Chapter 7 - The Two Men By The Curtains
I sat back down because there was nowhere else to sit. The chair scraped once against the wood and then dinner went on like somebody had pressed play again. Silverware touched plates. A glass was refilled two seats over. The candles along the center of the table had burned lower and the wax smelled faint in the warm air.
My wrist felt cold where the nurse had lifted the strap. I kept my left hand in my lap at first. I didn't want anyone looking at it.
My name is Mark Delaney, I was forty-three and trying to get through a family dinner without making it worse, and that night the watch on my left wrist felt heavier than it should have.
The nurse was three chairs down now, near the end by the water pitcher. She wasn't looking at me. She was looking at her plate, cutting something small into smaller pieces. The stethoscope was still around her neck, tucked forward so it didn't hit the gold rim. She looked tired in a way I recognized, like she'd worked a full shift before this.
My sister sat to my right. She'd smoothed her dark top and fixed her double pearl necklace and she was smiling at the woman across from us. "He's fine," she said, light and certain. "He gets worked up when he's hungry. Don't you, Mark?"
I didn't answer. I picked up my fork with my right hand and kept my left under the table.
That's when I saw one of the men move.
They were still back by the curtains, both in dark suits, both out of the direct light. I'd almost stopped noticing them because they'd stood there all night like furniture. The taller one shifted his weight and his eyes cut down toward the table, not at my face. At my lap. At the spot where my left hand would be.
I lifted my water glass with my right hand and took a drink. I watched him over the rim.
He glanced away too fast.
I set the glass down beside the gold-rimmed plate. The reflection in the dark table caught the candlelight and the bottom of my white shirt where it hung open at the collar. I rested my left forearm on the edge of the table, watch face down. The black leather strap was loose enough that the buckle clicked softly against the wood.
The second man looked. Just a flick. Eyes to the wrist, then back to the curtains.
They weren't scanning the room. I'd seen security before at events, how their heads move, slow and even. These two weren't doing that. They kept coming back to the same place.
My pulse ticked up under the strap.
I decided to test it.
I slid my left hand flat onto the table next to the fork, palm down, the watch visible under the light. I left it there while I reached for the bread with my right. I didn't look at the men. I looked at the bread basket like that was the most important thing in the room.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the taller one straighten.
I waited three breaths, then I turned my wrist over and pulled my cuff down with my right hand to cover the watch completely. I tucked my hand back toward me, out of sight under the table edge.
The shorter man by the curtains frowned. He leaned slightly toward the taller one and said something I couldn't hear. The taller one's jaw moved once. Then he looked, brief and deliberate, at my sister.
It wasn't a big gesture. He didn't nod. He just held her eyes for a second longer than normal and then dropped his gaze to his own left wrist and touched it with two fingers.
My sister's smile didn't change. She reached over and patted my right forearm. Her pearl drop earring swung when she leaned in.
"Eat," she whispered. "You're making everyone nervous."
I looked at her hand on my arm, then at the men by the curtains, who were suddenly very interested in the drapes. The nurse three chairs down glanced up. She saw my face, then she followed where I'd been looking. Her fork stopped halfway to her mouth.
May you like
She'd seen it too.
I uncovered the watch again, slow, and laid my tattooed hand around the stem of my glass. The black strap stood out against the ink. I didn't feel like the man at the table anymore. I felt like something being kept track of, while my sister smiled and the candles burned down and two men I didn't invite waited to see what I would do with my own left wrist.
