Strangers In Boston: Tales from a Strange World Book 1 (The Strange World Series) by T.S. Mann

Author:T.S. Mann [Mann, T.S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2019-05-13T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11:

THE DEATH OF JOHN SULLIVAN

A Plane Flying Somewhere Over the Midwest ...

Mickey St. Angel reclined in his First-Class seat with a sleep mask over his eyes and a homicidal stapler on his lap, and he dreamed. Like most of his dreams, this one wasn’t very dreamlike. Although he was considered a master karmatrophian, he was also an adept of psychic magic, and Strangers so skilled rarely dreamed at all unless they wanted to.

Consequently, his dreams were typically used either to review recent events or to reminisce about happier days. Presently, Mickey wasn’t dreaming of anything recent or happy. He was dreaming about the last time anyone called him John Sullivan.

***

“Dammit, Frank, I put in for this personal day a month ago!” John barked into his cellphone.

Behind him, his ten-year-old sons were eating quietly in the breakfast nook. John was a rising associate at Falcone and Edwards, a small but growing boutique law firm that had been operating in Boston for nearly thirty years. Frank Edwards, a founding partner at the firm, was speaking on the other end of the line, and he was apologetic but implacable. While John was on track for a full partnership, he was nowhere near the point at which he could tell his boss where to get off, no matter what the provocation.

In this case, one of the other associates had taken ill, and someone was needed to sit in at a deposition which some idiot had scheduled for Opening Day at Fenway. It wasn’t even an interesting deposition, just a corporate rep who would be testifying about how many copy machines the company sold in Rhode Island during fiscal year 1996. A summer law clerk could probably handle it, but the client wasn’t paying the firm $300 an hour for a law student.

John sighed in exasperation. “Okay, Frank, but somebody owes me for this.”

He hung up the phone and then looked over at his ten-year-old twins, both of whom were sitting quietly eating their morning cereal. Matt was already trying to cover up his disappointment with a brave face. Luke looked strangely satisfied, as if he’d expected John to let them down.

Matt spoke first. “It’s okay, dad. We can go some other time.” He glanced at Luke. “Honestly, Luke didn’t really even want to go, did you Luke?”

Luke just shrugged. John worried about his moodiness sometimes. Amazing that a pair of twins could be so different.

“Okay, I tell you what. It’s not Opening Day, but how about tickets for Saturday against Oakland. It’s an afternoon game, so we can catch it and then maybe go for a movie later. Luke, since we’re dragging you to a baseball game, you get to pick the movie. Deal?”

Luke looked up at him, apparently surprised that he was getting to pick the activity for a change. For the first time, John wondered if the moodiness he’d been complaining about was because he’d been unconsciously favoring the more outgoing and athletic Matt over his bookish brother.

It was funny in a way – John privately thought that Luke reminded him more of himself at that age.

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