Clawback by Mike Cooper

Author:Mike Cooper [Cooper, Mike]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781101568897
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2012-02-29T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

In the morning, I continued charging all my phones, two at a time, using the replacement adapters I’d picked up at a bodega yesterday. As they powered up I turned them on and checked for messages. Only the red-tagged phone had any, and I returned them immediately.

Unlike me, Clara picked up her phone on the first ring.

“What were you waiting for? I called five times.”

“I know,” I said. “I heard them all when I turned it on just now.”

“Maybe it’s how I live.” She didn’t sound too annoyed. “Online publishing, you have to be available around the clock. Digital sweatshop and all that. But it seems like you’d be working inside the same set of parameters.”

“Parameters.”

“Life of danger? SMERSH operatives everywhere? If your job is to solve problems with guns, don’t enemies come looking for you?”

“They don’t usually bother calling first.” I sat down on the Mallory’s squeaky bed, phone propped at my ear, and started pulling on my socks. “I like to think of them as counterparties.”

“What?”

“Not enemies.”

“Whatever. Hey, I’m working at the athenaeum this morning. Want to meet me for lunch?”

I looked around the depressing hotel room and saw nothing remotely edible. “How about breakfast instead?”

“It’s already nine-thirty. Just getting up?”

“A life of danger tends to run to late evenings. Brunch?”

“Sure. Call me when you get here, I’ll come downstairs.”

Of course I wouldn’t be allowed into the Thatcher by myself.

“And read my story if you get a chance. From this morning. It’s running hot.”

“Oh?” But she’d already hung up.

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