[i]How did she get my number?[/i]

The question had many possible answers; friends, associates, word of mouth, so Jack didn’t give a lot thought to that aspect of the call right away. Besides which, the desperate hollering of the woman had its own distracting effects. Once the necessary information was noted, he cut her off by ending the call. He then pinch-shut his eyes, placed the android with a lackluster fumble on the dashboard, while the thumb of is other hand softly stroked the running mustang at the center of his steering wheel.  It was far too early for a call like that. 

The horn of the morning ferry to the city soon had his eye sliver open again, squinting against the light of sunrise stretching out like hazy fingers to the scattered red-tone cloud above the distant skyline. It would have been an admirable dawn had his head not been pounding with the reminiscent drums of last night’s abuse. He could almost feel his liver disintegrating. And there it was, the gaping mouth of his departed friend, now just an empty bottle of Russian Standard that he turned in his seat to eyeball on the passenger seat. …No Hair of the Dog salvation this morning.

“Rest in piss….” 

The words faded out with his presence of mind. He spent the next thirty minutes nodding in and out of consciousness before his inner voice alerted him of the need to contact his associate. They had a job to do. He started the engine then retrieved his phone from the dash. Not yet in the mood for vocalizing, he scrolled through his longer than desired list of contacts until he reached the name Quinn, opened a text window, and thumbed out the message:

[indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][b]got a live one. woman hysterics. son gone. no cops. 
21 ashmore ave freesprings. 
on way now. pick u up or meet ther?[/b][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent]

He paused for a moment, blinking to focus through the glaze of eye fluid to assess any typos before hitting Send. 

	… Message sent.

A minute later the old slate-grey Mustang rumbled as it backed from the harbor-side parking lot to ride off into this new day of hell….