Page 23 of Thin Ice

He settled himself on the recliner in the living room with his food on the arm, propping his leg on the ottoman. He clicked the remote control and turned on a hockey tape. I ate standing at the island and watched him view a power play sequence. He ran it back twice, froze it, and let it go.

On the ottoman by his propped leg was the percussion gun. He no longer hid it from me. He clocked me looking at it.

"Hip's stiff," he said.

"Left side?"

"Left side."

I came around the recliner and set two fingers on the crest of his hip, finding the ropey band of muscle that was doing the compensating and pressed.

Nolan winced and then was quiet.

"There," he said, low.

"I know." I worked the band with my thumb, slowly. His breathing changed, quickening slightly. Nolan rolled his head back against the chair, eyes closed.

I lifted my hand before I wanted to.

He opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling for a second. Then he set the remote down and looked at the window instead of at me.

"I ran it," he said. "What happened between us the other night."

"I know you did."

"You work for the team and guys in your line—a thing like this gets out, and you don't work again. At least not at your level."

I set my fork down.

"Let me tell you about the men I work for," I said. "Mac McCabe and Eamon Price. Mac played Major League Baseball. He was an all-star, a household name. He had a stalker, and the surrounding threats got specific enough that he needed 24/7 protection, and the lead operator on that detail was Eamon, a close-protection guy."

Nolan turned his head to look at me, and I continued. "They crossed the boundaries, and it cost them both. So Mac retired, and the two of them absorbed the cost and built a company out of it. That's The Guardians, the company that signs my checks. The founders are a principal and his bodyguard who became a couple."

Nolan was quiet for a moment.

"So the firm has a rule," he said.

"The firm has a policy. They insist on disclosure, but it's not necessarily forbidden. Two men who know exactly what this is wrote the rules because they did it first." My voice was steady. "Nobody's career ends over the other night, Nolan. Mine least of all."

"Huh," he said, and reached for the remote.

The part I left out was a clause I knew word for word. At the earliest point at which the operator's judgment could be plausibly affected. A week ago I'd told myself there was nothing to call Mac about because nothing had happened. Something had happened now.

***

Two nights later, I walked into the bar of a hotel on Euclid and met Frey. It was like stepping back into my old life.

The bar had low lighting, a brass rail, and a ballgame on a TV. Frey was at a corner of the bar, saving me a stool.

"I ordered you whatever they had that wasn't a Cup Final special," he said. "Everything else on the menu is blue."

We began talking shop almost immediately. Frey illustrated his points with his hands.

I put one question in, low, somewhere in the middle of it.

"You brought up the era when Tarn worked with full teams. Do you know who ran that? Was it anybody I'd have read?"

"That's the strange part." He tapped the bar. "Nobody. I went looking once, and the names on the old org charts aren't anywhere. The whole thing's a clean sweep. It's like the company molted, casting its old skin aside."