16
Tom drove away from the city but not in the direction of his home. He went over the day in his mind as he crossed over King Street, past the steampunks and Goths and university students queued up in front of Clem’s Chicken and the Vietnamese pork roll stores. He felt there was a pulse to everything that he could not yet connect. A busker was singing Robert Johnson’s Crossroads on the footpath to his left and opposite him sat a man holding up a cardboard sign that asked for loose change.
A car crash, the death of his lover. A Chechen Mafioso and the prime minister both wanted something from him and in both cases, he did not know what it was yet. And Hendo’s mysterious statement about a call to serve his country. Tom would certainly do his duty; he was a patriot, he was loyal to flag an
