Chapter Forty-Two
Forty-Two
The restaurant that Mary and Quaddra were in wasn’t exactly full to capacity, but it was busy enough for a Wednesday evening, and their argument had already attracted plenty of attention.
But as Mary returned to their table, she noticed that all the extra pairs of eyes that were on her just seconds earlier, had slowly begun moving their attention back to their own businesses.
Nothing to see here, really – just a couple having a quick disagreement.
Thankfully, no one seemed to have been filming any of it.
‘Thank you,’ Quaddra said, as Mary took her seat, placing both of her feet flat against the ground and keeping her back straight, not quite touching the chair’s backrest, in case she needed to quickly get up and go.
‘You can check my driver’s license for signs of forgery, if you want.’ He nodded at it.
Mary had no idea of how to check for a forged driver’s license, but still, she picked it up and ran the tips of her fingers against it, maybe looking for some sort of roughness or anything that felt odd.
She got nothing – no dents… no boldness…
no unevenness… nothing but a perfectly smooth document.
She checked the photo – everything looked one hundred percent legit.
She returned the driver’s license to the table before fixing Quaddra with a solid stare.
‘So? Your real name is Quaddra, not Thomas, but I still have no fucking idea of who the hell you really are, or why you lied about your name.’
‘That was going to be my next step.’
‘Was?’
‘I mean… is.’
‘OK, so let’s hear it then.’
Quaddra nodded at Mary’s handbag, which was still slung over her right shoulder. ‘You’re going to need your phone for this.’
‘What?’ Mary’s brow creased. ‘My phone?’
Quaddra nodded.
‘Why?’
‘You’ll see.’
Mary made no motion for her handbag.
‘This isn’t a trick, Mary,’ Quaddra said, nodding at his breast pocket. ‘I could lend you my phone, but you might think that it’s somehow rigged. By you using your phone, it lends credibility to what you’re about to see.’
Mary studied the man sitting across the table from her. He seemed relaxed, his tone confident. She, too, acted as calm as she possibly could, finally reaching into her handbag to retrieve her cellphone.
‘OK, now what?’ she asked. ‘Take a selfie?’
‘No,’ Quaddra replied. ‘All you need to do is google my name.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Just google, or use whichever search engine you prefer, and search for Quaddra Buckner… see what you get.’
Mary’s gaze stayed on Quaddra for a few more seconds before her eyes moved to her cellphone screen. It stayed there for a second, before going back to Quaddra.
‘Please, Mary, just do it.’ He nodded at her firmly.
‘Fine,’ she said before unlocking her phone, calling up her browser app, and typing his name into the search box.
‘Make sure you spell Quaddra with a double “D”,’ he reminded her.
‘I have,’ Mary confirmed, as she tapped the ‘go’ button on her screen.
The reception inside the restaurant was pretty good, and a result page loaded almost instantaneously.
Quaddra sat back on his chair, crossed one leg over the other, and allowed his stare to settle on Mary’s face.
Right at the top of the result page, next to the words ‘showing results for Quaddra Buckner’, Mary could see a portrait photo of the man sitting across the table from her.
In the photo, he looked to be a few years younger, but not many.
His hair was a couple of inches longer, with the ends curling out in all different directions, just like on the first night she met him.
Mary’s eyes moved down to the first result showing on the page. She didn’t even need to click on it to understand why Quaddra had lied about his real name.