White Collar: An unofficial novel - part 10

Looking for a second chance

When Neal came home he found June searching through his bookshelves. Or rather her bookshelves. Most of it in them was hers after all.

"Hey, June."

"I knew you wouldn't mind. I was looking for this." She held a thick, big album in her hands.

"Photo album?" he asked, dropping his mail on the table.

"Ford asked if he could see it." June sat down on his couch opening it. He joined her, looking over her shoulder.

He had seen enough photos of Byron to know that he saw photos of June, Byron, and Ford, in their twenties or thirties.

"Wow," he said. "You two go way back."

"Back then, the three of us were inseparable."

"Lenox Lounge," he read on the sign at the place the three were posing in front of.

"Yes. Byron looked so handsome in that suit," she said. Neal knew which one it was. It hung in his walk-in closet. "Even Ford asked if I still have it. But I told him, she chuckled, "it probably wouldn't fit him."

June knew very well that Neal had it and that she had already given it to him. And Neal felt that his landlady had no interest in giving it to Ford. He smiled. He was vain enough to think that June probably thought he would look far better in it than Ford.

"Mm," he said in agreement. "It really is something."

"Yeah." She closed the album. "I think I'll take it down, let him see it."

She rose with it in her arms.

"Yeah. Let me know if you need anything, okay?" Neal said.

"I promise."

The second the door closed he walked into his walk-in closet down the corridor beside the bathroom. The suit was light gray and even though it had been one of Byron's favorites, Neal preferred darker suits.

He lifted the protective plastic bag covering it and searched the pockets. Ford was looking for something and Neal was more than sure that it was not the suit itself.

In the chest pocket, he found a folded paper. He unfolded it and saw that it was a receipt from the time when these were written by hand. Time had made the writing fade so much that it was almost just an empty form.

He heard a knock on his front door. He pocketed the receipt and pulled the cover back over the suit.

Returned to the main room Neal opened the door. Ford was on the other side.

"Hey," the older man smiled. "You mind if I come in?"

"Sure," Neal said, stepping aside. "Come on in."

"Oh, thank you." Ford stepped inside and glanced around. "Ohh. It looks different now."

"Yeah, bunco squad took the craps tables." Ford could just as much learn that Neal had been checking up on him.

Ford was no fool. He got the hint.

"Oh. Well, you know, Neal, the reason why I came is because I want to set the record straight. You know how it is. You tell people that you've done time, and they have a bad way of looking at you." Neal had been lucky, getting to work with the FBI, but he understood what Ford meant. "June told me a little, but given your current situation, I was hoping that you'd understand."

"Maybe I do."

Ford studied him as if he was not sure what to make of that answer. Well, Neal knew the older man was up to something and he was not going to open up more than that.