Seconds
The first time I met him, he was sitting in one of the city center cafés, speaking animatedly to a stout man sitting across from him. Three rolls of green velvet rested on the table beside an empty espresso cup, a half-filled glass of red liquid, and a ceramic bowl overflowing with salted peanutsThe stout man was smoking a vanilla-scented cigar, taking rather loud puffs and scratching his prominent belly over a thin-striped blue shirt. If he had long mustaches, he probably would have twirled them between his fingers. He seemed to belong to a bygone era, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if, at any moment, a carriage had pulled up and he had climbed inside, vanishing in a cloud of dust. But I was fairly certain it was still 2008 because, as he spoke, the other man was rapidly typing on a black Blackberry, jotting down notes with a Bic pen on scattered sheets of paper pulled from a manila folder.
