Excited Delirium Book: Chapter 51 (Kite Enlists Eddie)
Author’s Note: The following is Chapter 51 of the my online book "Excited Delirium". Please post comments. Please tell your friends about this story. If you’ve missed a chapter, please click here for Chapter 1 (Prelude) or here for the full index
“We have to talk,” was all Kite could bring himself to say on the phone. He was still feeling ill from the news about Pigeon. It seemed odd to him that Diana had so much information about what should have been a clandestine OMNINet operation, if they were involved, but he didn’t dwell on those options for long. He convinced himself that someone like her would hire several people to get pieces of information, leaving her to put them together. It actually protected people like Kite because he would never have to do too much or put himself in too much of a position of risk.
“Carl? What’s up buddy?” Eddie asked.
“Can you me at the coffee shop near Carnegie Hall, you know the one just a few blocks south of your building?”
“Yeah, sure buddy. I’ll have to change a couple of meetings, but sure, I’ll meet you there.”
As they sat down, Eddie was still trying to understand why Kite seemed so tense and keen on meeting him off the company campus.
“Dude, you’re pretty twitchy. What’s going on?”
“Eddie. I have some bad news and I wanted to be the first to tell you.”
“Jesus, man. What’s wrong? Did you get fired or something?” For Eddie, the ultimate would be the removal of his status of a senior OMNINet employee. In fact, his attitude about employment was completely contrary to Kite’s.
“Hah! I wish it were that simple,” Kite answered quickly.
“C’mon dude. Spill it. What’s going on?
“Sasha Pigeon died Friday morning.”
“Jesus Christ!” Eddie shouted as he pulled away from Kite. In an instant, his boyish charm faded and Kite instantly saw him for what he was: a balding, 40-year old who had deep lines in his face from too much smoking and drinking, skin dark and tanned, like a well-worn pair of leather shoes, wrinkles so deep it looked liked the Colorado had spent an eternity in the crevices of his face. The wrinkles and creases ruining the thin veneer of Eddie’s youth.
It was at this moment that Kite saw how fragile the tough guy in front of him really was. Eddie was no longer the role model for “Best Man on Campus”, but the poster-child for a man who would only age from this day on.
“How do you know about Pigeon?”
“I … I” Kite stammered as he searched for a good story. Despite rehearsing this situation dozens of times, he wasn’t ready for the live version with Eddie. He changed the subject.
“Sasha died Friday morning,” he said quickly, not giving Eddie a chance to interrupt. “The Coroner’s report said he died from complications related to his diseases, but there’s some suggestion that he died as a result of some violent activities.”
“Oh my God … Why are you doing this to me? What the fuck are you talking about?”
Kite realized his mistake. He should have known well from Grade 4 politics that you never, ever antagonize a dumb jock. They don’t think. They do. They just start punching their way out of problems and ram their cowboy politics and swagger down your throat until you either stop breathing or you submit. He immediately stopped his line of approach and tried another tact.
He opted for deflection and anger. He clenched his teeth tightly and seethed “Some fuckers got to him before I could talk to him.”
Eddie’s mood changed instantly. He eased back and paused, trying to process what Kite was telling him.
“And why would you have been talking to him?” Eddie asked.
“We were going to try to plan something for your 40th birthday.”
“Wow. 40. Time catches up doesn’t it?” Eddie mused for a moment, but then remembered why they were meeting. “I need to find out more about Sasha. What happened?”
“I don’t have all the details, but I think he was murdered by your employer.”
(Note: "Excited Delirium" is a work of fiction. Any person, place or thing depicted in this work of fiction is also a work of fiction. Any relation of these subjects or characters to real locations, people or things are an unintentional coincidence.)
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Excited Delirium by Liam Young is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License .
Based on a work at www.exciteddelirium.ca .