The Baby And The Brandy (Ben Bracken 1) Read Online Free Page A

card, the beers will be on me.
    I am near the Locks now, and turn left up to the row of bars. Missoula is the first one, and it is largely empty. It won’t be for long, but I’m glad that it is quiet for the initial stages of our meeting. I had used twitter to set the meeting up, as we agreed before my trial. The only tweet the two accounts will ever exchange. Totally anonymous. Totally untraceable.
    I enter the bar, and half-expect people to look at me in horror, the escaped convict, but nobody does. The flannel clad bar staff look bored and tired, as if they have either had a long day, or are dreading the oncoming evening shift, or perhaps even both. I don’t have any money (yet) and therefore can’t buy that first beer of freedom. I take a seat at a booth facing the door, and wallow happily in the dimly lit drinking hole. It is definitely nice to be in a place like this again.
    I am a pretty good judge of time, mainly thanks to the punctuality-centric rigors of my extensive training, and I feel that Jack is late. Not by much, but a little late. I try to persuade myself to relax a little bit, and force myself to just let things be for the moment. I can’t control everything, so why worry about it? The folds of my thought process are tugged slightly by the thought of being recognized by the authorities, but I smooth out these wrinkles with the soothing thought that nobody will be looking for me. When that bloody riot is extinguished back at the prison, and a balance of power and order is reconfigured, the last thing that will come from that place is a report that, in the riot, somehow, Ben Bracken has gone missing.
    Nope, Ben Bracken is in his cell. Patiently seeing out the next 15 years.
    Two couples enter the bar, but none of them are Jack. I watch them approach the bar, not a care in this world. I envy them, in so many ways, but pity them in others. They haven’t seen the cruelties in life, the bluntness and trauma of a frontline lifestyle. I wish I had that, but by the same token, are they slaves to a corporate advertising protocol, telling them to dress the way they do?
    I can’t be too judgmental, after all I am sat here in a rather cool-looking leather jacket with my unkempt appearance - I fit right in. Good. It’s actually kind of nice. I’d like to feel normal for once.
    ‘Hi mate,’ interrupts a voice, and I turn back to my booth. In my habitual scrutiny, I missed Jack’s arrival, and he now sits opposite me. He looks the same as I remember him from a couple of years back, if only a little older. In fact, a lot older. I’ll go one further - he looks aged to Hell and back. His piercing eyes are bloodshot and sagging. He looks pale, weathered and ill.
    ‘Hi Jack...’ I begin, but his appearance is just too off-putting to continue properly. ‘Are you alright?’
    ‘Yeah, I’ve... got your money here’, Jack mutters, placing a blue and red bank card on the table. ‘I haven’t touched any more than was agreed’.
    I am worried about him. I’m not sure why I am all that bothered about this guy, considering that we only met once before, and our arrangement is just about concluded, save for the exchange of a PIN number. He has genuinely helped me, without fuss yet with aplomb, and I feel a pang of empathy.
    ‘I’m grateful Jack, but talk to me. Are you ok? Forgive me, but you look like crap’.
    ‘I’m fine. I’m glad you’re out. I won’t ask anything else, but I certainly wasn’t expecting you for a while yet.’ says Jack, while glancing at his phone erratically.
    ‘What’s happened?’ I ask.
    Jack doesn’t answer, and rises. His eyes are red, his hair all over the show, and the overwhelming aura is that of near overpowering worry. He looks like he hasn’t slept a year straight. I want to ask more, but I don’t. Man-code almost comes into play. Some men say ‘I don’t want to talk about it’, when all they really want to do is spill their guts. The way Jack is speaking, the