Page 119 of Sting
“I didn’t. Just hoped. You’re at Extravaganza now?”
“No. The FBI has me sequestered in a hotel. But they allowed some mail to be brought—”
“Turn on the TV.”
“Josh, where are you? Are you all right?”
“Turn on the TV! If you’re in a hotel, you have a TV. Turn it on.”
“Why?”
He puffed a sound of impatience tinged with panic. “Turn. On. The. TV.”
She reached for the remote on the nightstand. “All right. It’s on.”
He told her the channel to tune in. As she navigated the aggravating menus inherent to hotel televisions, she said, “I’ve been so worried, Josh. You shouldn’t have run away. Are you all right?”
“No, I’m not all right. Especially not after this.”
“After what?”
“He’s gonna kill me!”
“Who?”
“Who do you think?” he asked, his voice going shrill.
She recognized the symptoms. He was in full-blown panic mode.
“Josh, listen, please. You are in terrible trouble.”
“Well no shit, Sherlock.”
She rolled her lips inward to contain a retort. “I’ll help you. You know I will. But you must calm down and—”
“Calm down? Calm down? He’s out there! I know it. And he’ll kill me.”
His doomsday predictions continued in Jordie’s right ear as she strained with the other to hear the television’s audio and piece together the story that had her brother completely unhinged.
“Are you watching?” he asked.
“Yes.” A photo of a young man appeared on the TV screen, astonishing Jordie with its familiarity. In the picture, he didn’t have a goatee, but she recognized the insolent grin immediately. Until now, she hadn’t even known his name.
“He was at the bar Friday night. He talked to me.”
“Oh I know all about it,” Josh said. “He was on TV the other night, blabbing to a reporter about your little interlude.”
“Fortunately I missed that.”
“He talked about sharing a drink—”
“We didn’t share—”
“Bragged about his ‘brush with death.’ If news reports are correct, he was back at that same bar last night retelling the story.”
“So what? He’s milking his fifteen minutes. There’s no cause to panic over—”
“I wouldn’t be panicked if he hadn’t turned up dead!”
