The other side of the street, just a few feet away, could have been another country.
“And me without a passport,” Sydney muttered, his hands resting on his hips.
Crossing the street into the Court could put him back into the city lock-up for violating his restraining order. Anyone thinking the police had better things to do than round up a martyred ex-husband didn’t know Tranh and Saris, who were too hungry for action to let him slip past their clutches. If those two failed to catch him, however, worse could be in store, in the form of the Sacketts, who knew none of the boundaries that held the cops in check and seemed eager to divest themselves of Sidney. All that kept them from applying the full force of the Wycliff operation was a little nugget of information.
The crunch of paper being crushed attracted Sydney’s attention to the car parked beside him. The driver huffed and lobbed a brightly colored bit of trash onto the grass at Sydney’s feet.
“He put those stupid things on every car on the street,” the driver snarled. “This is the third time this week.”
Sydney’s stomach gnawed, reminding him that he had missed a meal due to his arrest and had not been offered anything that met his definition of “edible” since. He retrieved the crumpled flyer.
“Maybe there’s a meal coupon here,” he said.
Sydney unfurled and smoothed out the paper. A coupon did appear on the bottom of the page and the subject was food, but the item thus advertised was a home grocery delivery service.
“Hmph. Takes too long for that.”
He folded the paper and then opened it again. Some sentence tugged at him. Near the bottom of the paragraph describing the service, he found an item of interest. The delivery area included the Court. He noted the name of the proprietor, “Wyatt Carson,” and his phone number.
“Mr. Carson. Let me see here…”
Sydney used his phone but not to make a call. He brought up the internet and searched for the name “Wyatt Carson.” The resulting information drew a grin to his face.
“Mr. Carson, I have a special request for you and I’ll pay you well for it too.”
He dialed the number on the flyer.
