The waitress arrived to take their orders. When she left, Alex lit up a cigarette and squinted through the smoke. George wanted to object, but leaned away and said nothing.
When Alex spoke again his tone was still hostile. “So what happens if I refuse to sign these papers?”
George didn’t care that his shock showed. “Why would you do that? You’d be cheating yourself out of a million dollars!”
“Maybe I don’t want it.”
“If you don’t claim it, the government will pocket it all.”
“After you and your firm take your cut, of course.” Alex was sneering openly now.
George frowned. He’d had enough of this guy’s attitude. “So don’t go. Stay here. Run back to your cabin and hide in the bush. No one will care.”
Alex ground the cigarette into an ashtray. His eyes flashed. “Maybe I’d like it that way.”
George opened his mouth to reply, but the waitress came to their table and poured more coffee. He stared at the steaming liquid. When she was gone he cleared his throat. “I apologize.” He sighed. “I shouldn’t have said....”
Alex waved him off. “Forget it.” He stared out the window until the waitress brought their breakfast plates. They ate in a silence that hung heavy in the air.
George finally broke it. “You’d really consider turning down that much money?”
Alex stared at his plate. “That much money draws attention.” He looked at George. “It already has.”
“Kenni had to find you. It wasn’t a matter of invading your privacy.”
“I don’t like the idea of everybody knowing all about me.”
“Welcome to the twenty-first century.”
“Big Brother is watching.”
“Oh, yeah.”
Alex sighed. “You’d think I’d be used to it.”
“How so?”
Alex used his teeth to pull another cigarette out of the package. “When I was shifted around in the system they always knew all about me. My file was there before I was. I’d walk into somebody’s office and there it’d be, my whole life, flopped open on a desk for anybody to read.” He lit the cigarette. “Sometimes I did things just to make it more interesting.”
“Bad attention better than no attention?”
Alex shrugged and blew smoke out the side of his mouth. “Something like that.”
“Well, this time the attention will all be positive. I have no doubt you’ll be treated like royalty once we get to Seattle. My firm takes good care of its clients.”
“Especially rich clients?”
“Yeah, I admit they get special treatment, but Mr. Adams runs a good firm. He’s a good man, a fair man.”
“What about the other guys?”
“Other guys?”
“Didn’t you say it was Adams, somebody and somebody? You haven’t mentioned the other guys.”
George nodded. “Mr. Ferrington is pretty much a silent partner. He’s in his late sixties. The others are full partners, but Mr. Adams is the boss.”
“Ah. So Adams runs the show.”
“Pretty much. Why?”
Alex let the smoke billow between them. “I’d just like to know whose pockets I’ll be lining...if I sign the papers.”
“Right.”
“So how will they prove it’s me?”
“Were you ever fingerprinted?”
George noticed how Alex stiffened, then leaned back and hung his arm across the back of the booth, cigarette dangling between his fingers. “You saw my profile. You tell me.”
“Twice.” George drained his coffee cup. “For break and enter, then robbery.”
“My rebellious stage. I was fourteen.”
“But you didn’t graduate to bigger and better. Why not?”
Alex shrugged as his hand moved to the scar on his neck and his head tilted sideways. “My foster father’s belt had a lot to do with it and—you might appreciate this—a pastor.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Pastor T, they called him.” Alex’s mouth twisted into a sardonic grin. “The second house I broke into belonged to him. He convinced the judge to give me 300 hours of community service in his church. Worked me hard too, but he was a good guy, ya know? Knew how to get a kid to talk. If not for him I probably would’ve ended up in prison. Maybe even dead.” He stared out the window and his voice dropped an octave. “Couple of times I thought Wild Bill was going to kill me.”
George decided to push it. “Who’s Wild Bill?” When Alex’s eyes met his he felt he’d opened the door to a freezer.
“They called him my foster father. I called him other things. The man had a mean temper.”
“I thought foster parents weren’t allowed to get physical.”
Alex snorted. “On paper, maybe.” He took a deep draw on the cigarette. “We were always getting knocked around.”
“We?”
“Usually five or six lived in the house.”
“Didn’t anyone ever notice? Neighbors? Teachers?”
“Oh yeah, they noticed.”
George saw Alex’s face darken as the memory surfaced.
“Like the time in junior high when I had a gym class the morning after Wild Bill had laid into me with his belt. We were doing wrestling moves that morning, you know?”
George nodded and Alex continued.
“My partner knew pretty quick something was wrong. I told him to shut up and fake it, but the coach noticed. Told me to hit the showers, then walked in on me. Stood there for a while, having a good look. Then all he said was, “Looks good on ya, Donnelly.”
Alex shifted and flicked the ash from the end of the cigarette. “Guess I wasn’t one of his favorite students.”
George dropped his voice a notch. “How long did that go on?”
“’Til….” Alex stopped. His eyes shifted around the room. “’Til I decided not to take it anymore and got outta there.” He waved his coffee cup
