Midnight Sun (47 page)

“
Hello,
Thomas.
Beautiful
night,
what,
”
Steven
said
with
a
clean
upper-class
British
accent.
Most likely unknown to Thomas i
t
was
not
his
natural
accent. His was the thick, slang filled dialect
of
Manchester
where
Farrah
had
grown
up,
with
its
hard,
industrial
city
sound
that
so
many
Americans,
and
even
many
British,
found
as
hard
to
understand
as
Jamaican
English,
or
inner-city
gang
lingo
in
the
US.
As
a
teen,
Farrah
had
worked
hard
to
sound
more
like
the
upper-class
English
gentry
than
the
working
class
Mancunian
of
his
schoolmates.

“
Yes
it
is,
Mr.
Farrah,
”
Thomas said,
handing
the
clipboard
down
and
leaning
his
elbows
on
the
window
ledge, the fat of his ample gut squeezing into the frame.
“
Done
already?
Was
it
an
easy
fix?
”

“
Well,
my
part
is
done
at
least,
”
Steven
said
as
he
took
the
clipboard.
“
As
far
as
it
being
an
easy
fix,
let
’
s
just
say
it
was
an
easy
problem
to
identify
and
come
up
with
a
plan
to
fix.
Leka
and
Kreshnik
will
be
installing
the
hardware
for
the
next
several
hours.
I
get
paid
to
figure
out
a
solution,
and
they
do
the
manual
labor.
Of
course,
the
difficult
part
quite
often
is
knowing
what
to
look
for,
isn't
it?
”

“
Yeah,
I
guess
that's
why
you
get
the
big
bucks.
You
know
what
to
look
for.
”

“
Well,
I
don't
know
about
big
bucks,
”
Farrah said.
“
Tech-Cor
is
a
pretty
stingy
company.
”

Farrah
used
the
pen
attached
by
chain
to
the
clipboard
to
initial
the
“o
ut
”
column
next
to
the
signature
where
he
had
checked
in
earlier.
He
handed
it
back
to
Thomas,
who
initialed
it,
added
the
time
and
date,
and
replaced
it
on
its
peg
inside
the
booth.

“
Maybe
so,
but
I
know
you
guys
got
a
killer
contract
for
the
pipeline
maintenance
here.
And
I
know
that
late
night
call
ins like this
pay
more
per
hour
than
I
make
all
day.
Which
would
be
why
you've
got
an
Audi
and
I've
got
a
beat
-
up
old
Ford
Ranger.
”
Thomas
pointed
to
his
own
vehicle
parked
on
the
other
side
of
the
road.
“
So
I
figure
you're
not
doing
too
bad,
eh?
”

“
Well,
I
won't
lie
to
you,
Thomas.
It
was
good
enough
to
move
to
Alaska
all
the
way
from
Britain.
”

“
Yeah,
I
should
’
ve
got
me
some
training
like
that
when
I
was
in
the
Army.
So
I
could
get
a
career,
something
like
the
kind
you
got.
Instead,
I
did
six
years
in
the
infantry,
and
all
I
got
is
a
bum
knee
and
me
standing
here
in
a
five-by-eight
box
all
freakin'
night.
”