you don’t know who he is.” He looked down at his iPhone, sliding his thumb over the screen as he quickly sent a short text.
“But it’s not good, that guy turning up dead. An outsider and an apparent suicide,” muttered Fred. “What makes a murder look like it is apparently a suicide? And that’s the third one this year,” he squeaked out. “Doesn’t anyone notice that the forensics crew in this town is hedging their bets?” Fred fidgeted with the small pin on his lapel, spinning it around and around. The tight circle of 13 stars disappeared into a white blur against the deep blue background. Mark wore a matching pin in the exact same spot on his lapel.
“We’re not talking about this any further. What’s done is done.”
The two men were standing outside of the James Center, one of the taller buildings that passed for a skyscraper in Richmond. Fred was slowly nursing an overpriced cup of gourmet coffee he had gotten from one of the nearby carts.
The low, early morning sun bounced off of the polished brown granite that was harvested in the next county over, just beyond the suburbs of the far West End and well out of the city limits. It put a glare right into the faces of the drivers coming down the steep hill as they headed toward work and made winter commutes particularly slow.
The gleaming tower situated along the lower end of Main Street had a duplicate sitting right next door and locals differentiated between the two buildings by the statues that sat in front of them. This one had an enormous bronze of well-endowed larger than life naked men trying to haul up a sail.
Law offices, restaurants, upscale shops and adjuncts to the nearby Federal Reserve building occupied the tower behind the two men. They were meeting in the middle of the usual breakfast crowd bustle as they did every morning whether there was news to trade or not. It had been Mark’s idea. That way they would go unnoticed by casual observers and the Watchers that were always around might miss the few moments that were actually worth listening in on.
Small clusters of people were gathered everywhere in the urban paved park that stretched between the building and the mostly upscale food carts parked along the street.