Book Excerpt:
Code of Darkness
by Chris Lindberg
Chapter
5
Looking up from her
files, Mira happened to notice the clock.
It was lunchtime already.
It was her third day of
work at the newly-opened Chicago Loop branch of Beacon Therapeutic Social
Services, and Mira had been asked to lunch by her co-workers Bernice, Edna, and
Kim. Bernice
was a black woman of about sixty who’d spent the past fourteen years at
Beacon’s Longwood location. She was at
least six feet tall, with a lean frame and bushy gray hair that wrapped around
a kind but steely face. Wire-rimmed
glasses always rested about two-thirds down the bridge of her nose.
Edna and Kim had worked
together at the Calumet Park campus.
Both lived on the north side, so they had jumped at the chance to move
to the Loop location. Edna was a witty
lady whose neatly-styled white hair complemented her always-fashionable
clothes, and who moved through life much faster than her short, 63-year old
frame should have allowed. Kim, considerably younger than Bernice and Edna,
carried a rougher edge through her day.
Mira observed that Kim took on the most difficult cases, from child
abuse to trauma. The circles under her
eyes were but one sign that her cases had taken a long-term effect on her. She’d always schedule ten-minute intervals
between clients to allow her to go outside and smoke at least two cigarettes. “One to detox from the last meeting, one to
prepare for the next,” she’d say.
The four of them found a
booth right by the front window, and consuming helpings of pad Thai and pot
stickers, chatted about their new clientele.
Mira froze in her chair,
forcing a smile in response. She fought
off the hot rush of embarrassment rising in her face. Why, she thought, did people feel the need to break the ice with
her using the topic of men? She was
single, but had learned that saying so usually led to back-handed compliments
(“How on earth could you be
single?”), followed by the prospective introduction to someone or another. It was flattering for a while, but even the
most genuine of compliments aged quickly when repeated too often.
“Hmm, well, why do you
ask?” she smiled back at Edna, trying to hide the slight bit of frustration her
expression had surely given away.
“Oh, no reason,” Edna
replied, retreating a bit, still with a genuine smile. “I guess we were just wondering, that’s
all.”
“I don’t care,” Bernice grinned at Mira, taking a sip of her iced
tea.
“I think what our friend
Edna’s getting at,” Kim started, “is something about her nephew. Isn’t that right Edna? See, we know all about him. I even met him myself. Nice guy, a cop. Low-thirties, lost his wife years ago. Sad story. Still, he’s
handsome, nice tush. Built like an ox,
but wouldn’t hurt a fly. So, you wanna
meet him?”
Edna flushed, taking a
sip of her tea. “Okay, something like
that,” she admitted.
After hearing about her
nephew’s wife, Mira decided to humor Edna a little. “Has he dated often since?”
“Not a one,” Kim cut in
before Edna could respond. “Fussy one
he is, if you ask me. Or can’t move on,
one or the other.”
“Let’s give Edna a
chance here,” Mira offered. “Continue,
Edna.”
“I think,” Edna exhaled,
putting her palms on the table, “that you’ve all made your point clear. How about we change the subject? Did you know, the city is going to offer
special group therapy sessions at city hall starting week after next, paying
moderators $1,000 for each course. It
runs six weeks, just two nights a week.
There are slots open if any of you girls is interested.”
“Something to think
about,” Kim sat back in her chair, “if you can’t get enough of this job during
the day. Thanks, I’ll keep my evenings
to myself.”
Bernice had started to
flip through the day’s edition of the newspaper. “Will you look at that,” she said. “Another one of those murders.
Just like the others – gang members.
One dead, one left alive. Guy
all in black, with a ski mask. This is
like the fifth one, isn’t it?”
“Fifth, sixth,” Kim
commented passively. “Who’s
counting?”
“It says here,” Bernice
continued to read, “that in the last two cases now, the words ‘Protector of the
People’ were found spray painted on the ground underneath the victims. What do you think that means?”
“Well, whatever it
means,” Edna added, “I’m sure the police are doing their best to catch him.”
“I suppose,” replied
Bernice, scanning down the story. “But
apparently whoever it is, they’re not leaving much of a trail to follow.”
The subject then changed
to the weather and other small talk.
Soon afterwards, the four of them finished up lunch and headed back to
the clinic for their afternoon appointments.
_____
Chris Lindberg’s
first novel, Code of Darkness, was
released in August 2011. You can find
out more by visiting www.codeofdarkness.com, or visiting Facebook and searching on
“code of darkness.”
To purchase Code
of Darkness in paperback or e-book edition, please search “code of darkness” on
Amazon, iTunes, or BN.com.
You can also email him at chris@codeofdarkness.com – he’d love to hear from you.
You can also email him at chris@codeofdarkness.com – he’d love to hear from you.
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