Flash! Fiction 3 by Peter McMillan - HTML preview

79

He told them he was an activist and had planned to unfurl a huge banner on the side of the SCAB. Inexplicably, he'd got cold feet, so to speak. He was alone. There was no one else. The Rolex? His parents were wealthy, but he had rejected their lifestyle and money.

Why did he keep it? Why not.

"We know someone else was up there. Who was it?"

This time he explained that he was planning to rappel down the building far enough to unroll a banner but had been held up, in a manner of speaking, by a guy in a gray Italian suit. They had scuf-fled, and Sebastian thought the guy had left, but while Sebastian was checking his gear, the suit came up and lunged at him. Sebastian ducked aside just in time, and the guy sailed over the edge and down — 1600 feet, more or less.

"A guy in a suit, eh? Why do you think he didn't just call security?"

Sebastian now conceded he'd seen the guy in a red coat on the roof emptying a large hockey bag and had gone over to find out what he was up to. The guy stood up and started to throw a punch, but he slipped and fell backwards over the edge and into the street below.

The Rolex again? It was a bonus from the firm. Yeah, SCA. No, it wasn't a family gift. He must have been confused — the late night questioning, the tragic fall, the whole thing. And the red coat? Well, when he tried to grab the guy — to save him really — he only managed to catch hold of the sleeve of the coat, and the guy just slipped right out of it and over the edge. Yeah, of course he put it on. Hadn't he already said it was really cold and wet, and besides he was in a state of shock.