No Legal Grounds Read Online Free PDF Page A

your friends.”
Heather didn’t change expression. “If you want.”
“Next Friday night?”
“Um, can’t do it then.”
“Why not?”
“Rehearsing.”
Her band. Right. Wonderful.
“What about next Thursday then?”
She paused. “Fine.”
It was begrudging, but a small victory, and now it was time to retreat. “Thanks, cupcake. The Trask family sticks together, right?”
She said nothing.
Retreat now!
“Love you,” Sam said, and quietly left the room.
1.
    Tuesday morning, Sam walked into Starbucks and saw a man immediately sit up, smile, and wave.
    Sam did not recognize him, but it was clear he recognized Sam.
“Nicky?”
He stood and shook Sam’s hand. “You look great, man.”
“It’s all an illusion.”
Nicky was short, a little thick around the waist, and had an advanced case of male pattern baldness. His features were orbical — round eyes, round nose, round cheekbones. He wore a white golf shirt that stretched over his belly before tucking away in his tan slacks.
“No, I mean it,” Nicky said, giving Sam’s form an admiring glance. “You have to work out.”
“When I can.”
“Gotta do the same.” Nicky patted his stomach. “The all-beer diet is a fraud.”
“I figured that one out a long time ago.”
“Only martinis and scotch for you, I bet.”
“Nah.” Sam didn’t elaborate, not knowing if he would come off as holier-than-thou.
“You don’t do the booze thing?”
“Not anymore.”
“Not like freshman year, huh?”
Sam tried to laugh it off but said nothing. A safe harbor of silence seemed best at this point. The more distance he put between himself and those days at UC, the better.
Nicky already had coffee, so Sam ordered a grande latte and brought it to the table Nicky had staked out. He felt the smallest bit of unease at Nicky’s smiling face. It was almost too much. He
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just wanted to have a ten-minute conversation and then get to the office.
    “Remember that time,” Nicky said as Sam sat down, “Rick Reimer and Jeff Green had that Risk tournament with the vodka rule?”
    Sam did remember, now that he mentioned it. Risk was a game of world domination played with dice and cards. Players tried to take over countries using a combination of troop moves and luck.
    “Yeah,” Sam said, “if you took over a country you had to take a shot of vodka.”
“Only certain countries. Afghanistan, Argentina, and Australia. The big A’s, we called ’em.”
“We were clever then.”
“You remember that tournament? It went on for a week, right before finals.”
“Was it before finals? The timeframe is a little hazy for me.”
“You kicked butt in that tournament, as I recall. You were blasted most of the time too.”
“I was a real role model, wasn’t I?”
Nicky’s hands moved around his coffee cup in a nervous, jackedup way. “I always thought you would be the guy I’d want as my right-hand man if I was interested in world domination. You ever see that cartoon show Pinky and the Brain ?”
Sam recalled it. It had been a favorite show of his daughter’s when she was eight or nine. He nodded.
Nicky laughed. “The dumb mouse, Pinky, asked at the end of the show what he and the Brain were going to do, and Brain says, ‘What we always do — try to take over the world.’ I really loved that.”
Sam tried to imagine an adult man loving Pinky and the Brain .
“So what do you do, Nicky?”
“Besides think about old times? A little of this, a little of that. The construction thing. You know that new building they did in Warner Center? ”
“Yeah, just completed.”
“I worked on that.”
“Very impressive.”
“Ah, I’m just a cog in the machine, not a big wheel like you.” “Wife? Kids?”
“Nah.” He shrugged. “I guess some guys aren’t cut out for marriage, you know?” He bobbed his eyebrows. “I do okay, if you know what I mean.”
That saddened Sam. Here was a guy, almost fifty, who was still talking about doing okay with women. But Sam kept up an expression