Luke put his phone back into his pocket with a bitter smile. It seemed that the takeaway today was going to fly away.
He apologized to the girls and broke into a run.
The tall girl quickly said, “Hey, it’s almost your turn.”
Luke said helplessly, “It’s an emergency. I can’t wait…”
He suddenly paused, then took out a card and five 100-dollar bills from his pocket. “Nikki, call me later and I’ll give you the order. Please help me order. I’ll come back later, okay?”
Before the tall girl, Nikki, could say anything, several 100-dollar bills and a name card was stuffed into her hands. Then, Luke quickly got into the SUV and drove away.
“Hey, you…” She raised her hand to stop Luke, only to see that the SUV had already turned at the intersection and was out of sight.
Stunned for a moment, she looked at the other girl. “Monica, doesn’t he… trust us too much?” Both girls looked at the 500 dollars.
Monica hesitated for a moment, but still reminded her, “Didn’t you say that if you like him after having a chat, you’ll get his number?”
Nikki was conflicted. “This isn’t how it works. This makes me feel like a delivery man.”
Monica reminded her again, “But he’s still waiting for you to call him and tell you his takeout order.”
Stunned, Nikki immediately took out her phone and started dialing.
Monica rolled her eyes. Look at you. If he really asked, you would immediately send yourself over as takeout, right? No, there’s a charge for takeout; you might even have to pay the cab fee yourself.
Luke said a few words of thanks and said that he would be back in half an hour. He then asked the car system to send a “takeout order” to Nikki.
On the other side, Nikki looked at the “takeout order” and then looked at the money in her hand. She suddenly felt that it wasn’t a lot of money, and might not even be enough.
The cashier asked the two girls, “What would you like?”
Nikki stepped forward and handed over the phone. “Calculate the total price of this list first.”
The cashier was a little surprised, but still nodded and placed the phone next to the cash register as she started to tally it up.
Looking at the amount of food, she couldn’t help but ask, “Do you really want this much?”
Monica said decisively, “A friend asked us to help order this.”
The cashier found the answer reasonable and continued calculating. She said, “Are you having a class gathering? This is enough for fifty people.”
Nikki and Monica looked at each other, and it was Monica who said, “…Probably, yes.”
A moment later, the cashier raised her head. “That’s a total of 493.50 dollars. Are you sure you want these?”
Nikki nodded and handed over the 500 dollars. She was glad she had enough.
When she saw the “takeout order” earlier, she was really afraid that she would have to empty out her pockets.
But the strange thing was that she was only afraid that she didn’t have enough money, and didn’t think about buying less or not buying at all. Monica was the same.
…
Luke didn’t feel guilty.
He had gotten an idea just now. While using Mental Communication, he also tested the effect of Elementary Pheromone Control.
But Nikki had also whispered to Monica that if she liked him, she would ask for his phone number.
The three of them had chatted happily just now, and it seemed that she would ask for his number.
Luke usually turned down this sort of request.
It actually wasn’t easy to get his private number.
If it was business, he would only give out the number for his work phone.
He had two private numbers.
The first one was reserved for family members and acquaintances, and there weren’t many acquaintances. They were at most old colleagues like Dustin, Elsa, and Elizabeth, or slightly more familiar acquaintances like Jenny and Elena.
The second number was for those whom he had personal contact with, but wasn’t close to.
For example, Takagi, Weyland, Jennifer Perry, and Sheerah.
Since he had asked Nikki for a favor, it was naturally a personal matter, and he gave her his second private number.
Compared with the work number, it was easier to get through to a private number or for him to reply personally.
Given the number of people Luke had interacted with in the past year, he didn’t have the time to answer everyone’s calls.
Most calls would automatically be transferred to the message bank, and Luke was selective in who he replied to.
He directly ignored courtesy calls or those who called for no reason.
In that sense, this “deal” wasn’t a loss for Nikki.
After making sure that he would still be able to get lunch for his family, a distracted Luke finally pulled up a map of the location of the gunfight.
Ever since Luke came to New York, he had been working on filling in this real-time map of New York map whenever he was out in the car.
But he had only driven through this place twice, and the gunfight hadn’t taken place on the main street, but on a narrower street behind the residential buildings.
At that moment, he arrived at the crime scene. He parked the car and got out.
Looking around, he noticed that many people were looking at the fifth or sixth floor of the apartment building.
He quickly walked into the apartment building and pulled out his badge.
It was an old apartment building with a spiral staircase at the back of a small reception hall.
Luke quickly went up, and he could hear the vague sounds of talking upstairs.
After listening for a moment, he frowned.
The suspects didn’t seem to have left. They were still talking upstairs as they rummaged around.
From the bits Luke could hear, he could sense that they weren’t as cautious about shooting as gang members in New York’s city center. Instead, they were a little unbridled, and one of them even mentioned something like “carrying out official business.”
Luke went up to the sixth floor and took out a small mirror for a look at the top of the stairs before he dashed down the hallway.
In order not to make any sound, he reduced his speed significantly, but he was still very fast. In less than three seconds, he was in front of the apartment unit at the end of the corridor.
A middle-aged man was holding a gun in front of the door. He was about to turn around, when he felt something tighten around his neck and something cold pressed to the back of his head.
Alarmed, he couldn’t make a sound. The hand on his neck was so strong that he could only gasp for air.
Luke, who had caught the man, frowned and pulled him back several meters.
Then, he paid attention to unit 6D at the end of the hallway while he listened to the conversation in unit 6B. He asked softly, “Who’s in the room?”
The middle-aged man felt the grip on his neck relax slightly; he could finally make a sound. He subconsciously asked, “Who, who are you?”
However, the middle-aged man was smart enough to keep his voice down.