Fly With Me

2- The Mob is Unpredictable

The clunking of glasses was the only sound for a few minutes at the table. The guy with the glasses would lift up his glass and tip it to his lips every few seconds, his hands still shaking considerably though we had never been in any real danger.

“Why did you run out into the street like that?” He demanded. I took a sip of my water while I casually glanced at my watch: 3:57; that meant that this would be the third time he had asked in a total of five minutes.

“Look, dude, we were perfectly safe. Cars tend to try to avoid pedestrians.” I actually hadn’t seen the car when I had dragged him into the street behind me, and had only noticed that it was coming towards us a bit too late. As the red minivan screeched to a halt I pulled him the rest of the way across the street, the driver of the car yelling at us until we were out of sight.

“You pulled us in front of a moving vehicle; that is not perfectly safe.” With trembling hands, the young man in front of me pushed his light brown hair back. “What was I thinking going with you?”

I ignored him and stared out of the window, wondering what I was thinking actually offering to take him with me. Taking him with me from place to place just wasn’t a good idea. Briefly, I turned the idea of just leaving him here at the café over in my head. The more I thought about it, the more I like the idea. I felt a small smile flit across my lips as I began to plot my escape.

“What are you smiling at?” The man grunted from across the table, still seeming disgruntled about our little run in with the minivan.

“Oh, nothing, I’m just thinking.” I turned back towards Glasses-guy, and let the smile bloom across my face. “I never did catch your name, what was it again?”

“Brandon.” One slim finger pushed his glasses back up his nose. “Brandon Nickson.”

“Well, Mr. Nickson, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” I reached my hand out towards him and he shook it tentatively. “I’m Calypso.”

“Calypso?” Brandon’s eyebrows shot up and an excited light flashed across his face. “I may just use that sometime.”

“Use it?” One of my eyebrows quirked upwards at his odd reaction to my pseudonym; most people just nodded and said ‘that’s a cool name’. No one had ever wanted to ‘use it’ before. “What do you mean use it?” My confusion only grew when he whipped a small notebook and a pen out of his pocket and wrote my name down on one of the pages.

The pages that were facing me were covered with small sketches and words in sloppy handwriting. Although everything was upside-down, I could make out a few names and small snatches of description.

Once he had scribbled my name down, he opened his mouth excitedly, like a small child about to tell someone something fantastic, but then he quickly shut it and looked away, his face turning a deep red. “Just… you know, use it… for a… a project.” Brandon’s voice got quieter with each stammered word, and his face became redder.

My dark eyebrow went higher, but I didn’t comment on his obvious dishonesty; I had only known the guy for all of thirty minutes anyways. “Oh, that’s cool,” I said instead, and started to stir around the ice in my glass with my small plastic straw.