Chapter Eleven #2
“New client,” I shot back, shaking my head.
“What’s the matter? He got an ex-wife threatening him because he doesn’t feel like he should have to pay his child support?”
Shane had less tolerance for the suits than I did. Even though he had a brother who was undoubtedly one himself.
“He’s a paranoid jackass.”
“Aren’t they all?”
“Fair enough,” I agreed, grabbing one of the towels, so heavily washed in bleach that I could smell it from a few feet away.
“My Ma text you yet?” he asked, lips twitching, and I knew Helen was up to something. Sometimes, she got off on making “rules” for you to be able to attend her Sunday dinner. And, well, the meal was so fucking good that you just complied, no matter how idiotic you thought it was.
“What now? It better not be a theme thing again.” I still had no idea what the hell to do with my Hawkeye outfit I purchased to go to one of her costume dinners a few months back.
“Nah, she’s got something fun up her sleeve. An old-school one she used to pull when my brothers and I were younger.”
I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like what was about to come out of his mouth. “What?”
“You have to bring a woman.”
“You’re shitting me. Seriously?”
“I think she must be running out of time on her bet with Mark. She’s trying to force your hand. She knows Atlas and Rush never have trouble finding a date, so you got to think this is directed at you.”
It was.
I had never brought a woman to the Mallick family Sunday dinners.
To me, Sunday dinners with my sort-of extended family was something like bringing home a woman to your folks.
You didn’t do that shit casually. Or, at least, I didn’t.
And since all I ever had with women was casual, it didn’t leave me much else to do but skip.
“If it’s any consolation, it’s not for this Sunday. Think she knows your charmless ass is going to need a full week and a half to find a woman who would want to be on your arm for a meal.”
“Says the man who paid a woman to be on his arm the last time she pulled this shit.”
“Hey, maybe she’s got something there,” he said, pulling out his ringing phone. “I ended up marrying Lea.”
With that, he answered his phone.
Dismissed, I made my way into the gym, going even harder than I anticipated seeing as I not only had to work off the frustration about the client, but the annoyance at the Sunday dinner rules.
I could skip it.
That was an option.
But when you did, Helen felt disrespected, and you didn’t want a woman like her—the fearsome woman married to a loan shark who created an empire full of his five enforcer, and ex-enforcer, sons—to feel disrespected. But you could do it.
The problem was, short of having to skip because of work, I didn’t want to skip.
Because I loved Sunday dinners.
I was not a man who loved much in life.
A good cup of coffee, some smooth as fuck whiskey, and a home-cooked meal.
The only time I got a home-cooked meal was at Helen’s.
It reminded me of growing up, of sitting with my mom and siblings around a table. Of the laughter once shared.
We’d all taken our mother’s death hard, Scotti maybe the most since she was the only girl and the youngest, but I felt the cut of that loss sharply even after all the years.
Sunday dinners and the ultimate mother figure that Helen represented, well, they helped soothe things over.
I didn’t want to skip.
Which meant I would have to find a woman to come with me before then.
Shane was right, I would probably need the whole week and a half. I didn’t have the charm and laid-back boyishness of Atlas or the cocky self-assurance and teasing nature of Rush.
Christ.
I might even have to take a page out of Shane’s book and pay someone.
And if that wasn’t a fucking depressing thought, I didn’t know what was.
The thoughts nagged me through my shower, through my quick change, during my drive toward Michael’s office building, knowing he said he typically worked until seven before heading out for the night.
They even clung to the corners of my mind as I sat there, scanning the road, looking for anything suspicious.
Michael worked in an upscale district a few towns from my Navesink Bank office. Which meant that the buildings were colossal, blanking out any bit of the setting sun. The lamps lighting the streets cast most of the cars in shadow, making it impossible to see what—or who—might be inside any of them.
It was a long, frustrating twenty minutes with my thoughts racing around uncharacteristically until the client finally moved out the front doors, pausing there to check his phone for a solid five minutes, giving me just enough ammunition to call him a clueless idiot.
If you thought you were being stalked, you got your ass out of and into safe spaces as quickly as possible. He was practically asking to be shot if that was what his supposed stalker had in mind.
He finally got into his Porsche, turned it over, and pulled out without so much as looking. As though the rest of the word should cater to his whims.
I figured that was it, that I was going to call this a night.
And then another car shot out of its spot with a similar carelessness, but hung back several car lengths until Michael turned the corner, then carefully followed along after another car had moved between them.
That that looked suspiciously like a tail.
A bad one, since the whole point of tailing someone was to do it without anyone suspecting you.
Maybe the client wasn’t so paranoid after all.
I followed suit several cars back, keeping an eye on the tail more than Michael since their moves were what mattered most. No turn signals. Rushing through yellow lights.
In ten minutes, I was sure of it, sure enough to jot down a hasty, nearly illegible note on an envelope balanced on my dash.
The final turn I knew to be the client’s one.
Back to his house.
There was a pause from the other car—another black car but one that stood out because not many people drove a Tesla Model X’s with their ridiculous Falcon Wing doors and uppity hybrid motors, and 100 grand price tags—long enough that it was suspicious since there was no stop sign or light in sight.
And then it swerved suddenly to the opposite side, racing down the side street in the other direction.
I didn’t see much save for very blonde—almost white—hair.
So long as they didn’t spot me tailing them, then I would easily be able to pick out a Tesla X driven by someone with white-blonde hair the next time I staked out Michael’s work.
I expected to be on a wild goose chase for at least a week.
Having a lead almost immediately was going to make this a whole lot easier. Which would lead to a paycheck much sooner. And then I could wash my hands of the asshole once and for all.
So I needed to set my mind to more important problems.
Like who the hell I was going to bring to Sunday dinner next week.