Chapter 36

Sunday at 7PM I was driving around looking for the Oakleaf Motorcourt. It was located on a state two lane highway outside of Athens Ga. I was about a mile from giving up completely when I saw the sign. It was a concrete block one story building with the office in the middle.

When I parked the car and went inside the smell of curry was overwhelming. Obviously the Indian family who operated the motel lived in the back. The young man behind the counter was dressed in jeans and a University of Georgia sweatshirt with the image of a bulldog over the front.

“I would like a double room please,” I asked. I chose a double room so that I had a empty bed between me and any middle of the night intruder.

“The rate is fifty-five dollars per night,” the young man said with the slightest accents. I had to listen hard to hear it.

“I paid him in cash for two nights. I did not intend to spend the next day looking for another motel. I intended to spend it studying the hard drive data. Since it was already dark, I did not intend to spend the night reading the information summary from my tiny Dell combo laptop and pad. I decided to put the chore off until after breakfast on Monday morning. Monday just seemed like a better time to begin work.

Sunday night I chose to lay on the bed and watch my Dell struggle through a movie. The motel had the smallest cable package available anywhere in the world. Since I was used to cheap motels, that didn’t bother me.

The problem for me was that it also had the world’s slowest WIFI signal. I tried to watch the last week’s Forged in Fire episode on the ass dragging WIFI. It was a constant battle to download enough information for the buffer to fill. Then when it was full the show would run for five minutes, then stop to refill the buffer.

The motel’s WIFI did what the FBI couldn’t do. It got me started on the hard drive summaries. It was boring as hell. Thug A ran this or that part of the operation call ‘Rape on Demand’. Then the summary would tell me some more names I didn’t recognize.

From reading the incomplete summaries, I decided that the FBI most likely wanted me, and the Commissar to fill in the details. It wasn’t enough to know the details, the prosecutor had to be able to explain them to the jury in order to convict.

As far as the mob knew for sure, the commissar was being charged with the murder of JayBird, period. He had refused to talk about anything else. The Mob still considered him a ‘stand up guy’ the fibbies hoped that I could make it stay that way.

The dry ass summary put me to sleep. I awoke to my alarm on the smart phone going off. It told me that the phone was charged and it was 6AM. I crawled out of bed and tried to unwind my arthritic body as best I could.

My left hip had been rebuilt, but it caused me to have a bit of a limp. That limp put pressure on my right hip and caused the joint to wear unevenly. Which in turn eventually caused me to develop some arthritis pain. I loaded up on my OTC pain pills, put on my second, and third layers of clothing before starting out for the morning walk. I put on my fisherman’s vest as my third upper body layer. It’s purpose was to carry my tools. I planned to carry my walking stick in my hand.

Fortunately I was able to download a map of the area. I learned from it that two blocks down there was a county road. If I turned left I could walk a mile and a half before I would need to turn and walk back to the state two lane road. That was where the Oak Leaf Motor Court was situated. That didn’t make it any shorter or easier to walk, but it did keep me from having to explore the area.

I didn’t find any coffee in the motel, or near by the night before. So I went looking for some before I started to walk. I found it in a convenience store at the corner of the two lane and the highway access road. It was a couple of miles from the motel. I bought four of the 16oz Styrofoam cups to go.

I still had the small electric tea pot in which I could reheat the coffee later in the day. That amount of coffee ran me over five bucks. I also bought a three dollar sausage dog. I heated it in the microwave provided and found that it and coffee wasn’t too bad.

I drove back to the motor court. There I left the surplus coffee on the small wobbly table by the window. Then I began my walk with the coffee thermos in my vest’s side pocket and the war club in my hand. The walk itself was fine, but since I had to make the convenience store run first it took until 8:30AM before I made it into the shower.

Before the shower I reactivated my pay as you go dumb ass phone. Promptly at nine the phone rang. “Hello Lord,” I said without waiting for him to speak.”

“Hello old man. You ready for the meet?” he asked.

“Born ready, you got my list,” I asked.

“Sure when you see me don’t freak,” he suggested.

“Gray, I don’t like changes in the middle of the game. So what the hell is going on?” I asked.

“I don’t like phones either. I’d rather tell you when we meet. It will be a clean in and out meeting,” he promised. “So call it.”

“Okay, but this may be a very short meeting. Jefferson county public library in Louisville, at noon.” I turned the phone off and removed the sim card and battery.

I drank coffee and watched TV until eleven. Then I removed the flash drive with the summaries on it and deleted the downloaded file. I left in time to get to the library in time to check it for watchers.

It was clean, but I can’t say the same for the car in which Gray arrived. It held two additional people. One, I recognized as Gray’s boss and there was also an elderly female passenger. She looked like someone’s grandmother. The old lady possessed dyed blond hair, green eyes behind wire framed glasses, and sagging boobs, I decided.