Mickey Slips (Tyler Cunningham Shorts) Read Free Page A

injuries that would distract you long enough for her to get away and finish building the trap for you.” He looked up at me with whipped puppy-dog eyes, and I jumped in before he had a chance to apologize … again.
    “That’s all the bad news, and it’s plenty bad. They built a nice trap and you were , unfortunately, the poor sap that wandered into it. The good news is that you’ve got me. I can never repay you for a million kindnesses and lessons and pieces of advice that you’ve given me, but I may be able to fix this; and that’s what I am going to try, if you’ll let me.” Mickey started to talk and I cut him off.
    “You’ve been telling me and anyone who will listen about how smart and unique my brain and personality make me, and you helped ( more than anyone else alive ) to make me happy and proud about who, or what, I am ( not entirely true, as I don’t really ‘do’ happy or proud, but Mickey would appreciate the sentiment anyway ), so it’s fitting that you can benefit from who, or what, I am.” I paused for a breath before rushing into the closer, realizing that I could feel my flush and elevated heart rate, indicative of emotional involvement in what I was saying, beyond the show that I was putting on for Mickey. I do favors for clients, and sometimes acquaintances, but never get involved in their problems emotionally … until now ( I wondered briefly how it would affect my process or the final product ).
    “You’ve always known that I see the world differently than ordinary humans do. I use that difference sometimes to help people, and now I’m going to help you. I’ve already got eighty-seven percent of a plan, and the rest is coming together in the back bits of my brain as we speak.”
    “Do the police need you for anything?” I asked, and Mickey gave a tiny shake.
    “Does your health, after the bar fight, preclude your leaving with me now?” Another tiny shake.
    “Did Lily give you a deadline?”
    Mickey spoke quietly, and to his lap, “No Tyler, she said that she’d be in touch in the next day or two, on my cell-phone.”
    “OK, so we’re going to get you checked out right now, and I’ll drive you to your hotel and then to the airport, so you can head back towards Manhattan. You should check into an airport hotel until the regular ly scheduled end-date of your conference here, and then go home and tell Anne that you were mugged, which is essentially true.”
    “Tyler, I can’t lie to …” I interrupted Mickey, and started rounding up his things and herding him towards the bathroom to get dressed while I threw his stuff into a bag to carry out.
    “You can tell her the whole truth if it makes you feel better, but you were the victim here, not Anne, and you should make sure that she sees it in that light.” I advised him through the closed door.
    I have never understood Mickey’s preference for difficult truths over convenient lies, but I imagine that it’s one of the things that makes him a good man, and makes me something just a bit less.
    We made sure that he was checked out with the hospital and his conference and hotel, and I got him out to the airport in time for a 1 p.m. flight back down to JFK. He promised to stay in an airport hotel for a couple of days. I gave him one of my burner-phones ( generically activated this morning, along with the others that I had bought ) in exchange for his phone, and watched him enter my current phone number into the contacts list. If Mickey thought anything odd about the back of my Element being filled with microwaves and camping gear and duffels that clanked like firearms when jostled, he was tactful enough to keep his own counsel.
    At the airport drop-off, I walked around to his side to take his picture with my phone, and endure a hug from him. Once he got past security, I breathed a sigh of relief, and then gave Kevin, at Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, a call in order to put the next bits of my plan together. I was comforted that the human