I asked Thomas if he had eaten.
He looked surprised.
Then embarrassed.
Then annoyed at himself for looking embarrassed.
“Not since this morning,” he said.
“What did you have?”
“Coffee.”
I looked at Greg.
“Get food.”
Greg moved.
No comment.
No argument.
Ten minutes earlier he had wanted Thomas removed.
Now he was taking lunch orders.
Power is strange that way.
We drove to a small high-end menswear shop two blocks off downtown.
I’d used them before for emergency event tailoring.
When we pulled up, staff were already waiting.
I expected Thomas to tense up.
Instead he went quiet.
Which, I would learn, was worse.
The silence of a man entering a world that had once been available to him and was no longer.
Inside, they offered him water, coffee, choice after choice after choice.
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