Boston—a half hour later
Flores and the others had to secure the van and check in back at the task force headquarters, so Chelsea went alone to the bar, a place on Tremont Street. She’d never been there before—not unusual, since she was hardly a partier.
She’d expected a fairly rowdy place, given the way Flores and the others had talked about it—a sports bar maybe, or a place the Dropkick Murphys would call a second home. But Ike’s was far more upscale than that, loungelike, the sort of place you might find on the roof of an upscale hotel, except it was in the basement, and the images that were being projected on the fake windows at the side were just that, images piped directly from video cameras on the roof. The music was cool jazz, late 1950s-early ’60s vintage, a very sophisticated vibe that Chelsea never would have associated with the Bureau guys she’d met, and certainly not with Flores.
But they were all here, a dozen of them, all in their late twenties to early thirties. Two were women, which she hadn’t realized from the radio transmissions. Only one was black, a tall, football-player type who said he came from Nebraska when they were introduced, then shyly moved away, talking first to the man he’d partnered with, then to the bartender and waitress at the far end.
Most of the agents were not from the Boston area. They had volunteered from different offices across the country, expressing a variety of reasons—boredom, said one outright; the others laughed, though Chelsea guessed they were only surprised at his candor.
Dryfus, the head of the tech team, came in about forty-five minutes after the others. Chelsea was just finishing her beer and was thinking of leaving. He convinced her to stay, asking about where she’d gone to school, what her majors had been.
“And how did you end up in the FBI?” she asked him.
“Ah—I was in the Army, as an E5, which is a sergeant, and I was repairing combat networks. A lot of wires,” he laughed. “I left a year after the Gulf War, got my BS at RIT, and . . . here I am. In Miami.”
“This doesn’t look like Miami,” said Chelsea.
“Ssshh, don’t tell him,” said Flores. “Let him figure it out on his own.”
“I’m assigned to Miami. Although I don’t think I’ve spent more than a week there in the last two years.” He took a long sip of his drink, a Dewar’s on the rocks, then pushed it toward the bartender for a refill. “I got out of Rochester because of the snow. They assigned me to Tulsa first. Took me almost four years to get to Miami, and now look where I am.”
“Where the action is, baby,” said Flores. He slid his empty beer bottle onto the bar.
He was a little tipsy, but then, so was Chelsea. Not used to drinking, the beer had started to go to her head. It didn’t help that she had not eaten dinner.
They ordered some wings. Chelsea had another beer. Somehow she found herself talking to Flores about baseball.
Mostly, she listened, watching his eyes. They were very blue.
“I always thought blue eyes went with blond hair,” she blurted.
“Huh?”
“Your eyes. They’re blue.”
“All my life.”
They moved to a table. Another beer appeared in front of her, then another. She felt warm and a little sleepy, as if there were a fire at the far end of the room.
“What do you think?” Flores asked, putting his hand on hers. “Time to go?”
“Where’s your apartment?” she asked, surprising herself.