Body Guard Read Free

times, like they were busy at something.”
    “Was the supervisor around?”
    “Not on lunch break.”
    “Carrying anything?”
    “Nothing I could see. That’s the problem.” Newman ran a hand through his rat -tail of long hair, another touch to his disguise. “You think they might be stealing stuff?”
    “What’s there to steal?”
    That was another puzzle, because most of the units that came into receiving were in sealed canisters: large electronics components from the East Coast plant shipped here to be assembled with the components that came in from the West Coast. He explained that to Devlin.
    Kirk was silent. He jotted a few words down in a small notebook. The woman pushed her folded arms off the glass top of the glowing rental shelf and came back to find out if they would like a refill. When she left again, Kirk asked Chris, “Any names?”
    “Just the first names. Off their shirts: Eddie, Scott, and Johnny.” He didn’t have last names because it was hard to ask fellow workers a lot of questions about who this guy was or that one. Most of them would ask why the hell he wanted to know. Or else they’d shrug suspiciously and tell him to ask them himself. Unfriendly, yes, but more than that. Chris knew a lot of it was because he looked so young, and even more was the result of a clannishness the workers felt toward anyone who hadn’t been there awhile. A lot of them, even if they weren’t into pilfering or dealing, didn’t like the idea of a company fink. “I got their locker numbers, though.” He slid a scrap of paper down the bar and Devlin covered it with his elbow. “You want me to try and get close to them?”
    “No. You just hang loose. You’ve been doing fine, Chris. Really good work. I’ll get to Reznick with this and see how far he wants us to go. Check in tomorrow.” Kirk folded the scrap into his jacket pocket and drank deeply. “Anything you need?”
    “No.” But he had to ask. “How much longer you want me on this?”
    Kirk studied the light brown eyes behind the rimless glasses. The lenses were clear glass, he knew, another cosmetic touch to emphasize Newman’s youth and apparent innocence. “It could be another three or four weeks. It’s hard to say. But listen, if you want out, just tell me.”
    “No, no—nothing like that. I was just curious, you know.”
    And, Kirk thought, perhaps getting a little lonely, too. Even the experienced agents hit those times when the assumed life seemed to isolate them more and more from the world they were familiar with. Then a hunger for old normalities rose like an ache in the chest. “You’re doing a fine job, Chris. Just don’t take any chances, hear me?”
    “Yeah. Hey, don’t worry about me. There’s nothing to this.”
    “And don’t get too cocky,” said Kirk. “That’s when mistakes are made.”
    Chris sobered quickly. “All right, Dev. I hear you. I’ll play it cool.”
    “Okay. Any hint of trouble, bail out and call me right away.”
    “Will do.”
    In the bar mirror, Kirk watched the young man drain his glass and, still apparently ignoring the two large men on the stools, stroll out the door.
    Bunch asked, “How’s he holding up?”
    “He’s a little nervous. But trying hard.”
    “Think he’ll do?”
    “Sure.”
    They spent another five minutes at the bar and then followed Chris out. Kirk didn’t expect Newman to have a tail, but he didn’t want to be too careless about the possibility either.
    After a while in this business, Kirk knew, you discovered there really were people who lived by only one rule: what’s in it for them. Any other rule, or person, that got in their way was expendable. It was something Bunch had known all his life, he told Devlin once. The only thing that surprised him was Devlin’s not discovering it sooner. But then Bunch believed Kirk had led a sheltered life.
    Crammed into the Healey and back in the flow of traffic, Bunch asked, “So what did he tell you?”
    Kirk explained it