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Chapter 10
The car moved along the way in silence.
“That was a friend of mine.” After a while, Rene finally spoke, “This house also belongs to a friend of mine”
“Hmm.” Anton didn’t want to care about Rene’s personal life. He didn’t want to know what friend it was at all.
*** *** ***
“Hmm…” Rene hesitated, “Sorry that I stepped in accidentally.” He glanced at Anton and spoke cautiously, “Last night I called you but you didn’t answer. During the day I saw that case in your office – I didn’t read the content – ” His tone was apologetic, implying that he did not deliberately peer into his private matter, “But I know that case. Recalling your reaction in the daytime, I made a call to Roger.”
Anton deliberately ignored Rene’s call as he was driving in a haste. He could imagine Roger’s tone when he got the call. Roger must have not expected Rene to call so soon.
“…He lied, but it was not a good one.” Rene raised a quick smile, “So I went to your office again.” He pulled out a note and passed it to Anton, “I am sorry.”
*** *** ***
Anton took the note. It was a slip of paper from his scratch pad. A layer of pencil uncovered what he hastily wrote down on the last page: a time, and a location.
Anton put the note into his pocket, and sternly replied, “I believe you have read my background file as well?!”
Their eyes met in the mirror. Rene nodded in embarrassment. “Yes.”
“Humph!” Anton turned his eyes to the window, refusing to talk anymore.
*** *** ***
After some time, Rene spoke again, “Sorry, but I have one more thing to say,” He looked at Anton, and talked slowly, “I hope you don’t mind.”
Anton glanced sideways at him.
“This is very impulsive, Anton. He just wanted to make you unable to attend the hearing. Think about it, without you, who will identify that killer?”
“But what else could I do?! What if the kid was there? Watch him die again?” He shouted out, questioning Rene.
Silence. After a while, Rene said, “If it happens again, you can call me.”
*** *** ***
They were about to arrive in New York.
“I need to go to the office. Should I drop you off at your home first?” Rene asked.
“No. Just drive straight to the office!” Anton answered coldly, “I have things to take care too.”
Rene hesitated and looked at him, but finally nodded. “Okay.”
“By the way, why did you call me in the middle of the night?” Anton suddenly remembered.
Rene suddenly looked embarrassed and chuckled. He said in a fainted voice, “I was, I was, just going to ask……”
“What?!”
“I was going to ask you if we are still going to meet this weekend!” He raised a self-ridiculing smile.
Anton finally remembered his date with Jimmy. He derided out of a sudden fury, “Oh, right! I completely forget that you have a night time job! Before you dress like that to find someone to f*ck you every night, can you spare sometime to care about Harvey’s undercover’s life?” He banged the door, “I don’t have the time!”
*** *** ***
Once Anton went back to the 17th floor he was greeted by the colleagues’ concerning eyes. He only explained to them that there was some minor accident, and went back to work.
Rene changed his clothes and went down to the 17th floor as well. Harvey placed a huge pile of cases at Rene’s face, glaring at him and giving him a series of orders. Surrounded by the stare of a room of people, Rene followed Harvey’s orders and made one phone call after another, assigning corresponding duties.
“Is that all?” Finally, he finished that last call. Rene stood up, unable to hide the embarrassment on his face anymore. He looked at Harvey with great effort.
Harvey was still staring at him with no less antagonism. The office quieted down a lot in a moment.
Harvey looked Rene up and down. He finally softened his tone. “Yes.”
“Okay,” Rene nodded, “I will start reading the case files right now.”
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