Chapter 3 Axel
THREE
AXEL
Tammy: Ruthie said you wanna pick up a few shifts working the bar. Is that true?
Me: Ruthie was thinking it will help me with my English.
Tammy: Have you ever bartended before?
Me: No.
Tammy: Have you ever worked at a restaurant or bar before?
Me: No.
Tammy: This is going to be fun.
Tammy: If you’ve got time tomorrow, come on by and I’ll talk you through what you would need to do and then you can decide if it’s something you really want to do.
I may not know all my English phrases, but I wasn’t ignorant of sarcasm. I knew Tammy was likely thinking that adding me to the team was the least fun thing, but I appreciated her giving me a chance.
Me: Thank you. Is 10am okay?
Tammy: That’s perfect. See you then. Oh, and bring some of those pastries Ruthie said you have in the office.
Last night, after I had gotten home from work, Tammy and I had had that text exchange about working at the bar, and I was happy for the distraction.
A distraction I needed, because ever since I had left the bakery yesterday afternoon, I had done nothing but think of the beautiful woman who owned that bakery.
I told myself I was just being nice when I sent Stella that text after Jack and I had left her bakery, but I knew deep down it was because I wanted another excuse to talk with her.
Jack and I had talked during the car ride back to the office and confirmed our plan with Archer after we got back.
It was simple. I would find out who this Braden person was and where he lived, and we would pay him a visit.
We would tell him to back off, or we would be filing a restraining order for harassment on behalf of our client.
After doing a base search, I realized I needed more information.
Neither Stella nor anyone on her staff knew where Braden worked, and he always paid cash when he came to her store, so I didn’t even have his last name.
Her security cameras also only went back seven days, which meant I couldn’t find him.
The letters had been mailed to Scandinavian Sweets, never brought in person.
I shot off another text to Stella asking her if I could stop by to get some more information.
Me: I have a few more questions. Is there a good time tomorrow to stop by?
Stella: Yeah. We usually have a lull around 10am if you want to stop by then. If not, I’ll be there all day, so you can come by anytime.
Me: I have another appointment in the morning, but I could be there around 3pm if that is okay?
Stella: That sounds great. I’ll see you then!
The next day, I was walking into the office to get a few things done before I met Tammy at the Watering Hole pub in thirty minutes.
“Good morning, Ruthie,” I yelled as I walked into our building.
“Morning, Axel,” Ruthie called out from behind her desk. “Thanks for bringing me extra goodies from the bakery yesterday!”
Our Ranger Shield Security office was located in a mixed-use multi-story building just outside Atlanta.
The first floor of the building was split, with the left side belonging to Ranger Shield Security’s front lobby and reception space—where Ruthie worked alongside Vince’s wife Cat, who usually sat in one of our large meeting rooms behind Ruthie’s desk.
On the right side of the building was the Watering Hole pub-slash-restaurant.
“No problem,” I told her. “I’m going back later today, so I will bring you more.”
“You’ve always been my favorite!” she yelled back to me, and I smiled.
“I will tell your husband that!” I teased, hearing her laugh as I walked by.
I made my way to the elevator to head up to the second floor of the building. That was the inner workings of the security side of the business, including our control room, tech space, storage for our guns and gadgets, and private offices.
The third floor was where Wade and his wife, Ellie, lived with their daughter. It had originally been two separate one-bedroom apartments, but they had converted them into one large three-bedroom unit for their growing family.
Wade managed the pub, which his uncle previously owned but sold to us, along with the entire rest of the building, when he retired nearly four years ago.
The pub had provided Wade, Vince, Archer, and Jack with an initial source of income while they set up Ranger Shield, and now it provided us with a great location to scout future employees.
It also meant it would be easy for me to work at the bar for a few shifts because Wade and the others owned both businesses—I was technically an employee of both.
The pub was right down the street from Dobbington Air Reserve Base.
While Dobbington was the 22nd Air Force headquarters, it was also home to Navy operations support, Army Reserve, Marine Reserve, and Georgia National Guard, which meant there were a lot of military-trained personnel to recruit from, which was exactly how they found Diego, Andre, and Delia, who all now worked with us.
“Hey, man,” Archer said as I walked down the hallway to my office. “I hear you’re gonna pick up a couple shifts for Tammy?”
“Yeah, Ruthie suggested it to me to help me with all your weird English phrases,” I told him, and he chuckled.
“I’ll just have you work Stella’s case, then, since you’ll be picking up some shifts with Tammy,” he responded. “While you’re working over there, keep an eye out for any possible recruits, will ya?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Cool, and let me know if you need any help finding Stella’s creep.”
“I will. Thanks,” I told him as I walked down the hallway to my desk.
I wanted to get a head start on searching a few ideas I’d had last night about Stella’s stalker before I went over to meet Tammy.
There had to be a way to track him down. Everyone slipped and left markers somewhere. You just had to know where to look.
I shot off a quick message in our portal chat group to Tex and Kitty to see if they had any suggestions, too.
Kitty: Check the postmark on all the letters and see where they were sent from. Braden isn’t exactly a common name, so you might be able to narrow something down with that.
Tex: I know you said her security cameras only go back seven days, but other businesses may go back further. If she knows a date that he for sure was there in person, you can look to see if a nearby bank or something picked him up on their cameras.
Me: Thanks. I will look into both.
Fifteen minutes later, I walked into the Watering Hole and was instantly greeted by Tammy.
“Axel, good to see ya,” she said with a smile on her face.
“Same to you, Tammy.”
“Alright, I’m gonna show you the basics here, so follow me over to the bar,” she said, waving her hand.
“I’m gonna have you working the left side of the bar because people will see you when they walk in the door, and your face is a hell of a lot more exciting than seein’ my grumpy face when they stroll in. ”
She winked at me as I shook my head. Tammy was great, but she didn’t have much of a filter. I towered over her—though that wasn’t saying much since almost everyone was taller than Tammy—but what Tammy lacked in height, she more than made up for with attitude and brass balls.
In addition to being on the shorter side, Tammy had more of a stocky, muscular build.
She was what Diego referred to as a brickhouse.
Her dark-brown hair was accented by a few strands of gray, and the slight wrinkles around her eyes suggested she might be in her mid-forties.
Yet, everything else about her gave the impression she was ten years younger.
“How long have you worked here, Tammy?” I asked her because she had been here when I first moved to this country.
“I was an Army brat growing up and then kept it in the family and went into the Army myself. I used to come here to this pub a lot between deployments. Got to know Wade’s uncle, and when I retired, he offered me a job.
Got good retirement from the military, but I’m not the type of person to just sit around and be lazy all day.
Plus, I like talking to people, and a bar is a great place for that. ”
“Which is why I am here also,” I told her.
“We’ll get you speakin’ like a native in no time,” she declared. “Alright, let me show you where everything is.”
I’d been here before many times, but not on this side of the counter. The bar was a boxy C-shape and could easily fit two dozen patrons around it. Elsewhere, there were at least another thirty or so tables and booths in the rest of the place.
I had always enjoyed coming here ever since Vince and Archer had brought me shortly after I was hired. The place had strong Irish pub vibes, but also a rustic, cozy atmosphere to it.
That vibe came from the old, worn hardwood floors, the warm but dim lighting, and exposed wood beams and posts.
Due to the proximity to the Dobbington Air Reserve Base down the street, there was also a strong military theme throughout the pub.
“Usually, we split the bar down the middle and each take half of the customers,” Tammy explained. “But if we know someone who is sitting on the other side, or there’s a large group sitting together in the middle, we’ll swap and just figure it out as the night goes on.”
That seemed simple enough, though I doubted anyone would actually come to visit me here and request to sit on my side. Perhaps Ruthie, but she also was very close to Tammy.
“Now, I know you mostly wanna do this to chat with people and build up your English, and that’s fine, but some people don’t wanna talk,” Tammy said, her voice taking a more somber tone.
“Some of these people come in here to drink their problems away or just get away from it all, so if they just wanna sit there, let ’em be. ”
I understood that more than Tammy could possibly know.
I was better now, but I had gone through a dark phase in my life too, so I understood the need for quiet and solitude.
I, too, had spent several nights a week at a bar, drinking my sorrows away for nearly a year before a job opportunity in the States changed the course of my life.
“Now, with that said, you’ve also got some talkers,” Tammy said, breaking me out of my inner thoughts. “Eddie and Hank are regulars and will tell you everything you never wanted to know about their entire lives. I know more about Eddie’s colonoscopy than his wife probably does.”
She said that last part with a shiver, indicating this was not something she was excited to know about.
“Just so I can avoid the topic too, what exactly is a coluh…colosc…whatever you just said?” I asked her, knowing a somewhat similar word in Swedish, but I doubted that was what she meant.
She stared at me for a moment and then threw her head back and laughed. “Part of me doesn’t want to tell you just so Eddie can fill you in and you learn all about it along the way. But the nice part of me doesn’t want to be that mean to you. Plus, you’d likely quit the very next day on me.”
This was sounding worse by the minute.
My fears were confirmed a few moments later as Tammy gave me a basic rundown of what a colonoscopy was—a word that was now forever singed into my brain in the worst possible way.
Yes, I knew what they were, and yes, the somewhat similar Swedish word was exactly what this translated to, but no one needed to talk about this in public. Especially not at the level of detail that it sounded like Eddie gave to Tammy.
Thankfully, we moved to safer topics—restocking the bar and how to refill a keg.
Tammy gave me the lowdown for the next hour before she had to actually begin to get ready for the place to open for lunch.
She told me to come back the next two days for training shifts, and depending on how well that went, I might get my first real shift on Monday night.
I spent the next few hours finishing up an older project for a skip that Vince was working to bring in.
Vince’s dad had been a bounty hunter for years and then taught Vince everything he knew.
Vince wasn’t a full-time bounty hunter, but any time he or one of the other guys got wind of a simple bail skipper, he would go for it because it was easy money for the security company.
By two thirty, I was in my car and on my way to Scandinavian Sweets. It was odd how much I was looking forward to going back there. I chose not to look too deeply into that, but rather just enjoy the moment for what it was.