Hitman's Creed - 19

 

"I really hate this," Joey's mother told Glenn as they sat at a table in the back of the coffeehouse. They’d taken advantage of a lull to have Glenn tell her what he felt was needed to keep her and Joey safe in the event that Mr. Fairburn decided to put in an appearance.

"I'm sure you do, I would too if I were in your place." He paused, tapping a finger on his notes. "One could almost hope he would show up and soon. Then this would be over and done with."

"Bite your tongue," she growled in reply. "But, yes, I suppose you've got a point. Tell me honestly, do you think he will?"

"Honestly, I have no idea. I will tell you that I've put out feelers to try and find out where Miss Nye went. In my opinion, she would be the first one he'd go after if he's holding any sort of grudge."

She frowned deeply. "If he can find her then he can find us."

"That was my thought as well, although his finding her depends on how well she went undercover so to speak." Then he asked her, "Does he know you've got family here?"

"Yes, and I know it was probably stupid for me to bring us here but I thought it might be safer because I'd have Harv to protect us and he's good friends with the police chief so… well you understand, don't you?"

"I do." He reached across the table to pat her hand. "And in some ways it was a very logical move on your part."

She quickly pulled her hand away which caused him to raise an eyebrow in surprise. Her mouth tightened as she glanced over to the counter and saw Joey watching them with unfeigned interest, then she looked hard at Glenn. "This may not be the time to ask but I want to know, are you interested in my son?"

Glenn smiled slightly. "I take it he said something to you so I'll tell you straight out that I'm not going to try to have my wicked way with him, as it were. He's just a kid no matter what he thinks."

"That did not answer my question. Are you interested in him?"

Glenn started to reply then stopped as he seriously considered what she was asking. A frown furrowed his brow for a long minute then faded away. "I don't know how to reply to that," he finally said with some hesitation. "I enjoy his company, what little of it I've had. He makes me smile, which I'll readily admit is something I'm not used to doing. If he was older, or I was younger, I might try to see if something could happen between us. But we're not. I suspect he might be seeing me as," he winced slightly, "the father he wished he'd had."

"Believe me, Glenn, he is not looking at you as a father figure by any stretch of the imagination."

"I'm curious. What exactly did he say to make you think that?"

She chuckled. "He blurted out that he's been dreaming about you, and I gather it was not about baseball games in the park or you taking him to the county fair or helping him with homework."

"Oh man," Glenn said softly.

"Exactly. Which is why I started this conversation in the first place. I won't let you hurt him, Glenn."

"I have no intention of doing that."

"Of doing what?" Joey asked when he suddenly appeared beside the table. He poured fresh coffee for them, telling them he thought they might have needed more.

"Of bringing in someone from outside to act as a bodyguard," Glenn said. It was the first thing he could think of that made sense. As he leaned back, hoping that would satisfy the kid, he took the opportunity to look at Joey in light of the information his mother had given him. Although young, he realized Joey couldn’t really be described as a ‘kid’. He was a young man and a very handsome one at that. Brown curly hair, perhaps a bit too long but somehow it seemed to accent his high cheekbones. And his mouth, that very sensual mouth which begged to be kissed. Glenn could imagine devouring those soft pouty lips, his tongue delving within to tangle with Joey’s. With a shock he realized what he was doing and prayed Joey, and Joey’s mother, had been oblivious to it. 

"Why would you want to; you can do it, can't you?" Joey’s eyes locked on Glenn’s mouth for a moment before he looked guilelessly at him, saying, "It is what you used to do, right?"

'Hoisted by my own petard,' Glenn thought ruefully. "Yes, it is," he replied out loud.

"Then there we go, one more problem solved." Joey smiled and walked back behind the counter.

"Oh boy," Glenn and Miriam whispered at the same time.

Hitman's Creed - 18

 

Glenn walked into the coffeehouse on the dot of eight to find that it was filled with customers with not one vacant table, and there was a line at the counter eight people long. Not wanting to interfere with what was obviously the morning rush, he wended his way over to the corner of the pastry case to wait. Joey looked over and smiled before he turned back to take the next order. It took twenty minutes before things calmed down enough that Glenn felt he wouldn't be interrupting and went over to talk to the kid.

Joey took a key ring from his pocket and gave it to Glenn. As their fingers touched Joey felt a momentary rush of desire that he quickly tamped down. "This one's for the front door," he said, not quite looking at Glenn, "and this one goes to the back door."

Glenn, being by necessity a student of human nature, picked up on Joey's feelings and bit back a smile even though it wasn't a smiling matter. The last thing he needed was what he thought was happening, that Joey was becoming too interested in him. 'Or is that just my ego speaking?' he thought with wry amusement as he thanked Joey and told him he'd bring the keys back when he was finished.

Fifteen minutes later he let himself into the house and began doing a walk-through. "This place is about as safe as Central Park at midnight," he muttered while he took notes on what had to be done to make it secure.

When he went into what was obviously Joey's room he got a bit of a jolt. He knew the kid was studying criminal justice but apparently he hadn't really processed that fact. The bookshelves were filled with relevant research material and there were a couple of posters decorating the wall over Joey's bed. He walked over to look more closely at them. Both were prints of photos taken maybe seventy to one-hundred years ago of police officers in action. "History buff too, huh?" he murmured with a smile.

Unable to quell his nosiness he crossed to the computer sitting on the desk opposite the bed and booted it up. It didn't take him long to decide that it was primarily used for Joey's class work. The kid didn't seem to do any web-surfing other than what was related to his studies. Or maybe he did, Glenn discovered as he scrolled though the history file of Joey's homepage. He was not happy with what he found there. Joey had done a search for 'Glenn Tanner'. 'How the hell do you know my last name? I didn't tell you.' It took only a minute for him to find out. Joey had done a search of the county assessor rolls. 'Clever, kid, and stupid on my part. I'll have to have my friendly hacker change that.'

Glenn did smile when he saw the long list of 'Glenn Tanners' Joey had come up with. There were even more than Glenn thought. Why Joey was doing this was something Glenn wasn't ready to think about right now, however. Especially after the way the kid had reacted at the coffeehouse this morning. He shut down the computer and got back to the business at hand.

Hitman's Creed - 17

 

After Joey closed his cell, he sighed. His mother looked at him and asked what was wrong.

"Nothing, just being stupid is all," he told her somewhat dejectedly.

"Joey, are you, well, interested in him?"

Joey shrugged. "Maybe. Not that it would do any good if I were. He's already made it clear that he's way older than me. Hell, he joked about me wanting to fix him up with you."

She looked at him in shock. "Now why would he think you'd want to do that?"

"I was, well, we were talking about how he had never been in a relationship because he didn't have time and I said he did now and he asked that and…"

"And?"

"And I said you were too old and he said maybe he liked older women, then well…"

"Older women?" his mother said while she tried not to laugh, adding, "So I gather he's straight."

"No, he's bi."

She nodded, tapping a finger on her lips. "You asked?"

"He told me, after he wanted to know if you knew I was gay."

"That must have been quite the conversation." She looked at him worriedly. "So he knows you're gay, you know he's bi. Has he shown any interest in you, made any, well, advances? And as far as that goes have you, now that you know?"

"No, no, not at all! Like I said he pointed out he was much older than me. To him, I'm just a kid."

"He has a very good point, Joey. He's at least ten years older than you, I'd say. That's a very big age difference."

Joey nodded. "I know, but I can't help how I feel."

"How do you feel exactly?"

With an embarrassed smile he said, "I've been dreaming about him."

"I would take it they were somewhat erotic?"

"Oh yeah, and I shouldn't have admitted that, should I?"

"I did ask," she told him with a soft chuckle. "Look, I'm not one to give advice on love, if that's what you think you're feeling, or even lust which is much more likely, but you have to be very careful not to come on to him in any way. I don't want him taking advantage of you just because he knows he could."

"Do you think he would?"

"I can't say, but older men sometimes feel a sense of pride when a younger person finds them interesting and they'll take advantage of it."

"He's not like that," Joey protested.

"You know this how?"

"I… I just do."

His mother nodded. "All I'm asking is please be careful. I don't want to see you hurt."

"I will be, mom. I promise." He hugged her quickly. "Now I better go study."

Hitman's Creed - 16

 

As soon as he arrived home after dropping Joey off at the coffeehouse, Glenn got onto the computer. It had occurred to him that he should try to track down the mistress and her daughter. It was possible she might have heard from Mr. Fairburn either directly or because he might have tried to go after her first, before coming to town to take his anger out on Joey's mother. That was, of course, if the man was insane enough to come out of hiding in the first place. One could hope his sense of self-preservation would override any need for vengeance. But Glenn wasn't about to take that chance.

It didn't take him long to discover that Miss Nye had left the city where the attack had taken place almost immediately after she was released from the hospital. Very cautiously, because the last thing Glenn wanted was for any of his past associates to find him, he put out feelers as to the whereabouts of the woman and her daughter. One of the first people he contacted was his hacker friend. He sent her a fully encoded inquiry with all the details that he had about Mr. Fairburn and the others.

He had no expectations of hearing back quickly from her or anyone else and so shut down his computer. Next on his agenda, and it had nothing to do with the Fairburn problem, was to finally start to repaint the living room, a task he had put off because of all that had happened since he'd bought the paint.

He set to it with no expectation of getting more than one wall painted before he got bored with the job. However he became so involved in what he was doing that he kept on going. When his phone rang he glanced at the time and was shocked to realize it was evening and he was almost finished with the whole room.

He answered the phone with, "I didn't give you this number," when his caller ID told him who was calling.

"Yes you did, obliquely," Joey told him. "It was on our caller ID from when you let me use your phone."

"All right, makes sense. But I thought I told you I'd do the calling."

"Yeah, and so? I talked with mom and she's good with you seeing what protection we need, so tomorrow?"

"You're not working?"

"I am, but I can give you keys to the house if that would work."

"It does. I'll be there at eight. Be ready."

Joey chuckled. "We open at six on weekdays so that's not a problem."

"All right, I'll be at the coffeehouse at eight. Anything else?"

There was a long moment of silence then Joey said, "No that's it," and hung up.

As Glenn did the same he wondered what Joey wanted to say but hadn't.