Chapter 107

Yes it was embarrassing, but I knew that no real harm was done. After he got his shit and left, I finished what I had been doing. I spent the rest of the afternoon catching up on TV shows on line. I did keep up with them, but not to the extent that I couldn't miss a few episodes and catch up later.

When bedtime came, I was alone again, and I was fine with that at the moment. I knew that the time would come, and it wouldn't be that much longer, when I need that rush. The one that sex of any kind gave me. If it wasn't rough and dangerous, that was okay for a while, but I had to have some kind of sex fairly often. Now and then it had to be rough or dangerous. I had come to accept that fact of life for me at least.

The next day I didn't even go ask Rodney, I just ran. I ran the usual hour, when I returned to the room I was exhausted. Since Rodney hadn't returned, I went into the bathroom for a long slow shower. The warm water eased the pains I had and I hope eased the pain that was coming later. I spent a lot of my day in pain lately. It wan't sharp and unbearable, it was more dull and continuous. They say ribs injuries are the worst for being slow to heal. They could be right mine still hurt, my hand hurt, and even an old knee injury hurt, when the weather was just right. Of course on that morning the weather was just right. It was going to rain, my knee said to me. My knee was never wrong,

It was a short drive into NYC. Even with traffic I figure three to five hours maximum. Rodney must have figure it the same, because he showed up after 10AM. "I was about to put aside my shyness, and come looking for you." I said with a smile.

"Joan said we could drive to the armory in under five hours," Rodney said.

"And how long did she say it would take to secure it?" I asked.

"She has never seen it, so I get it." he said. "Have you had breakfast yet?"

"No, it's time for brunch now," I said with a grin. "Pack you shit and lets get on down the road."

We managed to find a place that still served breakfast. I had steak and eggs. Something I almost never eat, but it was a new day all filled with new beginning. After all we were headed into the big apple, I was optimistic that things would go well.

We rode into the city after lunch. It was a little before noon, when we pulled into the parking lot across the street from the venue. The older man gave us a ticket, on his side of the booth. A black woman about forty sat on the other side of the same booth collecting. I didn't even look at the rate, since the company would be paying for it.

We walked across the street to the building, which filled the whole block. That real estate, if it were in a highly desirable location, would be worth a fortune. In the neighborhood where it sat, it was still worth a pretty penny. Maybe not the millions it could have been somewhere else though.

It had multiple entrances which would each require a man at each to make sure we controlled the access. The former armory had been renovated inside to host events. There was one huge room with bleachers against the walls and more removable bleachers rolled onto the floor. In addition to all that Soda was going to be doing four shows. He was going to do a Friday night show, a Saturday matinée, a Saturday evening, and then a Sunday matinée. Even so it looked as though everything was controlled with a minimum of manpower.

The venue had people already on call who could control the access doors. I even noticed a sign at the front door in two languages. It pretty much said, for your own safety, those who bring a weapon in here, are going to loose it. (we will conduct random searches) If you don't agree to these terms, don't come in. It was effectively tell the audience, we could and would search for and confiscate confiscate weapons.

So it really was just a matter of finding where there Soda crew would wait. It was a room that required us to walk down a hall and then into the arena. We would have to go between the bleachers to the stage. There lots of possibilities for trouble, but good crowd control was the answer and the arena planned for that. It obviously wasn't the managers first rodeo.

Since we had the place secured and the plans made, we went to the new motel to check it out. The tour bus would be moving everyone there after the show. The motel was outside the city since they could never afford city rents. It was okay with me except we had to throw our bags down, then drive right back to the venue. I was pretty sure the tour bus was right behind us.

We met the bus across the street and walked with the occupants to the arena. There were only six of them, so we could cover them all pretty effectively. I was glad to see Rodney didn't show any favoritism to Joan. He moved between them effectively covering everyone. I felt a hell of a lot better when they were inside the building. Once we were inside Rodney stationed himself outside the dressing room door and I went inside the room. He said it was to give me a cheap thrill, but I knew it was to make me the final line of defense. He didn't want the responsibility for the actual loss of a client. He would rather take the shock of the assault first.

The Kevlar was very uncomfortable against my skin under the tee shirt, but I felt it was necessary. If we were going to have an gang trouble, New York seemed the logical place for it, so I wore the vest. I had the Glock in the waistband of my pants. The .38, stun gun, and box openers were in the big pockets of the new cargo pants. The ones I had bought from the Paterson New Jersey Walmart. The pants were black and the tee shirt orange. I looked like Halloween, but I didn't care. The orange was covered by the green nylon very light parka. I expected to be soaked with sweat before the night was over. I typically was after one of the events.