Five Hours a Year novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: Three and a Half Hours

Desmond stood up and buttoned his jacket, and his face did not change.

"Alec, you're upset. We'll sort out the numbers at the office."

"We'll sort them out," Alec said, "when I'm in the room and you're not."

"That's an extraordinary thing to say in front of strangers."

"Frances isn't a stranger. She taught me to cross-examine a witness at a bar review, when I was twenty-six."

Frances raised two fingers in a small salute.

Desmond took the folder, left the statement on the table, and walked out through the bullpen with his head up.

He did not hurry.

On the other side of the glass, the associate with the phone lowered it and looked at the floor.

"That," Frances said, "was the best forty seconds of my week."

She patted my shoulder and walked out.

Alec and I were alone with the paper.

"Twenty minutes," I said, and held up my phone. "You arrived at 10:08. It's 10:31."

"Then I owe you for twenty-three."

"I round down for first-time clients."

"I'm not your client."

"No." I picked up my bag. "You're the man who has a table at eight o'clock tonight, because Frances booked it and told me I'd regret not going."

His eyebrows rose.

"Is that an invitation?"

"It's a reservation. It's non-refundable."

The restaurant was a ten-table place in North Beach with a kitchen you could see from every table.

The owner seated us at the window, brought bread, and waited with a pen.

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