Wise Guys (3/4)
Wise Guys
Part 3
Don rubbed at his eyes as he poured himself some coffee. It had been a couple of years since he’d sat and gone over police files looking for missed details. It was grueling, frustrating, work. He’d once had a lawyer tell him that he hated eye witnesses and would much rather work a case on forensics and circumstantial evidence and that was because eye witnesses could never remember shit and were easily made worthless on the stand. Don had to agree. With each case there were always a half dozen witnesses giving a half dozen different stories. It made him glad he’d taken the management bump.
He put some sugar into his coffee and took a sip. He promptly choked at the burnt bitterness of it.
“Oh, yeah, don’t drink the coffee out of the red pot.” Agent Cromwell said stepping into the break room. “It’s there for suspects and lawyers we don’t like.”
“Good to know.” Don took another sip to see if it got better. It didn’t.
Cromwell took the mug from Don, dumped the contents down the sink and put a preset coffee cartage into a fancy Nespresso machine. “We’re not supposed to have this. It was supposed to go to the bigwigs upstairs but there was a typo on the form so it got delivered to us. The bigwigs weren’t really supposed to have it either so they couldn’t kick up too much of a fuss.” He handed Don a cup of coffee that smelled faintly of vanilla.
Don took a sip. “Oh, that’s better.”
“How’s your stuff coming?”
“Slowly, but faster than if we were doing it by hand. Charlie’s got access to a lot of databases and more than a few super computers so that’s going to cut down on the worst of the grunt work.”
“What do you think are the odds you’ll get this guy?” Cromwell’s voice sounded casual but there was tension in his body.
“We’ll get him.”
“I’ve been running this team for four years now and I do not like the idea that someone has been slaughtering children under my nose.”
“I get it. I really do. And look, Charlie, mathematicians in general I think, have got this obsessive streak. There’s this thing called Fermat's Last Theorem. Some weird little math problem that this guy called Fermat thought up in like the sixteen hundreds but died before he wrote the answer down anywhere. Mathematicians finely worked out as answer in the mid 90’s. They don’t like giving up on problems. It messes with their sense of the universe. Charlie’s been working with Violent Crimes almost nine years now so he gets that he can’t take three centuries to work out a problem but he doesn’t let things like this go.”
“That’s good to know. Was he really Tommy Rossi Junior’s math tutor?”
“Yes. Yes he was.”
Cromwell shook his head. “It’s a weird world out there isn’t it.”
“Drink a half a bottle of Tequila with a depressed cosmologist and then talk to me about weird.”
~
It was after dark, and Agent Marino had already clocked out, when Don finally dragged Charlie out of the FBI. He’d managed to acquire three more whiteboards, two computers, a second large flat screen TV, and a pin board turning the little conference into something he felt he could work in. Don thought of it as nesting and he knew he’d have a hard time getting Charlie out of there once he truly settled in. Before starting on a new equation, and while something else was compiling, Don grabbed Charlie with the intent of feeding him and possibly dumping him into one of the hotel beds. He wasn’t sure if he’d manage the second one so he’d try for food.
Agent Marino had given him directions to one of the local diners that was supposed to be reasonably good. He pulled the rental car up under a neon sign that read Mom’s. A small thread of fear curled around Don’s stomach. In his fugitive recovery days he’d gotten more than a few cases of food poisoning from places called Mom’s. He poked Charlie in the shoulder to get his attention up from his notebook. “Food.”
Charlie looked around before getting out and heading into the dinner. The air didn’t smell too toxic, just a healthy combination of caffeine and grease. A teenaged waitress showed them to a booth and dropped the menus in front of them. Don scanned his eyes over it looking for a vegetable. Billy had always teased him about his attempts to eat halfway healthy on the road.
Charlie flipped his menu over and gave a little snort. “Hey Don. Buy me a milkshake.”
“What?”
“The last time we were in New Jersey together, aside from my graduation, you took me out for a milkshake. So, we’re back in Jersey, buy me a milkshake.”
Don remembered that trip. It was supposed to be a few days of family get together over spring break but instead their parents had disappeared for a weekend leaving Don to babysit a fourteen year old Charlie. He’d mainly crashed on the couch and watched TV while Charlie did math.
“We are back in Jersey, aren’t we?” The waitress came over. Charlie ordered a cheese burger, coffee and a chocolate milk shake. Don broke down and ordered a cheese burger as well. “So, last time we were here you were fourteen, right?”
“Sounds about right.”
“What did you think you’d be doing now, I mean at the time, where did you think you’d be by now?”
Charlie looked at himself in the back of a dingy spoon. “I’d be teaching. MIT, Harvard, CalSci. Maybe still at Princeton. I’d probably have a few government projects. Satellites and stuff. Per review work. Be a thesis advisor.”
“Chasing down serial killers wasn’t anywhere on that list was it.”
“Not even a blip at the far edge of the spectrum. What about you? Where were you supposed to be?”
“Well, after a good career in the majors and be coaching or maybe be a general manager of a decent sized club.”
“Chasing serial killers?”
Don’s coffee arrived. “I never told mom and dad but that was sort of plan B.” Don put sweetener into his coffee to make up in some little way for the cheese burger that was coming. “Any regrets, Chuck, doing this, instead of, I don’t know, going over thesis papers at MIT?”
Charlie smiled. “No. I know I should. People tell me I should but… no. I mean, yeah I’m probably never going to work out the Hodge conjecture but they’re never going to know what it feels like to see a kidnapped child returned to their parents and know that you had a hand in making it happen.”
“I know that feeling. It’s a good feeling.”
“It’s an addictive feeling.”
“It is.”
Charlie’s milkshake arrived in a tall glass. “What about you Don, any regrets?”
“No,” Don answered without even thinking. “I mean little things. I probably should have sucked it up and gotten married earlier. But for the big things, no.”
Charlie nodded and they fell into silence but it wasn’t the pained, uncomfortable silence of their youth. It was simply comfortable with no need to fill up the empty space with emptier words.
Their cheese burgers arrived with a thick pile of fries next to each.
“So… You and Amita are trying for kids?” The question had been sitting at the back of Don’s mind for a few weeks now.
Charlie shrugged a little. “We’ve been trying pretty much since day one. I mean neither of us are getting any younger. We’ve got a doctor’s appointment penciled in in a couple of months. Just in case.”
“I’m sure everything fine. You’re timing and everything’s probably just a bit off.”
“That what we’re hoping. How about you and Robin?”
Don gave a half shrug as well. “We’ve talked about it but… I’m a little past prime and she’s still working 60, 70 hour weeks. I mean if something happens, it happens but…”
“I don’t know if this helps or not but I think you’d make a good dad.”
“Really?” Those were not exactly words he ever expected to hear from Charlie.
“Sure. You look out for people. You push them but not more than they can handle. You like to teach. You have an amazing amount of patience.”
“You fall under all those categories as well.”
Charlie ducked his head a bit. “Yeah, but I’m also capable of locking myself in a garage and working on one math problem for twenty hours at a stretch.”
“Nothing to say you can’t take the kid in with you. They make those little baby sling things. It would be cute. Mathematician and child.”
“Tempting. We’ll see.” Charlie took a couple of sips of coffee. “What if I can’t get this guy, Don?”
“No. You’re still too early in the case to go into self-doubt faze. You will get this guy. I’m sure if it.”
“I’m sure if I just work out those question marks…”
“You’ll work them out. You’ll put this guy in jail. You’ve taken on harder and done more with less and you know it.”
Charlie nibble on a fry. “Just keep telling me that, will you?”
“Not a problem.”
~
Don squinted at the bedside clock as he heard the shower start to run. It was 5 in the morning which made it stupidly early Californian time. The shower only ran for a couple of minutes before Charlie came out, quickly toweling himself dry.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Don mumbled from his own bed.
“Had an idea and there should be less load on the supercomputer at this time of night. Go back to sleep for a few hours, I’ll grab a cab.”
Don pushed himself up. “No. I’m awake. Give me five minutes and I’ll go in with you.”
Don was asleep again by 5:30 but it was sitting up in a chair in Charlie’s new nest. When he opened his eyes again it was due to vanilla scented cappuccino being waved under his nose by Agent Cromwell. Don wrapped his hands around the cup gratefully. “Thank you.”
“No problem. Have you been here all night?”
Don looked over to Charlie who was scribble away at the whiteboard and solidly plugged into his ipod. “No. I got him to snag a couple of hours.”
“That’s it?”
“Scientists are as bad as FBI agents when it comes to things like that. Possibly a bit worse.” Don yawned and took another big swig of coffee.
Cromwell leaned against the table sipping his own coffee. “Did you guys make any progress yesterday?”
Don shrugged a bit. “The census coughed up a little over 10 thousand names for us to start with. The blunt force algorithms got that down to fifteen hundred. So mathematically speaking loads of progress.”
“You can’t exactly go knocking of fifteen hundred doors.”
“No. Charlie is still sure that the dark matter is the key.”
“Dark matter and warped starlight?”
“He found a stealth predator by running unsolved crimes through the same math SETI uses to look for little green men. And while he’ll sooner eat his degree than admit to it, he’s developed pretty good gut instinct as to where he should be looking for answers.”
Agent Marino came in holding her own coffee. Don grabbed a loose paperclip and flicked it at Charlie to get his attention. Charlie whipped around and pulled out his ear buds.
“Charlie, your team is here. Where do you want us looking today?”
“Keep cross checking names from reports with the filtered census list. I’m going to keep working on this.”
Agent Marino grabbed a file from a stack. “Sounds like a party.”
~
It was noon and Don was starting to go cross-eyed trying to decipher hand written case notes. His stomach was also pointing out that he hadn’t had breakfast. Charlie had taken a step back from one of the boards and was just studying the equation. “Charlie.”
“Yes.” He didn’t turn around.
“Come on. Let’s put some food in you.”
“I’m not hungry.” Charlie wiped out half the equation with his hand and grabbed the pen again.
“I am. I’ll bring you back a sandwich.”
Charlie just nodded. Don knew he could have just confessed to being the real Green River Killer and Charlie would have just nodded.
He’d seen a sandwich shop just around the corner from the Federal Building. It looked like the kind of place agents might go to pick up a quick lunch and coffee. It was a sixth sense Don was sure most people in law enforcement developed, the ability to drive down a street and just sort of know where the cop bar is or where the feds go for a quick bite.
Inside a couple of young men were behind a counter slapping together sandwiches and pouring coffee. There were a couple of deep booths but most people seemed to get their meals to go. Don checked the time and was sure that Charlie probably hadn’t even noticed he was gone. He ordered a roast beef sandwich to eat in and another to go.
He was about to slip into a booth when he heard someone say his name. He looked around. In one of the booths Tommy Rossi Jr. lowered a newspaper that had been hiding his face. “Take a seat,” he said nodding to the other side of the booth. Don looked around. “Don’t worry, my federal shadows won’t be showing up for another ten minutes. And they make good sandwiches here.”
Don slid into the booth. “How did you...?”
“Charlie told me you two were in town. Had a hunch.”
“Right.”
“So. How’s the case?”
“I really can’t talk about an active investigation.” Tommy stared at him hard. Don stared right back. He knew he was about as safe as you could get staring down a mob boss.
“You can’t give me anything?”
“I really can’t talk about an active investigation. It’s Bureau policy.”
Tommy smirked. “Oh, I know all about Bureau policy.”
“I don’t know how they do things out here but I run a tight ship on my coast and Charlie learned from me.”
“And yet he got nicked for sending genetic information to Pakistan.” Don wasn’t able to mask his surprise quickly enough. The smirk hadn’t left Tommy’s face. “Not everyone keeps a tight ship.”
“It was an act of protest and Charlie is fucking lucky he’s not rotting in a SuperMax without parole and he knows that.”
“He would survive. Your brother is tougher than you think. Bit angrier too I bet.”
“On occasion.”
Tommy pointed to the scar on his cheek. “You know how I got this scar?”
“A bullet from the Carvaci family,” Don answered. It was common knowledge.
Tommy chuckled. “Yeah. That’s what I tell people. I got it from your brother.”
“Bullshit.” Was Don’s instant answer bypassing any filtering.
“I thought if my grades were crap enough my old man would drop this whole college education crap. Instead he made some calls and arranged for me and my boys to have a math tutor. So one day they herd us all into a classroom and your brother is standing there trying to look all grownup. Tie and everything. We laughed our asses off. But he took a breath and started doing his thing. And he had this long stick so he could point to stuff high up on the board. Soon as his back was turned I loaded up a spit wad. Nice big wet one and let it fly. Hit him right on the back of the neck. Perfect shot. He froze and we laughed and it must have been one spit wad too many because he whipped around and brought that stick of his down across my face. Split it right open. Now you got to understand Eppes, only person to lay a hand on me since I was eight was my old man. And I could have snapped your brother’s neck right there but I didn’t. I didn’t move a fucking muscle and neither did anyone else because if I did I fully believe Charlie would have come at my throat with his teeth. Now I’ve seen pissed, and I’ve seen angry, but I swear to god that was the first time in my life I ever looked at someone and saw rage. He spent five minutes telling us at the top of his lungs just what he thought of us, and what we would amount to, and how important math was to everything, and how we were wasting his time, and to this day I have never heard so much cursing in one place and my old man was a grand champion of cussing. My first word was fuck but your brother that day… I mean your brother had a baby face that should not have known how to use the words ‘cunt sucking’ in a sentence. Five solid minutes I felt the blood dripping down my face and none of us moved. Then he just stopped mid-sentence. Took a deep breath and turned back around like nothing had ever fucking happened.”
Don tried to process what he’d just heard as quickly as possible. As far as he could tell he didn’t think Tommy was lying. Who would make up a lie about having his face split open by a math tutor? “I’d like to say I could never picture Charlie doing that.”
“But you can. You know under all that math is a guy who’ll do a hundred on the freeway and try to argue that the radar gun was wrong.”
“Yeah.”
“When we took a break Tweak, who was always holding something, slipped a half a valium into his soda. Once he relaxed we found out he was a pretty cool kid, just under way too much pressure. You know they were nagging him about picking a journal to publish in? He was fourteen for Christ sake. The only journal he should have been thinking about were your hand me down Playboys.”
“So he splits open your face and you decide to adopt him?”
“Someone had to keep him from turning into a dweeb like the rest of them. And sitting here right now I don’t regret it. I bet he doesn’t either.”
Don looked at his roast beef sandwich. “I can’t comment on an active case but the fact that Charlie has picked up the show and brought it here is something you might be able to draw some conclusions from.”
Tommy nodded, folded up his newspaper and stepped out. Don pulled out his phone, turned on the stopwatch function, and started on his sandwich. After three minutes and twenty two seconds Agent Dobson sat down across from him.
“He wanted to know where we were on finding the person who murdered his daughter. I told him I can’t and don’t comment on active investigations and no I don’t know how he knew I’d be here.”
Agent Dobson sat still and silent for a minute and four seconds (Don hadn’t stopped the stopwatch function), his jaw clenching and unclenching, before getting up and walking out.
~
Charlie was hunched over his laptop, and Agent Marino was out, when Don got back to Charlie’s nest. He dropped Charlie’s sandwich on the table next to him. “It’s roast beef and I ran into your friend. He wanted to know where we were on the case.”
Charlie looked look. “What did you tell him?”
“That we don’t comment on active investigations.” Charlie nodded and returned his focus to his laptop. “He also told me how he got that famous scar on his cheek.”
Charlie’s head snapped up and his face went bright red. “I wasn’t having the best day.”
“No shit. You have got to be running low on your nine lives. Did you even know who he was?”
“He was a dumb jock, who was failing math, wasting my time, and trying to make my college years as miserable as high school. That’s who he was.”
“And you just decided to snap.”
“It wasn’t what you could call a conscience decision. It was more like a split personality or an out of body experience. I could hear the words coming out of my mouth but I couldn’t actually make myself shut up. It was a very disturbing sensation.”
“So, unbelievably lucky. Where’s Agent Marino?”
“They got another bank job.”
“Violent crew?” Don hadn’t actually looked at the details of any of the Jersey case load.
“Not yet, but I did tell them the cautionary tail of the Charm School Boys.”
“Did you explain Heisenberg's uncertainty principle along with it?”
Charlie pinched his lips. “I can’t tell if you’re teasing me.”
Don grinned. “Only a little.”
Charlie pushed some folders across the table to Don. “Keep reading.”
It was almost evening by the time Agent Cromwell and his team came dragging back into the office still in their TAC gear, looking sweaty, dirty and absolutely wrecked. “I’ll take a guess and say that your nonviolent bank robbers didn’t stay that way?”
“Two of them went down in a hail of bullets, one got away, and I’ve got about a million years’ worth of paperwork to do now.”
“Anyone hurt?”
“Just the bad guys and one civilian who got a good knock on the head for trying to be a hero.”
“There’s always one.”
Cromwell looked over his shoulder to see if anyone was listening. “We weren’t going to bring the heavy armament but your brother gave Agent Marino some lecture about a bank case he’d worked on, and something about particle physics, and she put her foot down while we were heading out the door and made us grab the big guns.”
“That was Charlie’s second case with us. Crew we called the Charm School Boys. Non-violent, amazingly polite, low danger, right up until the moment they opened up with automatic weapons, blew up a car, shot an agent, stole my weapon, shot at me. Chuck showed up at the scene just in time to see dead getting shoved into body bags. First and only time he ever got sick at on a scene, but he’s always been a little funny about bank jobs after that.”
“Well, funny saved our asses so if he needs some extra hands in there he’s got them.”
“I’ll pass that along. Agent Marino’s been a big help already.”
Cromwell smiled. “I think she’s got a bit of a crush on him.”
“He’s married to a woman with twice as many doctorates as he has.”
“I’ll be sure to pass that along.” Suddenly Agent Cromwell’s back started to curl up. “Is there a red head in a tight dress coming up behind me?” he whispered harshly.
Don checked. A stunning redhead in an obscenely tight business suit and spiked heels was heading their way. “Yes. AUSA?”
“Yes.”
“Agent Cromwell.” The lawyer barked out. “We need to have a discussion.” Cromwell cringed and didn’t turn around.
“Word of advice, I married ours.” Cromwell’s eyes went wide as Don grinned then made a run for it.
~
Don wasn’t sure if he wanted more coffee for the caffeine or if he just wanted an excuse to get out of the Classroom as the local agents had taken to calling Charlie’s commandeered meeting room. It was starting to look a bit like Charlie’s old office. They’d been there close to a week and over that time Charlie had managed to acquire several whiteboards, a small server box which Mary may have flat out stolen from somewhere, and every inch of wall that wasn’t being written on had pictures and police reports stuck to it. Charlie had even taken to using the whiteboard markers on the windows when he ran out of board space.
And despite all that, and the added help of Cromwell’s team, their killer still seemed as far away as patches of galactic dark matter. They had managed to get a suspect list down to a few hundred but the local judges weren’t about to grant search warrants on three hundred people based on mathematical probability. Don realized that there were a couple of judges in LA that they had trained up well enough that they could maybe get a warrant on a hundred.
Suddenly Charlie’s whiteboard marker was flung across the room with enough force to make everyone jump. “I’m taking a walk.” Charlie announced already taking long strides out the door. Don got up to follow but Charlie waved him off. Don sat back down and plugged another name into Charlie’s laptop. The computer started to churn. He realized that Cromwell and his team were staring at him.
“What?”
Charlie marched back in. “Agent Cromwell, may I borrow a Glock and 20 minutes on your range?”
Agent Cromwell looked at Don. “He shoots 290.”
Cromwell shrugged. “Sure, why not.”
Charlie turned back around with Agent Cromwell following. The other agents were still staring at Don. “He keeps his shooting certificates on his office wall right over this policies on academic honesty.” The agents chuckled and went back to the files.
Almost an hour later Charlie came back in looking a bit more focused and a bit more relaxed. Agent Cromwell followed looking suitably impressed. He signed 2 9 2 to his team as Charlie turned back to boards. Several sets of eyebrows went up and Agent Marino looked down right predatorily. Don wondered what Mary would say. The two women seemed to have some sort of quite competition going over the completely unavailable and unaware Charlie.
Agent Cromwell’s phone rang and he quickly stepped out of the room. About a minute later he popped his head back in. “Um… Professor, there’s someone down in the lobby who wants to talk with you.”
“Really.”
“Yeah, but I don’t think it’s who you’re expecting it is.”
Charlie put down his pen looking curious. “Okay then.” Charlie headed out and Don followed. Down in the lobby was a big man in his 40s was standing with his back to the wall, dressed in a powder blue track suit looking uncomfortable as agents walked by. He smiled as soon as he saw Charlie.
“Mini Teach.”
“Jimmy.” Jimmy pulled Charlie into a backslapping hug. Don wasn’t sure which Jimmy this might be but there was no doubt he had to be one of Tommy’s crew. “Jimmy, this is my brother Don. Don, Jimmy Valentino.”
A large meaty hand enveloped Don’s. “The infamous Donnie Eppes, nice to meet you.”
“You too.” Don managed to retrieve his hand as Jimmy turned to Charlie.
“So, what can I do for you?” Charlie asked. Don cringed internally. He really wished Charlie would stop asking mobsters that.
“Not really here for anything. Tommy told us you were in town and… Well I was Angelica’s god father.”
Charlie’s face fell. “I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah, it wasn’t right, what happened. We all thought Tommy was a little off when he started talking about a serial killer but now we hear you’re here and he was right.”
“Looks that way. I mean I really can’t talk about active cases.”
“Yeah, I know. Just wanted to make sure something was actually happening, and it wasn’t Tommy losing it or something.”
“You don’t have to worry. He’s not losing it. And I’m not giving up on this.”
“That’s good to hear. And I brought something for you.” Jimmy picked up a pink pastry box from one of the benches that lined the walls of the lobby. “My mom did them up for you. She remembered how much you liked them.”
Charlie took the box and peeked into it. A blissed out smile covered his face and he pulled out a cannoli. Don broke out in a cold sweat as the theme from The Godfather started running through his mind. Charlie took a bite, closed his eyes and rolled back his head. Don had the horrible realization that aside from possibly being thirty seconds away from being wacked,, he was probably witnessing something very close to his brother’s sex face.
Charlie shook his head. “First time I had these I actually proposed to your mother.”
Jimmy laughed a booming laugh that caused every agent on the floor to look their way. He slapped Charlie on the back. “You would have been better for her than my old man.”
Charlie took another bite. “Tell her thank you.”
“Sure. I’ll let you get back to your thing. Tommy spread the word, no one gets in your way during the case, but after you find this bastard, before you go back to California, you should come to dinner. Everyone would love to see you again.”
Charlie smiled. “I’d love to see them too.”
Jimmy gave him another slap on the shoulder. “Take care Mini Teach.”
“You to.”
Don waited until Jimmy was out of earshot. “Which Jimmy is that?”
“Big Jimmy.”
“The accountant?”
“No, that’s Giant Jimmy.”
“Of course.”
Charlie checked the clock on the wall and preceded to lick the cream out of one end of a cannoli in a way that looked more than a little indecent. After two and a half minutes the organized crime guys showed up.
“He was Angelica’s god father. He wanted to know how things are going. I told him we don’t comment on active cases, and he brought me a box of his mother’s cannolis which are really, really good.”
The organized crime guys both looked like they wanted to say something but instead they just ground their teeth and walked off.
“Seriously Charlie, stop antagonizing those guys, it’s only going to get you dragged before a grand jury or something.”
“Where I will reveal to the world Big Jimmy’s secret formula for the perfect Jell-O shot.” Charlie headed back to the elevators still licking cream off his fingers.
Don wondered just how he’d missed the obvious criminal streak in his little brother for all those years. Throw together the driving, the pranks, the very risky ‘protests’, and the ability to regularly find uses for technology that ‘aren’t yet illegal’, some hither to unknown connections to the criminal underworld and Charlie was one good push away from going dark side. Or at least he probably had been at some point in his life.
“Can I try one of those?”
Charlie curled himself over the box. “Get your own cannolis, these are mine.”
“There’s like two dozen, you’ll make yourself sick after three.”
“They’re still mine.”
Don rolled his eyes. They were still bickering when they got back to the room.
“Everything okay with your visitor, Professor?” Cromwell asked.
“Just fine.” Charlie opened the box. “Cannoli? They’re homemade.”
“He gets one and I don’t?”
“It’s his house, we’re guests.”
Cromwell peaked into the box, selected one and took a bite. Don quickly got the feeling he was seeing a version of Cromwell’s sex face as well. “Oh, my god these are good. What’s in them?”
“No idea. I think Mrs. Valentino blends the cream in a certain way.”
Charlie held out the box to the three other agents in the room. Within seconds there was a completely inappropriate amount of moaning and sex faces going on. Charlie finally handed one to Don. It was good. Really, really good. The pastry was crunchy without being brittle and not too heavy or oily. The cream was light and fluffy, sweet without being saccharin, and blended with a bunch of other flavors Don couldn’t come close to identifying.
“You proposed to the woman who made these?” Don asked Charlie once he could think clearly again.
“Yep. I was fifteen.”
Don took another bite. “I can completely understand that.”
~
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