Page 1 of Blind Spot
Prologue - Rook
The container of chowder was still warm against my palm when he opened the door.
“You didn’t have to come,” Varga said, leaning on the frame with his weight on the good leg. The bad one was wrapped from hip to knee in medical tape. His hair was flat on one side.
“I brought chowder,” I said.
“Clam soup?”
“Chowder. My mother’s recipe. From Maine.”
He looked at the container, then at me. “Come in, Rook.”
The apartment was a young player’s apartment. It held scuffed rental furniture and no art on the walls. The TV was too big for the room, and three different protein-powder containers sat lined up on the kitchen counter.
He’d suffered the injury on the ice three months after arriving in Chicago. I followed him to the living room and set the chowder on the coffee table next to two empty water bottles and a prescription pad from the team’s orthopedist.
He lowered himself onto the couch in stages. The leg went up on a cushion at the far end last. When it was settled, he exhaled like a man putting down something he had been carrying all day.
“Bowls?” I asked.
“Cabinet over the sink. Left side.”
I found two bowls. They didn’t match. The spoons were in a drawer that didn’t quite close. I poured chowder into both bowls and brought them back with two spoons.
“What are we watching?”
He picked up the remote. “I don’t know. Something. I was drifting when you buzzed.”
He pulled up a streaming menu, scrolled past three things, and landed on a cooking competition. Four contestants wore white coats, kneading dough, while a clock counted down.
“This okay?” he asked.
“Sure.”
He turned his attention to the chowder.
The contestant in the lower-left corner of the screen was making a meat pie with a top crust. Varga watched him for about ninety seconds and then said, “He’s going to fuck it up.”
“How do you know?”
“He fucked up a soufflé last week.”
“I’d do awful on a show like this,” I said.
“You don’t cook?”
“I cook.”
“What can you make?”
“Chowder—and eggs.”
He smiled at the TV. It was a small smile on a face that was tired and in pain.
The bottom crust of the meat pie crumbled. Varga made a small sound of vindication. The British host said something in a dry tone. The contestant frowned at the camera.
We finished the chowder. I took the bowls to the sink and rinsed them before setting them in the drying rack. I came back to the living room and sat in a chair across from the couch.
