Chapter 109: The way it's gonna be

On Wednesday morning I packed the cell phone along on my morning ride with Cheryl. It was probably not a good thing that I had begun to think of the morning ride and Cheryl as part and parcel of the same thing. But there she was knocking on my door at 7;30AM again. Breakfast was again filled with guys leering at her boobs, while I smiled inwardly. I have no idea why I found it so satisfying, I mean she wasn't really with me in a romantic sense. Even so. I felt almost like a proud parent.

The walk went off without any problems at all. We passed by a gas station on the way home. I noticed Gas prices were going up again. I made a note to fill up the cruiser and my gas can before they got any higher.

The motors on our bikes were about the size of a weed eater, but were of much better quality. They required a 50:1 mix of gas and oil. Fortunately they packaged oil in the right size bottle for one gallon cans of gas. I had a two and a half gallon tank and a one gallon tank. When I got down to less than half the big can, I transfered it into the smaller can. At that point, I put two gallons in the big can along with two of the little bottles of oil. It was a pain for about thirty seconds, then it was over for a month or more.

I got the gasoline ready for the next month before my phone rang around noon. Mike was at the airport in Tryon. The airport was actually between Aster and Tryon. It wasn't there because Aster was a big suppler of air traverlers, but because the land had been cheap, when they built it.

"So I suppose you want me to pick you up?" I asked.

"Actually no, I just wanted to give you a heads up. We should be there in about twenty minutes or so." Mike said.

"We who is we?" I asked. There was a too long pause.

"He said to tell you that it was Irish," Mike said. "Now I have to go. The bags are coming out." I knew that he really said it, so I wouldn't ask more questions.

I never had lunch before three, so I just made more coffee. Since I drank coffee all day long, the pot was always on. While I waited for the two new men in my life to show, I reran the security camera files. Nothing happened over night and that was a good thing.

My phone played the Mag7 theme again, but I caught it pretty quickly that time. "We are five minutes out. We just wanted to let you know."

"It's too cold to stand bye the gate, but I'll keep an eye out for you. What are you driving?" I asked,

"A black Cadillac SUV," Mike said.

"Of course you are, the ride of choice for thugs and cops," I said it with a laugh. I kept an eye on the parking lot camera until they arrived. Once the Caddy was in the parking lot, I walked to the gate. I carried Mike's card key and door key in hand. His unit was the one on the right hand corner of the building.

"Well hello strangers," I said as a greeting. "What bring you to my part of the world," I asked jokingly.

"I'm just a tourist," Irish said. "This one is going to be staying a while."

"Oh goody, he makes it a full house. Well, when you get settled in, come on down to number three. I have coffee on."

"I'm going with you, I don't do bellhop," Irish said.

"When you get your stuff in the first unit, number 6, come on down to unit three. We will be waiting." I said to Mike. I knew that he wouldn't have much in the way of luggage, but he would most likely want a few minutes to look around his new temporary home.

"God I missed you," Irish lied as he closed the door behind us.

"Bullshit," I said.

"Well, I did think about you once or twice," he corrected himself.

"That's more like it, but this is business," I said. "I never mix the two."

"Yeah, that's what the bosses like about you." Martin said.

"So you are going to be code name Irish?" I asked with a laugh.

"Yeah they like it at the office for some reason. It's all part of this new image shit that we are trying to achieve."

"I still don't understand that. How the hell are we going to fit into that black bag shit, if we are on TV."

"Executive Security Service is about protection, not black bag shit, as you call it." he said.

"Oh come now, You aren't going to try to tell me that your boss is suddenly above a little industrial espionage. Because if you do, I'm gonna laugh in your face." I said.

"Our operation isn't going to be doing anything like that. You and I are heading up the non profit operations. Heading up hell we are the feel good ops department. If we can figure out a way to make the bad guys pay the freight, then we will be heros. If not, Swamp Thing just writes it off as a cost of doing business. Of course we have an almost zero budget."

"Of course," I agreed.

"Look before Mike gets here, I need to tell you something," Irish said. "But first how much do you know about Johnathan Hunter and Cheryl?"

"Not much to be honest. I think she is his girl toy, but I don't see him around much. She and I have breakfast together these days, but that's about all I know."

"You didn't do a background check on them?" Irish asked.

"I did it on Johnathan. It started out that Johnathan was going to rent the apartment. Then it all got moved to her name. I figure that her last name wasn't really Hunter, but I didn't care. His credit check told me he had the money to keep a sweetie on the side, so it all seemed harmless. Just an old married goat with a lamb in the woods. Why?"

"First of all Cheryl is Johnathan's Daughter. He was working in a machine shop, when she was born. He came up with some gadget and it was about to pay off big, when she graduated high school. Just a week after she graduated, she got his shotgun from the closet.