[Quinn 01] - The Cleaner

He looked around to see if there was anything he could use to slip into the crack and widen it. What he really needed was a penknife, or even a metal nail file. What he found was a pair of chopsticks and a Western-style fork. The tines on the fork were thick and would never work, but the chopsticks held promise. They were made of hard plastic and tapered to a point like a newly sharpened pencil.

He was about to see if he could use one to create a larger gap on the metal square when he noticed a waitress approaching the table. He put the bracelet in his lap and rested his left hand casually over the top of it.

The waitress, a different one from the girl who had taken their drink order, was dressed in a beautiful blue and gold tunic and was carrying two tall glasses of amber beer on a tray in one hand. She had a warm, friendly face and long black hair. As she neared she reached up with her free hand and tucked a loose strand behind her ear. She set their beers on the table, then smiled.

'Are you ready to order?' she asked.

'You speak English?' Nate said.

'Yes,' she said. 'I am sorry. My friend would like to help you, but she speaks only Vietnamese. I hope you understand.' The new waitress's English was clipped but clear. 'Of course,' Quinn said.

'Would you like to order now?' she asked.

'We would, but we haven't seen a menu yet,' Nate told her. The woman's eyes widened. 'Oh. I am so sorry. Wait, one moment, please.'

She walked quickly away from the table and soon returned with two menus. She handed one to each of them. Quinn opened his and was surprised to find the descriptions were in English. It didn't always get the language right, but it was close enough. The names of the dishes, though, were in Vietnamese.

'Your clothes are beautiful,' Nate said. Quinn groaned inwardly, but tried to keep his annoyance from showing. She glanced down at her tunic. 'This is an ao dai,' she said, pronouncing it 'ow zeye.' 'It is traditional.'

'Well, it's very beautiful.'

'Thank you.'

Reluctantly, Nate looked down at the menu. Quinn ordered something called bun thit nuong, hoping he'd like it. Nate went with the com chien thap cam.

'If you need anything else,' she said, 'my name is Anh. Just ask any of the waitresses, and they will get me.'

'Thanks,' Nate said, his eyes lingering on her as she walked away.

'Rein it in,' Quinn said.

'What are you talking about?'

'On a different day, in a different life, maybe.'

'What?'

'Right now you need to concentrate on staying alive.' Quinn glanced toward the bar area where Anh was talking to another waitress. 'Your new little friend there? She's a distraction.'

'"And distractions get you killed,"' Nate recited from memory. 'The way you think, just breathing will get you killed.'

'Sometimes,' Quinn said.

Nate frowned. 'I was just being polite.'

'That's how it starts.' Quinn returned his attention to the bracelet. 'Let me know when she comes back.'

It took a little bit of work, but the metal was surprisingly soft and soon he was able to widen the gap. He'd been right, it was some sort of plating, or maybe even a cover. He continued working the chopstick into the opening, parting the top layer of metal from the square below. He found he was able to work his way around all four edges of the square, creating flaps, until all he had to do was loosen the few spots where the two metals were still bonded together.

'What the hell?' Nate asked, peering over at him. 'Eyes on the room. Not on what I'm doing,' Quinn snapped. Quinn set the bracelet on the table, making sure the square he was working on was lying flat. He

took in a breath, then let it out halfway. Hands steady, he used one to hold the bracelet in place and the other to guide the chopstick as he used it to separate the lid from the square. With only a little pressure, it peeled off and flipped onto the table.

As he suspected, the square wasn't solid. It was a container. Inside was what appeared to be a piece of glass embedded in some sort of clear rubbery substance. Quinn's first guess was that the substance was there to protect the glass, only it didn't seem to have done its job. The glass was still intact, but fractured. Oddly, though, the protective rubber looked undamaged. The heat from the fire, Quinn thought. That's what must have caused the break.

He leaned down to get a better look and quickly realized it wasn't just one piece of glass, but two thin pieces, each of which couldn't have been more than a sixteenth of an inch thick. They looked like a glass sandwich.

Or a microscope slide, he thought.

Reluctantly, he eyed the glass more closely, looking for signs of a smear or a stain caught between the two panes. But the fractured top layer made it impossible to tell.