CLAY ROSEN HAD ASKED me to have a drink with him before I checked out. I told him I had a plane to catch, not to mention two football teams with which I had to catch up.
“You haven’t seen the last of me,” he said.
I asked if that was a threat or a promise.
“Little bit of both.”
Then he asked me what I’d said after Frost told me that the Hard-liners were suddenly behind me.
“I looked at him as solemnly as I could, summoned up all my personal grace, and said, ‘You have got to be shitting me.’”
I was just about to finish my packing when I heard the knock at the door. When I opened it, there was a bellman standing there, holding a single red rose.
He handed me the rose and the card that came with it. I tipped him a twenty, feeling flush today.
I went back into the bedroom and laid the rose on the bed next to my suitcase. Then I sat down and opened the card.
This flower wasn’t from my brother Thomas.
The card said only: “You’re welcome.”