“Fine,” he said. “Let’s go out. Your choice.”

“What’s the occasion?” I asked.

He thought about this for a moment and answered slowly. “I haven’t seen much of you lately,” he said. “And when I have, it’s usually watching you go past the fire escape window, stumbling up the steps.”

“Is this an intervention?” I asked him, laughing humorlessly.

“No. It is an invitation to lunch from a man that hopes you see him as a friend.”

I nodded, reminded at how well Amir was able to push bullshit to the side and get sentimental in a way that was not only intense, but heartfelt. He was, in a way, the only living connection I had to my New York roots.

“Steak?” I said, realizing that I was in fact suddenly starving.

“Turn the lights off,” Amir said. “Don’t waste electricity.”

I looked back into my office and flicked the switch. “You’re my landlord,” I said, “not my Mommy.”

“Yes, but saving money on electricity will help you stop taking crappy jobs like this one with Anthony Taylor.”

“You heard about that, huh?”

He nodded. “Come on. Let’s eat.”

***

“I’m done with cases like that,” I told Amir as I polished off my very average meal. The comment was random, a stark contrast from our reminiscing about the past. But I knew why Amir had wanted to have lunch with me. He was checking up on me, plain and simple.

“Good,” Amir said. “I’m glad. But can I ask why?”

“Well, what if this little discovery did push Taylor to kill himself? Without the work I did for him, would he ever have gotten the proof?”

“You can’t do that to yourself,” Amir said. “Why heap guilt on yourself? You’re carrying enough of it already, don’t let it poison you. Besides, I thought you came to London to relieve the grief, figure things out. Not to add to it.”

“Yeah, that was the plan.”

The waiter came by and took our dishes. He also brought me a third beer. Amir glanced at it sadly. He waited for the waiter to leave before he asked me, “Thomas, are you okay?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a very bad lie.”

“You’d prefer a good one?"

“I’d prefer the truth. Why do you continue to do this to yourself?” Amir asked. “All you do is drink and look at those pictures of your wife and child. Neither of those things will bring either of them back, so why do you put yourself through this?”

“I’ve got to.”

“You see the tragedy of all this, my friend, is that you don’t. Go home, find some help. There’s nothing for you in London anymore.”

I swallowed some water, washing down a bite of falafel. I looked Amir in the eyes. “I need to know who did this to them.”

“And all this excessive drinking? You think this will help your investigation?”

I grimaced. “I sleep better when I’m loaded,” I said. The dreams seem to go away. And when I’m awake, the memories don’t hurt as bad if I’m drinking.”

“So this isn’t a purposeful self-destruction? You’re medicating yourself?”

“You could say that.”

He looked to me with the unconditionally loyal eyes of a dear friend. Ever since I had saved his sister, Amir had treated me like family. He joked that we had become soul brothers because I had unintentionally followed him across the globe. “I didn’t know you were a doctor, Thomas,” he finally said.

I sighed. I knew he was right. I was never going to be able to solve Sarah and Tommy’s case if I kept drinking the days away. “I think I have been purposefully putting it off,” I muttered.

“What’s that?” Amir asked.

“I’ve just been going over these case files over and over again. I haven’t been making any forward progress. You’re right. If I want to get to the bottom of this I need to kick the drinking, shape myself up. Then I can start for real.”

Amir sighed, disappointed. “And then where will you be? Still obsessed with your past. Do you think Sarah would want to see you this way? No, she would want you to move on. Focus on your present; your future.”

Not that I had much future, I thought. At least not in London. Even if the cops didn’t deport me, I was going to run out of money soon. Eventually I was going to have to figure out how to get some cash flowing in. Still, the thought of letting Sarah and Tommy’s case go cold made me hate myself. “No,” I shook my head. “This is too important.”

“Why?” Amir demanded. “Why is it important to chase the killers of the dead? What do you hope to accomplish?”

“Justice.”

“You don’t want justice, you want revenge. And with revenge you will find only more pain and more guilt.”

“What would you have me do, huh?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “You seem incapable of helping yourself. Maybe you should try helping others.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean use the talents God gave you. You’re a brilliant detective, Thomas. My sister owes her life to you. That is a gift I will never forget. Use your skills to help the living. Become a proper investigator.”

I sneered. “I’m retired, Amir. Even if I wanted to do what you’re suggesting, I don’t have any authority. Especially not out here.”

“Fine,” Amir sank back in his seat, putting one long arm up on the back of the booth.

“You’re right about the drinking though,” I admitted. “I’ll get dry.”

“You mean that?”

“Yes, and because I’m spilling all of this crap to you, I leave you in charge of holding me accountable.”

“I look forward to it,” Amir said. “Now, go ahead and finish your beer. If I’m being held accountable, it will be the last one you have in quite some time.”

“Fair enough,” I said, grasping the glass and taking a huge gulp.

***

Of course, Amir couldn’t see me all of the time. Not when I’m sitting in my dank little apartment with my fridge full of beer and my nearly full bottle of whiskey. I also knew that he was the responsible type who left for home at a decent hour…so if I decided to head out to a bar, there was no way he’d know.

Cheating on that little commitment I had made to him heaped even more guilt on me, but that was okay. By then remorse and I had become close. I’m not sure how I could function without it.

I didn’t feel too bad about the thing with Amir, though. I did intend to find my family’s killers. It was just the drinking thing I had told a little white lie about.

I was acting out on that lie, knocking back my fifth beer of the night (which was probably my ninth or tenth of the day), when someone knocked on my door. It was after ten at night so having a visitor was strange. Hell, having a visitor at any time was strange. Curious, I stood up…a bit too quickly. I had forgotten about the couple of shots of whiskey I’d downed. It caught up to my legs, and I damn near fell down.

I steadied myself, waiting for the knock to come again. “One minute,” I hollered, totally surprised by how buzzed I was. I wasn’t quite drunk yet, but I was quickly tipping over to that side.

I gathered my momentum and headed through my office for the door. I estimated that about fifteen seconds had passed since the knock had come. I opened the door slowly, still uncertain who could be coming to visit at such an hour.

When I stepped out and looked over the rail to the street below, the light was bad, the shadows blanketing everything, and the weak light from the lamp at the end of the street doing nothing to help. Faintly, I caught a glimpse of a woman’s figure halfway down the street. She looked to be in a hurry. Seeing as how there was no one else on the street within the immediate vicinity, I assumed this was the woman that had knocked on my door.

I nearly called out to her, but my tongue was far too lazy from the booze. Instead, I watched her slink out of view, swallowed by the shadows. I made a “huh” sound as she got into a car on the curb. She didn’t even look back in my direction as she started the engine and drove off. I watched her headlights flick on, pointed further down the street. Then she turned the corner and was gone, leaving behind nothing but darkness and the patter of rain.