***

Danny dropped his teaspoon on the small plate, while his jaw dropped. The large TV was set on a news channel, and while the sound wasn’t on full blast, the images told the whole story.

“What?” Vince asked, turning to see what it was that Danny was so engrossed in. “Ha, did someone try to hit the Eclipse Aromatics on Moonveil? Okay, their prices are annoyingly high, but I doubt it’s the best target for a heist.”

Danny was frozen as if in a trance. He got up and walked over to the bar. “Can you please turn up the volume a bit?” he asked the bartender.

“Sure,” the man replied, working the remote. “Crazy people everywhere today. What the heck can you steal from a shop like that?”

Danny sank onto a tall barstool and watched.

The police have yet to catch the perpetrators. Cameras at the well-known shop on Moonveil Avenue caught enough of the two to give law enforcement something to work with in case their hot pursuit yields no result. Although the perpetrators didn’t appear to have a car, they seem to have completely disappeared…

“What the heck?”

Vince jolted him out of his stupor. As his bestie raised one hand to point at the figure now displayed on the screen, Danny thought on his feet for probably the first time in his life. He caught Vince’s arm and pulled it down. “It was such a nice lunch, Vince,” he said in an unnatural voice. “Should we go back to work?” he added brightly.

His bestie nodded slowly, still giving him a strange look. But he did reach for his wallet and paid, all the while keeping his eyes on Danny.

***

“That was--”

“I know,” Danny said quickly, walking quickly, thinking quickly, and coming up with nothing at all.

“That guy--”

“I know,” he repeated.

“Boy, this is--”

“Crazy, I know,” Danny replied.

Vince grabbed his arm and pulled him to a stop. “Where are you going now?”

Danny seemed to realize he didn’t have a plan just then. “Vince, what the hell am I going to do?”

“He’s staying with you, right? Do you think he’ll just go back to your place? While being pursued by the police?”

Danny clapped his hands to both his cheeks, pulling at them in an effort to make all the crazy things he had seen in the last ten minutes disappear from his memory. “Oh god, oh god, oh god. I’m harboring… a fugitive?!”

TBC