NYC, 1947

[imalwaysangry]

He had arranged for them to meet at a diner around the corner from Dr. Mallone's apartment. Normally, he would've held all client meetings at the office, but the last two days had revealed a lot. Firstly, that Dr. Mallone was in fact, by all definitions, missing. Secondly that the office was definitely being watched by Saunder's men.

It hadn't taken much to let Mallone's landlady let him into the apartment. Though when she'd pushed the door open it was obvious that someone else had already beat him to it. The place had been a disaster. Every drawer had been pulled out of it's place. Every piece of furniture overturned and thoroughly searched. Bruce had half been expecting to find the body of Mallone among the wreckage but there had been no trace of the older man.

Whoever had been there had clearly been looking for something. Whether or not they'd found it had been unclear. He'd reached out to what little family the man had. None of them had heard from him in weeks. There had been no signs of a drinking or gambling problem. No sign of an affair between him and a married woman. The doctor had simply up and disappeared one day, just as Mrs. Samson had thought.

The only clue, in fact, had been that his car had been found abandoned down by the river. There'd been no blood or reason to believe foul play, but the keys had been left in the engine. Not a normal practice, to say the least.

He sipped the extraordinarily bitter coffee the waitress had brought him and waited for Mrs. Samson. He had a feeling she wasn't going to like what information he had to give her.

Comments

[empiricaldoc]

Betty didn’t bother to ask why the detective preferred to meet in public rather than his office, simply because she was relieved to hear from him at all. She’d tried to put him and the case out of her mind while she waited to hear back, but thoughts of what could be plagued her to the point where she’d barely give the phone a chance to ring before answering it.

Of course, it was no surprise to Betty that when it finally came time to meet, the universe conspired against her in such a way that she was nearly fifteen minutes late. To a war veteran who was a sticker about punctuality anyway, this was a disaster.

“Sorry I’m late,” she huffed as she hurried from behind, looking windblown and more than slightly agitated. She quickly unbuttoned her coat and tossed it and her purse into the booth before promptly scooting in herself. “Figures that when you really need to get somewhere, public transportation is shot to hell.”

[imalwaysangry]

Maybe it was the paranoid side of Bruce, but he'd been about ten minutes away from getting up and walking away. He wouldn't put it past his enemies to have sent him a fake case in order to lure him somewhere. Maybe the fact that he had enemies willing to go to such lengths was a sign it was time to get out of town.

So it was with relief that he got to his feet when Mrs. Samson appeared, waiting for her to get settled before sitting down again himself. Also, because it allowed him a cursory glance towards the front door and windows. The street was clear of suspicious vehicles.

"It's okay," Bruce said, pushing his finished cup of coffee to the side for a refill. "Thanks for going out of your way to meet me here."