What Would Satan Do_ - Anthony Miller [9]
Liam had left his job with the CIA’s Special Activities Division five years before. He’d done well there – worked his way up the ranks, shot some bad guys, snuck in and out of foreign countries – just normal stuff. But the stress and the politics had ultimately gotten to be too much. At least, that was what he told people. In fact, he’d actually quite liked it. A lot. After all, not everybody gets paid to kick the crap out of bad guys. Most folks have to develop hobbies or drinking problems to help them cope with the daily grind, but Liam got to exorcise his demons while he was on the clock. All good things, however, either have to end or start sucking eventually.
Liam’s departure from the CIA had been precipitated by an unfortunate incident involving former Vice President Dick Whitford, a hot-rodded golf cart, and fourteen gallons of lemon pudding. This, of course, had come on the heels of a series strange of episodes that, in that rarified, secret-agent air, might otherwise have merited little more than an entry in some top secret report and an endearing nickname among the other sociopaths he called co-workers. But that was not to be. Instead, the episode with the VP bumped him up from a necessary evil to a full-fledged problem, and so Liam had been encouraged to fuck off.
He’d left that life behind, and today a much less lethal Liam stood in line for coffee, just like he did pretty much every morning. Ahead of him, a queue of students waited to order beverages of absurd complexity. They wore Gucci and Prada and jaded expressions, and they made waiting in line look cool. In his old khaki shorts and tattered T-shirt, Liam actually looked more like a student than pretty much anyone else there in the coffee house.
Holy Land Coffee was located just a couple of blocks from the campus of the 50,000-student University of Texas. It was also next door to the guitar shop Liam had started when he’d returned home. He loved his guitar shop, if only because running it meant that he tended to encounter far fewer smelly, unfriendly terrorists who were up to no good and needed to be shot. Or vice presidents, for that matter.
He sighed. His life these days was relaxed, comfortable, and mostly fire-arm free – and so he should have felt pretty good. But something was not right – something he couldn’t put his finger on. It nagged at him. He felt like something was missing; like he was waiting for something to happen. Liam had no idea what, though, because like most men, he was unable to wrap his head around tricky things like “feelings.” And so, as usual, he just dismissed the whole thing.
A few spots ahead in line, a young woman who was either a coed or a Hollywood starlet stepped up to the counter. Her expensive-looking sunglasses had gaudy, gold lettering on the sides and giant, bug-eye lenses that made her look a little like a platinum-haired insect – an insect who probably would’ve looked spectacular in a bikini. She was on the phone, and didn’t pause to place her order so much as redirect the stream of her conversation from her handset to the barista.
“Um, hi, yes, I’d like grande half-caff, extra hot, soy latte with extra foam, half a squirt of sugar-free vanilla and half a squirt of sugar-free cinnamon, two packets of Splenda, and please put it in a venti cup, ‘kay? And,” she tilted her head and clasped her hands together in faux prayer, “can I please get a teensy bit of sugar-free caramel sauce drizzled on top? ‘Kay, thanks.” Her order placed, she snapped her phone back to her ear and picked up right where she left off without slowing down or even, apparently, breathing in. “And oh my god she was like, so drunk. I know, right? What a bitch. Yeah, I know, the whole night, and did you see those shoes she was wearing? So last summer, right? Oh. My. God!” She shoved past Liam and wandered off to take up space down at the end of the counter.
Liam was, generally speaking, an unflappable guy, partly