The Short Drop Read Free Page B

death. His father’s suicide. Call it what it was.
    But after some time had passed, Gibson found he never felt at home in a new place until he located a diner that suited him. Home on the road, his father had called it. Gibson thought Duke would have approved of the Nighthawk and its proprietor, Toby Kalpar.
    Gibson’s eyes drifted to the woman at the end of the counter. Not because she was beautiful or because she was wearing a tailored business suit in a diner on a Sunday morning. It wasn’t even the slight outline of a shoulder holster under her left arm—this was Virginia after all. Concealed carry was about as rare as a collar on a dog. It was the fact that although she never looked his way exactly, he could feel her attention on him, and not in a flattering way. He forced himself to look away. Two could play that game. Just a couple of strangers . . . not looking at each other.
    “You drink more coffee than a busload of bad poets,” Toby said, refilling his cup again.
    “You should have seen me in the Corps. I about lived on coffee and Ripped Fuel. By 1800 hours you could fry an egg on my forehead.”
    “What in the name of God is ‘Ripped Fuel’?”
    “It’s a supplement. For working out. Not exactly legal these days.”
    Toby nodded philosophically. He and his wife, Sana, had emigrated from Pakistan twenty-six years earlier and bought the diner during the recession. Their daughter had graduated from Corcoran College of Art and Design in DC, and Toby had picked up a love of modern art from her, renaming the diner after the Edward Hopper painting. Framed copies of midcentury American artwork—Pollock, de Kooning, Rothko—hung throughout the diner. Toby himself, thin with a neatly trimmed gray beard and wire-rimmed spectacles, looked like a man who should curate a rare-books collection, not take breakfast orders. But appearances aside, Toby Kalpar had been born to run an American diner.
    Toby lingered at the counter, his expression turning to one of mild embarrassment. “I am sorry to ask again, but I could use your help with the computers. I’ve spent two nights trying to figure it out, and I am at a loss.”
    Six months earlier, Gibson had offered his help after overhearing Toby complain about the Nighthawk’s computers, which were a morass of malware, spyware-tracking cookies, and assorted viruses. Turned out, Toby desperately needed saving from his compulsion to click “OK” to anything that popped onto his screen.
    Gibson had spent a few hours sorting Toby’s system out, installing a network, antivirus software, and a restaurant software suite. They’d become friends in the process.
    “No problem. Want me to take a look?”
    “Not now. I do not want to take you away from your job search. That is most important.”
    Gibson shrugged. “I’ll need a break after a couple hours. Can you survive until lunch?”
    “I would be in your debt.” Toby extended a hand across the counter. The two men shook. “How is Nicole? Ellie? Both well?”
    Nicole was Gibson’s ex-wife, Ellie his six-year-old daughter—a four-foot perpetual-motion machine of pure love, shrieks, and dirt. He felt his expression brighten at the sound of her name. Ellie was about the only thing that had that effect on him these days.
    “They’re both good. Real good.”
    “Seeing Ellie soon?”
    “Hope so. Next weekend, maybe. If Nicole can stay with her sister, I’ll go out and stay at the house.”
    Gibson’s accommodations postdivorce weren’t very child friendly, and Nicole didn’t like the idea of Ellie staying there. Neither did he. So, periodically, Nicole would visit family, and he would spend the weekend at the house with Ellie. One of the many small kindnesses his ex-wife had done him since the end of the marriage.
    “See that you do. Little girls need their fathers. Otherwise, they wind up on reality TV.”
    “Reality TV isn’t ready for her. Trust me.”
    “They would need a very nimble