ROBERTO’S SECRET by Spanky De Bautumn

He crossed the street and returned to the scene of the crime, confident that he had not been seen or followed. The sirens were getting louder and closer as the police cars began to arrive on the scene where the murder had taken place only minutes earlier. He stopped and watched the confusion along with dozens of other street
people, wondering what all the excitement was about, from the safety of the steps into the LIFG building.

As the first patrol car stopped and its officers started pursuing crowd control, Roberto strutted down the street, wanting to skip and bound with self-satisfaction as the blood once again rushed to his head. Two blocks away he took the stairs down to the subway and returned to the hotel he was staying. He locked himself in his room, ordered a late lunch with a bottle of chilled Merlot and watched the news as the story unfolded. The police had no clues and no suspects at this time but figured this was a political action by some desperate Latin American radical faction. Roberto sipped on the wine, smiled and congratulated himself on a job well done. He knew that the airports, train stations, and bus depots would be under surveillance looking for possible suspects so he would stay in New York for a week or so playing tourist until the heat blew over and then just walk away like he had done so many times before.

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Agent Franklin and the rest of the unit had taken a real tongue lashing as the Agency's top brass handed down the same chastising they had received earlier in the day. The press had a field day with the story and the specter of international terrorists running a muck in America. It was the lead story on all the local news telecasts that night and the stories carried on into the eleven o'clock news hour. Agent Franklin tried to sleep but the events of the day kept him awake long into the night. He didn't know when the idea popped into his head, but he couldn't shake it. It might be a shot in the dark, but since all else had failed it might be worth taking the shot.