Midnight Guardians by Jonathon King Page A

counter.
    “You need a napkin for that?” She was still looking up past my eyes.
    When I took the wad and wiped at my forehead, the napkins came back smeared with blood. I wiped some more, and then looked at the girl, who was watching with an expression that said she was a little embarrassed for me.
    “Good?” I said.
    Her fingers came up to a spot along her own temple, and I mocked the gesture, wiping away more blood. I must have split my skin open when my head hit the windshield after colliding with the Monte Carlo. I’d never even felt it.
    The girl nodded when I’d apparently wiped away enough of my blood to be presentable, and then repeated my order. I gave her a five for the $2.30 bill and left the change as I took my order and walked to a table as far from the other two occupants of the store as possible. As I passed him, the boyfriend watched me from under eyebrows pierced with small silver rings. When I winked at him, he turned away sullenly. It was only after I’d sat down and pried the lid off my coffee and took a sip that I noticed that my hands were dirty from pulling at the wheel well of my truck, fingers and palms dusty with a rust-colored film. I got back up and headed into the men’s room.
    The older guy in the back was still staring into the bottom of his cup, and his fingers were stained with more grime than my own, their blunted tips caressing the Styrofoam. As I got closer, the shabbiness of his clothing became more apparent, and I could see he was wearing a worn baseball cap with AIG stitched on the front. He was muttering something about “sub-prime credit default swap derivatives.”
    I went into the restroom and locked the door behind me. When I looked in the mirror, I saw a haggard, dirty, and unexpectedly older looking face staring back. Granted, I am not used to looking into mirrors. My river shack out on the edge of the Glades doesn’t have one. At Sherry’s, I shave by touch in the shower, feeling my way through the process with the tips of my fingers instead of looking for missed spots. I’ve always done it that way.
    When I looked at my reflection now to see if I’d removed all the blood, I was slightly surprised by the dark bags under my gray-colored eyes. There were prominent crow’s-feet at the corners that I didn’t recall being there before. My skin was tanned recently from long runs on the beach and from the canoeing I did to and from my semi-isolation on the river, before I spent much time at Sherry’s. I cranked a sheet of paper towel from the dispenser on the wall and moistened it beneath the faucet.
    After wiping away some flecks of blood still on my forehead, I inspected the split. It wasn’t deep, but the dark color of a slight contusion was growing just below it. Satisfied, I brushed back my brown hair, only to see more of the gray at my temples. Again, I was stupidly surprised: What, Max, you didn’t think you were aging out there in the Glades?
     
Yes, I am a pirate, two hundred years too late
     
    The lyrics came into my head even though I’m not even a big Jimmy Buffett fan. The line about being an over-forty victim was too self-pitying. I finished up and went back out into the store, where I sat back down at my table and drank my coffee. As I took a few decent swallows of the now cooled-down brew, I reminded myself I still had a case to work.
    In my mind, I reviewed what I had so far: A paranoid woman presents herself as a whistle-blower on a scheme to rip off Medicare funds, but she’s afraid to go to the feds—why? Because she’s illegal, or because her brother’s involved, and he’s illegal? If true, where’s the motivation to rat out the scam to begin with? If they’re both illegal and flaunting the law by working without documentation, what does it matter to her if someone on the side is ripping off her adopted government?
    I have an automatically cynical attitude about people who simply do the right thing because it’s the right thing. Human