The Tree of Knowledge, Daniel Miller [unputdownable books txt] 📗

I’m Darrell,” said the dark-haired man on Ying’s right shoulder as he scratched his unshaven chin.

“Hello,” said Ying, leaning back to create some space between the two.

Albert could see Ying was trying to be friendly but that she wanted nothing to do with this man. He slid his seat forward and to the right and put his elbow on the bar to attempt to edge back between Ying and the man who was blocking him.

Darrell continued to press. “I’d love to have a dance with you,” he said.

Ying looked at Albert in confusion. There was no music playing in the bar. Albert shook his head at Ying as if to say, “Don’t get into the details with this guy.”

“No, thanks,” said Ying politely and turned back to the bar, attempting to resume a conversation with Albert that they hadn’t been having.

“Oh, c’mon now,” slurred Darrell, grabbing Ying’s arm.

Seeing Ying wince, and without thinking, Albert pushed aside Darrell’s friend and put his hand on Darrell’s shoulder.

“Sir, I don’t think she wants to dance with you. I’d appreciate it if you’d leave the two of us alone.”

The activity of the joint came to a sudden stop. All conversation ceased as if a string had been cut. Albert heard Darrell cackle and with the man’s yellow, gap-toothed smile realized that he had fallen into his trap. This was exactly what the three hyenas had wanted. Ying wasn’t their prey; Albert was.

In an instant, Darrell had Albert by the collar and up against the wall with his two friends holding back his arms. As he grabbed Albert by the throat, Darrell whispered into the side of his head. The whiskey-tinged breath burned in Albert’s ear like acid.

“No, I’m not going to leave you alone, pretty boy. I’m gonna kick the living shit out of you, and then I’m gonna have my way with your little Chinese girlfriend. How’s that sou—”

But before Darrell could finish his sentence, a wooden stick encircled his neck and ripped him backward. Albert looked on as Darrell took a blow to the knees and dropped to the floor, revealing Angus Turner behind him. The professor held his walking stick in both hands and rocked it up and down like a weapon.

Albert knew that he would never forget the look the professor gave him in the instant that Darrell dropped to the floor. It was a look of absolute calm and focus . . . and then, to his amazement, the professor cracked a smile and winked. But as shocking as that expression was, what followed exceeded it tenfold.

After pausing to understand what they had seen—an old man disabling their best friend with a stick—Darrell’s two friends immediately charged the aging professor. Turner dispatched them like two ants in the way of his boot. As the first man charged him, the professor slid out of his way and cracked him on the back of his neck, immediately dropping him to the floor unconscious.

Next up was Darrell’s bearded friend, the same man who had triumphantly thumped his opponent outside of the bar to much acclaim. Aware of the danger in charging Turner, the bearded man chose to throw a long, powerful punch. Turner dodged the punch with the slightest head movement and then proceeded to hook the man’s leg. The giant tumbled down on his back like a pile of lumber, shaking the floor and walls of the bar.

Without the slightest acknowledgment of what had just transpired, Turner pivoted toward Albert and Ying.

“Friends, since we have our directions and seem to have made a bit of a mess, it is probably time for us to make our exit.”

And with that, the old professor, with steady hands, took a ten-dollar bill from his wallet, placed it on the bar, and exited while holding the door for his two colleagues.

As Ying and Albert scrambled to the car, Turner looked over to Ying, whose face stared directly at him, frozen in awe.

The professor chuckled as he readjusted his tweed coat. “Ms. Koh, I bet you’re still wondering about that riddle we were working on in the car?”

“Wha—?”

“The logic puzzle. Well, I’ll tell you the answer. The man pushing his car up to the hotel and the hotel owner . . .”

“Yeah?” said Ying, still trying to recover from what had just transpired.

“They’re two gentlemen playing a game of Monopoly.”

Chapter 5

Eric Crabtree strolled confidently from the parking lot to the front entrance of Fix Industries. As he approached the crystal-clear glass entrance, he marveled at the steely projection of modernity and power that the corporate campus conveyed. Cristina Culebra herself had christened the brand-new headquarters of Fix Industries on the outskirts of Los Angeles the previous year. The local media and architecture enthusiasts roundly panned the new campus, which one critic described as a “soulless monument to steel, concrete, and glass.” But since the complex had been constructed on an abandoned Superfund site previously thought to be uninhabitable, Eric had always found it to be a symbol of man’s—or in this case, woman’s—ability to overcome any obstacle through ingenuity and technological prowess. In fact, it was one of the reasons he had been drawn to work for Cristina’s campaign for governor.

Crabtree had joined the campaign right after working as an assistant speechwriter in the White House office of communications. In the president’s second term, Crabtree saw the writing on the wall and was looking for another horse to hitch his wagon to when he found Cristina Culebra. In Cristina, he saw the opportunity for power that he had only dreamed of in the White House, and he channeled this into the words he wrote for the candidate. His speeches, filled with soaring rhetoric and optimistic crusades against the established order, had left both the media and the public at large in awe of Cristina Culebra. Eric Crabtree was aware of that fact and had traveled to Fix Industries on this particular day to cash in on his success.

As the speechwriter moved past security and into