And that's true. Since long 2ic got firmly fixed on the issues of personal data security. Anchored, as a matter of fact. Unbudgeably. It would take a bulldozer and a week of persuading before he agrees sending you a 2-liner with some link or stuff attached before he'd freak out the very last moment. Because of his employment at some obscure firm working for the government. A set of squat buildings behind the high mesh-fence, surveillance cams on every other post or pillar, grim rottweilers walking their surly breeders 3 times a day in the outside parking-lot.
The surest way to cut 2ic's rambling stream of talking and make him shut up gravely for no less than 10 minutes served the question how was his work today. He'll zip mum, gloomy, irresponsive.
Obviously, the story about the Jewish couple working for the government before they got fried up on the chair for leaking to the Soviets some scraps of know-how in A-bomb production impressed him deeply.
‘I was just kidding, 2ic, no need wetting your bed tonight. Easy, come down. What’s your message?’
'Uncle Tom's Cabin in two hours, sounds good?’
You can’t let down your buddy, a long-term bosom friend. The rule of some nymphomaniac slut of a Russian Empress was to keep enemies close to her chest. So that you feel and follow the weeniest budging in their souls and plots, said she. Bosh bullshit! It’s your bosom friends to be kept under your closest control. Your friends know your weak points better than you yourself. The most painful strike would be delivered by them. Surprisingly. Because they are your friends, they know when and how to get you. R.I.P., stupid asshole!
‘It’s OK with me,’ said V.
* * *
Surprisingly, there never was any Tom about the Cabin. Anyway, none of the trust-worthy old-timer patrons would recollect. Ma'am Harriet ran the establishment, an oldie but bitchy shrew with the response-time reflexes of a rattle snake. The venerable lady was damn well sprightly at wielding her lachrymator spray and for that reason in no need of keeping neither a baseball bat nor a bouncer about the premises.
By and large, in daytime The Uncle Tom’s Cabin was a family diner worthy of the name which at later hours turned into a restaurant of a well-deserved repute because Ma'am Harriet had a good cook (without stepping into minutiae of racially sensitive tinge, yes, you guessed right, it was The Uncle Tom's Cabin after all), delicious food upheld the lekker atmosphere…