The door creaked as the man slipped in. His hands stayed still, clenched in his jacket pockets, coated with a thin layer of perspiration. The brunette in navy. His eyes fixed on the cloaked woman near the back of the bar. Her dark, windblown hair fell in thick waves over her trench coat. She breathed in deeply and lets smoke seep from the corners of her mouth, collecting above her dark, windblown hair. It paused for a moment before twisting out an open window.

    Slowly, the man made his way over.

For a moment, nothing was said between the two of them. They watched each other warily, two jacketed pawns, waiting for the other to make the first move. The woman acted. In one fluid motion, the ceramic cup was brought to her lips, its black contents draining down the hollow of her mouth. She uncrossed her legs, leaning in ever so slightly, barely letting out a whisper.

“Do you have the money?”

The man proffered her a half-smile. “You’re eager.”

“Do you have it or not?”

He paused. “No. I don’t.”

    The woman flashed him back his half-smile, before standing from her seat to leave.

    “Wait,” the man said softly, gripping her arm. “I know you’re running from the police. I know you’re in trouble. I can get you the money in two days’ time.”

    She stared at him. He could feel her arm underneath his fingers, feel her skin and muscles tensing beneath her trench coat. For a fugitive with second-degree computer fraud and confidentiality charges hounding, she appeared remarkably put together.  

    “I need the documents for trial tomorrow evening. I have a portion of the money I can give you now.”

    “How much?

    “Four hundred.”

    The woman brought the cigarette back to her ips. His mother smoked too. The same ones, Marlboro Reds.

    “Okay. Two days time, I want all of it.”

    “You’ll get it.” Inside, the man felt a tinge of guilt. He knew she would never receive the money, that she would be arrested in a matter of days. But there was too much on line to worry about collateral damage.

The woman carefully unzipped her leather purse, and slipped a vanilla envelope to him.

“Here’s the doctored security footage for the date you’re looking for.”

“Thank you.”

She glanced at him one last time, stood up, and vanished out the door. The man smiled to himself. He placed the vanilla envelope gingerly into his breast pocket. The waitress dropped off the check: one coffee, black, $4.50. Pricey coffee, the man thought to himself. Throwing down a ten, he stood up and headed toward the door of the quiet cafe, his mind already formulating various explanations for the new piece of evidence in his pocket, one that would secure him a guilty verdict.

Suddenly, he was rushing face-down toward the stiff concrete, a violent pain coursing through the back of his neck.

“Police—stay down, stay down! You are under arrest for the falsification of court documents and the receiving private information from a federal agent. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say...”

The man struggled to glance up, but for a brief moment, he thought he could see the woman. She was watching him from a distance, a flicker of sadness dancing in her dark eyes. She seemed to blend into crowd of police officers, a vaguely beautiful blur.

She mouthed something to him silently. Maybe it was I’m sorry, but all he could hear was checkmate, checkmate, checkmate...