As Tate drove away he smiled to himself when he realized that he wouldn’t have Miranda on his ass because he’d worked a twelve hour day. That was in the past now and although some part of him missed her it was well buried under the idea that he was free to do as he pleased now without recriminations.
And what he didn’t want to do was go home quite yet. The problem was he had no where else to go, not really. He wasn’t a man with a lot of friends and those he did have were from before his divorce. Besides which, on a Monday night he couldn’t exactly drop in on any of them since they worked normal wage-slave hours.
So he drove slowly down the avenue with no particular destination in mind until he saw the lights of a club off to the left a block or so ahead of him. He went past it, looked for a break in traffic and hung a turn onto a side street. It took a while but he found a parking place and then walked back to the avenue.
When he got inside the club he shied away from the noise of voices, and music blasting from the loudspeakers. ‘Damn, it’s been a while. Forgot it was so noisy.’ He paused then bit the bullet and made his way to the bar where he ordered a beer. ‘I getting old,’ he thought with a rueful shake of his head.
For half an hour he sat and sipped his beer while he watched the men and women interact, some friendly, some quite obviously on the make as they searched for someone to go home with. Or in the case of a few men he saw carefully pairing off with other men, into the john for some quick relief.
‘This is not my thing anymore’ he decided. He finished his beer, set the bottle down on the bar and left.
He was half way down the block to the street where he’d parked when he heard someone say belligerently, “Stay away from him.” Tate spun around to see the blonde bruiser, Jonah, standing, well weaving, a few yards behind him.
Tate played it dumb and asked, “From who?”
“You know who. Mario. Stay away from him.”
“You’re getting repetitive.”
“I’ll ‘repetitive’ you,” Jonah snarled as he took a few staggering steps towards Tate.
With a shake of his head, Tate spun on his heel and walked away. He turned the corner onto the darkened side street and waited to see if Jonah intended to follow.
“’fraid a me?” Jonah slurred as he came into view. “Should be. He’s mine. Stay away.”
“Why the hell would I be afraid of a drunken, abusive excuse for a human being?” Tate spat out in annoyance. “Go home, sober up, and grow up.”
Jonah took a lurching swing at Tate and missed by a few feet. That didn’t stop him from trying again. This time he tripped over his own feet and staggered into a tree. He swore when his fist hit it then leaned against the tree to get his balance.
With a snort Tate continued on his way. He glanced back once to see Jonah still using to tree to stay upright. ‘Stupid fucker,’ he thought.
It wasn’t until he got to his car that it hit him. How had Jonah even known Tate knew Mario? There were only two ways, he’d followed Mario to Tate’s office or he had found out where Mario lived and seen Tate coming and going this evening. Unfortunately, Tate thought, it was probably the latter or else how would Jonah have found him here.
He drove as fast as was legal back to Mario’s home. All the lights were off so rather than wake Mario up Tate parked across the street and settled in to keep an eye on the place until morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment