Frames Per Second by Bill Eidson

behind his ears to help hide the wire. He topped it off with a Red Sox jacket and hat. He checked himself out in the mirror he kept in the back. He hadn’t shaved that morning, and though the eyeglasses held only plate glass, they were thick enough to give him a goggly look.
    He slid the pizza into a red vinyl warm-up case and cocked a slightly goofy grin at Sarah. “Your pizza, ma’am.”
    She nodded approvingly. “You’ll pass. Just don’t count on a big tip.”
     
    Ben’s legs began shaking as he walked up the sidewalk to McGuire’s office building. He’d played this part before and he told himself that would make it easier.
    He pushed the door open and strode right in. Saw a pretty girl at a receptionist desk, looking at him in surprise. “Suzanne” on a nameplate on her desk.
    “Got your pizza,” Ben said, cheerfully. “Man, what a day outside, innit?”
    “What pizza?” she said.
    Ben turned his head from left to right, getting the layout of the place down. Big bay window out the back, throwing in a lot of light. He got his back to that fast so it wouldn’t screw up the exposure and slid the pizza on the surprised girl’s desk. “ Your pizza,” he said. “Ten ninety-five. Tip’s extra, if you’re interested.”
    He looked past her, saw through a glassed-in conference room that McGuire was sitting with his feet up on the table, his hands behind his head. He was talking to two men in business suits. One of the men was probably about forty, with jet-black hair and a goatee. He wore a beautifully tailored dark pinstripe suit, with a tightly knotted rep tie. Even though his clothing was conservative in style, the effect was of a high gloss, a man with an ego. The other man was slightly older and heavier. Reddish hair, sunburned. Strong and tough looking, with quick eyes. He glanced at Ben through the window and then turned his attention back to McGuire.
    Ben smiled vaguely in their direction long enough to be sure he had taped them all, then turned back to the girl. Who was saying for the second time, “We didn’t order any pizza.”
    Ben became aware of movement to his left and turned abruptly to find a big man beside him. The bald guy. The one who went after Peter. There was a side door open, must be where he’d come from.
    “Hey,” Ben said to the guy. “Maybe you called it in. She doesn’t know nothing about it.”
    The guy got close to Ben, and without a word took the pizza box away.
    Ben lifted his hands up to the girl as if to say, “See?”
    “Did you order it?” she asked the man curiously.
    “Shut up,” he said.
    With bored and impersonal assurance, he patted Ben’s coat and opened it quickly, presumably looking for a gun. He reached around and patted Ben’s waistband in the back, missing the camcorder by inches.
    Ben didn’t have to fake the fear and indignation. “Hey, what the hell?”
    “You shut up, too.” The bald guy opened the box, slid the pizza out, and opened it. He looked quickly through the case and then shoved the pizza back in. “Get out of here. We didn’t order this.”
    Ben pulled a piece of paper from his front pants pocket. “Forty-six Atlantic Ave, I’ve got it right here!”
    “This is sixty-four, you dipshit,” the guy said. “Now get out of here.”
    Ben snatched the pizza box away and said as he walked away, “Still. No call for that, man. No call at all.”
    “Dyslexic dipshit,” the girl said, laughing. “What a goof.”
     
    Back in the van, Sarah put the cell phone down as he got into the front seat and drove away. “Five minutes you were in there. I almost called the cops.”
    “I almost needed you to,” he said, rolling his shoulders to let the tension go.
    “You get what you wanted?”
    “Uh-huh. But you were right.”
    “How’s that?”
    “Not even a lousy tip.”
     
    Late the next morning, as Ben was sitting behind the camera across from McGuire’s office, the name came to him unbidden: Sean Deegan.
    He was the guy Ben