Leads

It was only 1:30 or so, but I went right from school to the nearest Starbucks. I would have gone home, but my mom could have been there and I didn't know how to explain that I was done with highschool and that nothing in my life was making any sense at the moment. I sat in a hard wooden chair in the back of the shop with my back to the wall, my hands spinning a warm cup of coffee, milk, and sugar, and my brain running in circles.

I kept telling myself that I must be overreacting, that I must just be manifesting some weird emotions over my dad's death. I never seemed to show any emotion over his death, never screamed at the sky and asked God why or broke furniture in my basement. I just, I suppose, dealt with it. People around me were probably wondering why I was so passive about it, afraid I was internalizing it and was going to explode someday. Explode like, collapse a larynx and break a nose.

Maybe that was it. I was just holding it all in, the massive weirdness of the life insurance money had distracted me from my grief and I never noticed it until it broke free and broke the nose of whoever was closest to me. Maybe.

Amy got there around 3:20, maybe she got out of her last class early. When she walked in the door she smiled at me, held up her index finger and got in line at the counter. I whistled, and pointed at the iced passion tea lemonade sitting across the tiny round table from me. She held in a laugh and walked over, sitting across from me.

"How gentlemanly," she said.
"That's what you got last time, so it's 'your drink', right?" I asked.
"I guess. I also like the gingerbread latte, but they've probably stopped doing those now that Christmas is just a memory."
"Probably," I said, sipping my gingerbread latte.

She was going to try to talk me out of leaving school, say I'm overreacting, echo the voice in my head.

"So," she started. I gulped. "This makes four things now," she finished.
I sighed in relief and said, "yeah."
"Well, your dad's strange passing and the insane amount of money; and now you wailed on those guys like you're a samurai and Comstock let you off without even a call home? That's four." she thoughtfully chewed on the end of her straw.
"I said 'yeah', not 'yeah?'."
"Oh."
"Yeah."

I thought a minute, about what I'd realized before she got here, but she cut me off, "You don't think this is like, repressed angst for your father or something? I mean all these weird things, they're not like a coincidence y'know? There's some... thing going on."
I looked at her. "Totally," I said.

"And actually," I continued, "there's five things. I also, since the 'fight' have felt.. different."
"Different how?"
"I don't know, it seems like I'm seeing things different; thinking differently. In Mr. Comstock's office, I was paying attention to everything, making assumptions about him and his life based on tiny things like eyeglass pad imprints on his nose and that all the fancy books on his shelf had never been opened. I usually don't know what color people's eyes are if I've known them for years. Now I'm remembering eyeglass pad imprints? Who notices those things?"

Amy thought for a moment, then she smiled and covered her eyes with her right hand. "What color are mine?" she asked.
I sighed and said, "Green. And your ears are pierced twice but you only wear one pair now so the upper piercings are going to close soon. Your shoes are Vans, gray and blue, with the laces tied at the top and the ends tucked in. Your keys are in the left outer pocket of your jacket and there are two keys on the fob besides your car and house key."

She looked at me silently, probably trying to figure me out.

"The guy to my right," I continued, "two tables over, is a smoker and either cheats on his wife or recently lost a lot of weight. He's about 38, 188 pounds, and works in an office within a quarter mile of here. The lady behind you is either married to or the mother of someone who recently became blind. There are nine people total in this place, two exits (one with an alarm) and unless the Brinks truck pulling into the parking lot is for the place next door, there's between three and five thousand dollars in the safe right now."

I drank the last of my coffee.

"Umm," Amy started, "so, yeah, five." She bit her bottom lip for a moment, and looked around the room. "Cheats on his wife?" she asked at last.

"Yeah, or lost weight. Actually, yeah, cheats on his wife. His wedding ring is loose, it moved a bit when he moves his hand, he probably takes it off a lot. He also keeps eyeing the brunette behind the counter and gave you two glances when you came in. He might have just lost weight since he had his ring sized, but that suit is tailored nicely but is at least two years old. Cheats on his wife."

"This seems familiar somehow," Amy said, looking back to me.
"Well," I said, "it's kind of exactly like a scene in The Bourne Identity."
"Never saw that," she said.
"Really? It's the best movie ever. This guy is pulled from the Mediterranean with no memory and two bullets in his back, later finds out he was a CIA hitman but botched a job and got shot. Before he figures that out, he wonders why he knows all of the license plate numbers on the cars outside a diner he's in and all that. You'd be Franke Potente."
"Ok," she said, "is it possible that you're a CIA hitman and don't remember it?"
"Not likely," I said.

"So you're serious about leaving school?" she asked.
"Yes."
"So we should put together these mysteries and try to figure them out. Maybe get some leads."

Ok...

So we put everything on the table, started jotting things down on paper napkins. There were five points of weirdness but only two of them had workable leads. My dad dying, the only connection could be that it had something to do with the Corps. The money, there's nothing to follow up on. Whether or not I demonstrated an abnormal physical proficiency with that fight, there's no loose ends. Same story with my suddenly acute attention span. The only thing with a lead was Comstock's abnormal behavior.

"There is something," I said.
"What?" Amy asked.
"When I was in Comstock's office, he got a call from someone. I could almost swear they were talking about me. It was right before he told me I was in no trouble, but it almost seemed like he didn't want to. On the phone he said 'I don't know if I can make that float,' and 'it's going to be expensive'."
"As if someone was paying him to get you off the hook?"
"And he was ever-so-subtly trying to ask for more money because he went totally off the book and could get in trouble." I said, circling "Comstock" on the list of leads.

"So who would pay to keep you out of trouble?" Amy asked.
"My guardian angel," I said. "Someone who either really likes me, or doesn't want a lot of attention on me or the fight."
"And how do we figure out who that is?" she asked.
I crossed my arms and thought for a minute. "Bank records," I said, "I'll need to see his bank account."
"Aaaaand, how do we do that?" Amy asked, "Hack the bank database with our magical CTU computers?"
"Looks like I lied," I said, "looks like I will be going back to school."