Rasheed phoned me in the middle of the day to see what I was up to. He said he wanted to meet me at Hradcanska as soon as I could find time. I headed up in that direction expecting to hang out with him for an afternoon.
     I spotted him standing across the street from the metro station and headed in his direction looking every which way but at him like guys do so they don't have to look stupid acknowledging each other. When I was close enough to where our greetings could be verbally delivered, before I knew it, he'd reached out to embrace me. He reached around and gripped me as I hesitantly clasped my arms around his back. The discrepancy in size was made even more uncomfortable because he was standing on a curb. My arms wrapped around his stomach. When he released me, I looked up at him puzzled. He stared back and said, "Tamara's father was murdered at 6 am this morning."
     I wasn't sure what to say to that. I'd met Tamara only a few night's before. I'd seen picture's of her father in Rasheed's photo album. Rasheed had been at her house all day and needed to get away which is why he called me. I hopped in the car with him and we drove back to his house.
     On the way home, he described the details of the homicide. It was a shooting outside Tamara's home. Tamara's father was a surgeon and the killer had been one of his patients. The killer had been stalking him for weeks and was waiting behind a corner when Tamara's father left to go to work. There were many other gruesome details to the story that I took in without any reply as I tried to think of anything at all that would soothe Rasheed. I could tell he felt sadness as well as a deep anger.