Chapter 256: Whats This About

"It's a small school in a small town, how much damage could you do?" Eve asked.

"I could do a lot, if it gets picked up by some news service. We want all this town's secrets to stay secret. Besides which even without the organized thugs, there are the 'thugs are us' types out there. I know for a fact that there is a bounty on my ass." I said. "Some of these 'would be gunslingers' are too disconnected to know, that they can collect only grief if they hit me here."

"Still let's worry about one thing at a time, shall we?" I added after a moment's reflection. "We need to talk to the contractor for the pool hall project." Of course it was too late to do that today.

I put my cloth bag filled with dirty clothes into the cruiser. I decided that I would swing by the laundromat where the Vietnamese woman and her daughter had their business on the way to dinner. I was almost out of clean clothes, even though at the time I owned more clothes than I ever had before in my life.

When we arrived, the two of them were still working away. There was also a child, just a few months old, in one of those play things. Both of them were keeping a very close eye on it.

"Is that your baby?" I asked the younger woman.

"Yes her name is Sue," she said.

"And who is the father?" I asked. The older woman said something in Vietnamese so the girl looked down and said, "No father."

I looked sternly at the old woman, then said to the younger one, "Every child has a father, so who is the father of this one."

"Miss Maxine, I know who you are, everyone does. Please the father is not a good man. We do not want him in her life. It is best that he does not become involved."

"I will look into this and if the child is better without him, I will work out something for her. If he needs to be in her life, I will work that out as well. Now who is he, you know I can find out." I said. I could simply put Lucas and Eve on it and I would know in a day. The young woman could read that confidence in my face. She wrote a name on the back of my pickup receipt.

From the laundromat Eve and I continued on to dinner at the Dog House. It was the restaurant where I had met Gunny. Even if it hadn't held memories of Gunny, it had memories of my dad, so I held it in an almost reverence. There were the usual collection of customers, not that there was anything usual about the Dog House's customers, except maybe the mix.

At that time of day there were bankers stopping on the way home for a take out order for the family. There would be cops sitting at the counter rushing to get back on patrol, since they were in on a break not dinner. There would be the crowd from the senior towers, a block away in for an inexpensive dinner. Then there would be the nostalgia nuts like me, trying to recapture a moment in time, yes the Dog House had us all. It was an institution. Even the homeless came in now and then. They usually sat at one of the picnic tables outside, but they were still served just like the banker.

"You know it is a shame you can't really taste what you are cramming down your throat," I whispered to Eve. These really are the best hot dogs in the whole damn world," I suggested.

"Probably not," Eve said logically. "Most likely it is a memory shaded judgment kind of thing." In a blind taste test I'm sure there are others that would be chosen by someone else."

"You are way too damn logical," I said.

"Maxine, it is impossible for one to be too damn logical. I might be too rational for your taste but logical is not a scalable item. You are, or you aren't, there just are no degrees," Eve said.

See, even that is too damn logical," I said with a smile.

"You are hopeless," Eve said with a girlish giggle. I wondered how old that donor was.

"So do you want to do anything tonight or shall we just go home and watch TV on the computer?" I asked.

"I think someone needs to get laid. She is getting into an awfully dark place. Sex seems to cheer you up for a while at least," Eve suggested.

"Sex cheers everyone up, with the possible exception of you," I replied. "So where shall we go Eve. I am leaving the planning up to you." I wasn't really, but I did want her to think I was.

Then I'm thinking Tryon for Rosewater's," she said.

"Hold on, how the hell do you know about Rosewater's. You were still on the shelf the last time I was in Rosewater's." It sounded like a light hearted question, but I was serious about its intent.

"It was part of episode one of your TV show. Mike wanted maximum impact I suppose," Eve said.

I remembered the older woman and college age boy I had met at Rosewater's. Yes Mike had access to my online security footage from the cabin at the time. There would have been better images later, but he used what he had that first season. I was surprised that the show had been even a minor success as bad as the footage was, but he had somehow managed to weave it into the better footage as a memory kind of thing. I suppose he called that episode two cougars and a cub.

"Very well Rosewater's it is, but we need to go home a while. It's too early and even though you can drink all night, I can't." I admitted.

"Getting old Maxine?" Eve asked. There was that flash of humanity again, but it seemed a little different somehow. The times when I could for sure identify the controller were getting fewer. I wasn't sure if the controller was operating less often or the back and forth switching was getting more seamless.

We killed an hour out in the parking lot talking to a couple of motorcyclist who recognized me. Once they heard about the bike locking up on me, they began telling me their own accident stories. They compared their scars to my cuts and the plate and screw incision. We even discussed pain killers. When I told them how few I took, the decided that I was bad ass. That seemed to be a compliment.