Chapter 1
Jack reached for the bottle of bourbon. "Want another drink?" he asked Mike. They were sitting on the sofa in Jack's office an hour or so after Marty Winston had pulled a gun on Mike in the men's room at the courthouse.
Mike waved Jack off and stood up. "No more for me. I'm going to get out of here."
"I understand," Jack said as he screwed the top back on the bottle. "It's been a very harrowing day. Go home, get some rest. Come back fresh tomorrow."
Mike did a backwards wave and headed out the door. He didn't even stop at his desk to turn off his computer or get his briefcase. Checking his pocket to make sure he had his phone, Mike left his office without a look back. It was late and mostly everyone had left for the day. Even Connie.
As he approached the elevator, Mike decided then and there to do something he rarely did: give himself a night off. However, instead of going straight home he decided to stop at a bar for another drink. Hell, he deserved it after staring down the barrel of a gun while taking a leak. Even now, the thought of what could have happened left him weak in the knees.
Most of the customers in the bar were crowded around the bar noisily watching the playoffs. Who was it? The Rangers? The Islanders? Mike didn't know and he didn't care. He paid for his drink and found an unoccupied booth in the back.
Was this job, was any job worth the risk of being killed for doing the job? Mike had asked himself that question and many more over the last year whenever he had been feeling down or feeling particularly sorry for himself. Today he was really out of sorts because he had come close to being killed by a lunatic who had previously insulted him!
"Honest civil servant" my ass Mike thought as he sipped his drink. Anyone looking at him could tell he was more than that. The phrase sounded so foreign to Mike's ears. Degrading, actually. For a man who had always prided himself on being a trail blazer, a leader, a kick-ass, take no prisoner kind of guy, to hear himself described as an honest civil servant wounded his pride to the core.
Mike had always had such big dreams for himself: a plush corner office overlooking Manhattan, meals at the finest restaurants with a beautiful, leggy companion, a sleek ride tucked away in the garage of his doorman apartment on Park Avenue or across from Central Park, and a paycheck that equalled more in a month than most people made in a year. He was supposed to be the man, the boss calling the shots. Instead, what did he have? A boss constantly looking over his shoulders and second-guessing him while he toiled away in a crappy office with recycled furniture and no privacy, eating disgusting food sold from food carts on the streets, no leggy companion -- unless you counted Connie -- and he didn't, riding the crowded subway to and from work, living in a one bedroom apartment that should be ashamed to call itself that, and a salary that made him want to weep each payday. How the hell did this happen? How the hell did he become such a pathetic loser?
And now to be labeled one of the many honest civil servants on the government's tit by a man who wanted him dead and had almost succeeded in making that a reality, had Mike seriously rethinking the choices he had made.