Due to me taking the wrong subway train and then stopping off for something to eat, I arrived home much later than I’d anticipated. As I suspected, there was a Black Ford Sedan that screamed to the world ‘Feds Inside’ parked just up the street. I sighed and instead of going into my home, I went to the car and knocked on the window.

After some hesitation, the window was wound down. It was the same agent that had followed me into the Lingerie Store. His partner was gripping the steering wheel tightly.

“Hello Again!”

He didn’t reply.

“I see that you are waiting for me. Good. Here is where I have been since I lost this numpty earlier. You can check my transit card and Lugi’s Pasta Shop on 23rd St. I’ve been there for the past two hours. Several NYPD Officers from what I assume is the local precinct also visited the place while I was there. Oh, and here is the bill for my meal. As you can see, I ate alone.”

I handed two pieces of paper to the men inside.

“I’m going to bed now. Tomorrow morning, I will probably go for a run and then go out to a local Bistro for Brunch. I’ll bid you two gentlemen a goodnight.”

Neither of them said anything but before I reached my home, their car took off with a squeal of tyres. For the first time that day, I afforded myself a smile.

I smiled for the second time that evening when I saw Maureen sitting on the stairs inside my building.

“I didn’t expect to see you here. You are a sight for sore eyes.”

She smiled back at me.

As I unlocked my front door, I turned to her and said,

“I don’t think you should come inside. There is no telling if the place has been bugged. There were two FBI men outside until just now. A lot of things have happened today that I can’t talk about.”

Maureen’s face dropped.

“I have to find a new place to stay until this is all over. Then perhaps we… perhaps we can try again.”

A tear formed in Maureen’s eye.

“Just when I get to like someone they give me the elbow,” she said sorrowfully.

I took hold of her hand and looked into her eyes.

“It is not like that Maureen. I can’t risk involving you with my troubles. I did a lot of thinking last night and it seems to be the only way forward. Keep you out of it and then… you and Luke come to England with me and we try to be a family. I don’t want to lose you Maureen and I can’t risk dragging you down with me.”

She didn’t say anything.

“Can you understand this?” I asked softly.

“I… I think so.”

We hugged and then I kissed her.

As she turned to leave, I said,

“I bought a little something for you. I hope I got the sizes right.”

I handed the bag from the Lingerie Shop to her.

“The Bill of Sale is inside. If they are the wrong size then they will change them. I made sure of that.”

Maureen looked inside the bag. Slowly a smile formed on her face.

She kissed me briefly and said,

“Thank you. I’m sorry for going off like that just now.”

“Don’t worry about it. I enjoyed buying them for you as I was hiding from my tail. It wasn’t hard. The poor man must be fresh out of training. Talk about a sore thumb.”

Then I stopped.

“Sorry, I was rambling.”

We kissed once more and then she left me alone.

With a good degree of sadness in my heart, I entered my soon to be vacated apartment.

---

I wasn’t prepared for what lay behind the door.

I was greeted by a total mess. My home such as it was, had been ransacked. Instantly, I knew that it was the FBI’s doing. It had to be otherwise, why else did they take off in such a hurry when I arrived home.

There was no point in trying to clear it up at this time of night. I just took a load of photographs with the camera on my phone. Then, I sent them to my lawyer and also asked if the FBI had a search warrant for what they had done to my home. I also included a very good picture of a set of fingerprints that had been left on a mirror. Then I went to bed but before I could, I had to put the mattress back onto the base and re-made it.

Even one of my pillows had been slit open. They were obviously looking for something but I really had no idea what it was that they wanted from me. All the documents I had that related to my work were safely locked away in either my lawyers office or my safe-deposit box. It had to be something else but I could not fathom what it was.

It had been quite a day and I was confident that there might well be more like this one ahead.

I didn’t get out of bed very early the next morning. I didn’t have any place to go and the prospect of clearing up the mess from the ransacking and then repacking the boxes that were lying empty all over the place.

It was the sound of the school bus stopping outside my block combined with the call of nature eventually forced me to get out of bed.
I forced a smile when I found that the searchers hadn’t emptied all my coffee onto the floor and there was also some milk in the fridge. At least I could get myself some breakfast.

Suitably refreshed, I began the task of repacking the boxes. I started with those in my bedroom. This was going to be a long job.
It was late morning when I took a break. I put my shoes on and grabbed my wallet and went to head out to the bodega on the next block to get something to eat for lunch and for the evening.

As I approached my front door, I got a sinking feeling in my stomach. Someone had pushed another envelope under my front door while I was doing the re-packing. After a moments thought, I was certain that it had not been there when I got up that morning.

“Not again,” I thought to myself.

I bent down but stopped myself just before I touched it. Putting my fingerprints on it might not be very wise after the events of the previous day. I reached for my Camera and took some pictures. Once I’d done that, I used my feet to push the envelope under some of the detritus from the previous evening searches. Then I went out just as if nothing had happened.

I stood on the steps to my apartment block and looked up and down the street. I breathed a sigh of relief when there was no sign of the black car that had broadcast ‘here be the FBI’ to all and sundry but that was not to say that they were not around.

I pushed the FBI out of my mind and went about getting my messages. It was another hot and steamy late summer day in the Big Apple. I was glad to get inside the Bodega and its Air-Conditioned interior.

It didn’t take me long to buy all the bits and pieces I needed and was about to leave when I spotted a payphone in the back of the store.
A few minutes later, I was out of the store and heading back home. I’d called my lawyer from the payphone and told him about the envelope.

He was going to send someone to collect the envelope and that they should be with me within the hour.

With that done, I sauntered back to my apartment block carrying my purchases. I hoped that anyone watching me would just see that I had bought some groceries.

---

My Apartment appeared untouched in the half hour that I’d been out. I saw the corner of the envelope poking out from underneath some papers just as I’d left it.

I was busy making myself something to eat when my door-bell rang. I recognised one of the Paralegals from my Lawyers Office so, I let them in.

“I understand that you have something for me?”

“Yes, it was pushed under my front door earlier. I have not handled it and don’t want to.”

The woman smiled.

“That is probably a good thing,” she said.

I pulled a clean handkerchief out of my pocket and extracted the envelope from its hiding place. I put it into her briefcase and let her close it.

“Thank you,” she said.

From our previous interactions, I knew that she was a woman of few words.

“Can you send me a text when you get to the office. Say something like ‘your deposition is for Monday’ if you get there unhindered.”

She smiled.

“I’m sure that Mr Cooke will understand the need for a little subterfuge.”

Then she added.

“We had a visit from two people from the SEC this morning. They had seen the papers that were delivered to you yesterday. They were not happy when Mr Cooke showed them your timeline from yesterday. Apparently, the FBI had omitted to tell them about the delivery of the envelope. Mr Cooke said that there seems to be a bit of a turf war going on between the SEC and the FBI. He may well call you about actually being deposed by the SEC tomorrow so your hint about a deposition may well be very timely.”

“Thanks for that. I’ll get myself prepared for it.”

When she’d gone, I sat down and ate my lunch. I wondered if things were starting to turn around but, I still had the problem of finding myself somewhere to live to deal with.

Almost an hour later, I received a text from my lawyer confirming that they’d received the envelope. He was going to make several copies of the content and pass the originals to the SEC. When I phoned him earlier, we’d discussed about him letting me know of the content but I told him that I didn’t want to know. He approved of that decision. What I didn’t know, I could not be interrogated about.

I spent the rest of the day repacking the last of the cases that were to be shipped home. Several times, I nearly gave up. It might be pointless if they were searched again still, it had to be done.

---

Around 6pm, I called it a day and ‘nuked’ a TV dinner in the Microwave. I opened a bottle of beer and sat down to eat. I’d hardly swallowed my first mouthful when my door-bell rang.

“Who is it?” I said into the intercom.

“It’s Maureen,” came the reply.

I sighed as I buzzed her into the building.

“This is a nice surprise,” I said as I opened the door to let her in.

What I wasn’t expecting was her to have her son Luke with her.

“Please come on in. I was just having something to eat.”

“Oh,” exclaimed Maureen.

“We can come back later.”

“No, it is only Macaroni Cheese with a little added ham.”

“Ah, Mac and Cheese, that staple of TV Dinners across the nation,” replied Maureen smiling.

“Please take a seat. I’m sorry I don’t have anything to offer you. My larder is pretty bare.”

“That’s why we are here. I thought, why don’t you come and stay with us? We have the room. I had a roommate but she left a couple of months ago to go home to Nebraska to get married.”

I did not know what to say.

“As you said not to use the phone, I thought it would be best to come here in person.”

“Thanks Maureen but I’m not sure.”

“Why? You don’t have anywhere else to go now do you?”

She was right, I didn’t.

I tried to think straight for a while but I could not find any reasons why this was a bad idea.

“Ok, I’ll do it. Thank you, Maureen. This means a lot to me.”

Maureen smiled back at me.

Then she bent down and told her son.

“Luke darling, Gordon is coming to stay with us for a while.”

Luke looked very happy.
“Can we go for another choo-choo ride soon? Can we see Thomas?”

I smiled.

“If things work out well, you can help drive the train if you want?”

“Mommy? Can I? Please?”

“Gordon said that might be possible if things work out. They might and they might not. But…”

Maureen smiled while looking at me.

“Gordon is right if things work out then you can. We can all go and see Thomas.”

Luke came and hugged me.

I hugged him back hoping that everything did work out as I hoped.

As I did so, I wondered why a situation like this had thrown us together. Why couldn’t we have met and gotten to know each other under more normal circumstances?

Then I thought…

“What is normal these days?”

[to be continued]