Page 90 of The Maverick
"That a professional read?"
"I have been at this front desk for a little bit of time, Mr. Dane."
"Then I'll take it."
"You should."
I tipped my chin at her. She tipped hers back.
I walked down the hallway.
The sitting room at the end of it was a small, paneled room with a fireplace that wasn't lit and two leather chaises facing each other across a low table. There was a fresh pot of coffee on the table and two cups, one of them used.
Dominic Craine was on the chaise with his back to the window. He was in another suit. Different from yesterday's, near as I could tell, but cut in the same line. The man dressed like a man who didn't leave his bedroom without committing to whohe was for the day, and I respected the discipline of it the way I respected Bratton's haircut—as a thing a person did to keep himself in a category, not as a thing I'd ever feel like doing myself.
He looked up when I came in.
He didn't stand.
I closed the door behind me.
"What the fuck do you want?"
He smiled.
It was a cool smile. Not unfriendly. The smile of a man who'd been smiled at by men in worse moods than mine and had developed his own system for handling it.
"Mr. Dane. This isn't the Tommy Dane I'd been led to expect."
"That right?"
"The Tommy Dane I read about, in the precious little of your file I have access to, is described by his commanders ascool, calm, and collected.The phrase comes up more than once."
"Sounds like a stranger."
"I thought so, too." He gestured at the chaise across from him. "Sit down."
"I'll stand."
"Suit yourself."
I didn't sit down. I didn't pour myself coffee. I crossed my arms over my chest and waited for him to get to it, because the alternative was breaking something in the room, and the room hadn't done anything to deserve it.
Craine took a slow sip of his coffee.
"Two things," he said.
"Get to it."
"First. You missed your window."
He set the cup down.
"Don't try to leave town, Mr. Dane. Don't fly anywhere. Don't take a bus. Don't drive a rental across the state line. Don't get on a private aircraft out of any airfield within a hundred miles of this city.Wewill know."
I nodded once. The way you nodded at a man delivering a message you'd already half-expected.
"And the second thing?"
