“Oh, by the way, Francis.” Hearing the dissatisfaction in Dempsey’s voice, I hesitated for a moment before turning back to him. Once he could see my eyes he added a personal dig. “I hope you don’t mind but I made the assumption that you would accept my offer. And I’m sorry to say that Bella seemed less than pleased when I mentioned it to her.”
Those words made my stomach drop again. Bella had thought I was a good man, now what would she think of me? Would she even speak with me again? As thoughts of Bella swirled inside my head, I turned back toward the freezer’s door. Walking through, I was almost boiled alive by the hot air of the kitchen. Either Dempsey didn’t know what happened with an extreme temperature change or he just didn’t care. Or perhaps, even more disconcerting, Dempsey simply wanted to teach me a lesson about how dispensable I really was to him, despite my special abilities. Whatever the reason I was grateful to be getting away from Dempsey and that odd woman. Who had she been? And why did she trouble me more than Dempsey, or even Dante for that matter?
Dante, as frightening as a man of his stature is, I was thankful for his assistance. I don’t think I would have been able to move a step without him helping me stumble my way through the kitchen. Also just as fortunately, we made the small trip to the rear exit in silence. I was fairly certain that Dante was mute simply to keep his temper in check. Once outside the restaurant, Dante surprised me by helping me into a sitting position on the loading dock. I had been expecting him to basically dump me and allow me to continue my defrosting alone.
As soon as I was settled, however, Dante tried to make his escape. I quickly spoke to his retreating back, “Excuse me Dante, but do you all still have my coat and watch?”
Without turning around the mountain of a man replied shortly, “When we’re out of ear shot of anyone else, you can drop the act. We both know neither one of us can stand the other.”
I somehow managed to keep a civil tone in my voice as I repeated my request. “What about my coat and watch?”
“Do I look like your servant?”
“No you don’t look like a servant." I offered in reply. And then I took my life in my hands as I continued, "But you do look like an inhospitable host.”
The anger was practically radiating off of him as he muttered the words. “I’ll see what we have…”
When he reached the door I thought of something else I was missing. “I’m sorry but I seem to be missing my phone as well.”
My words halted Dante’s motion for a moment before he continued on through the door into the restaurant. I hoped he was searching for my requested possessions and not a good place to hide my body. But there was nothing I could do about it, so I decided to search the contents of the other envelope. When I opened it the first thing I saw was a photograph. I removed the photo and caught sight of a few stacks of cash lying at the bottom of the envelope. With great care I laid the photo down on the other envelope before turning my attention towards the money.
I pulled out the stacks of cash and quickly thumbed through them. To my surprise I found a random collection of hundreds, fifties, and twenties in each stack. I would have to count the stacks in full later, when I was alone. With a mental curse I let the money slide back down to the bottom of its envelope and just sat there for a moment. There was no reason not to look at the picture, other than not wanting to know what I was being paid for. But I knew, if I wanted to live, I would eventually have to look at the picture, so I swapped the cash for the photo.
Looking down I studied the single eight by ten, but the face it contained held my focus. While it wasn’t the best photograph I had ever seen, the original picture may have been of better quality. But this must have been blown up to take up most of the room available on the eight by ten sheet of glossy paper. This was a surveillance photo plain and simple. Apparently Dempsey was keeping tabs on the man, but I knew that I didn’t want to know the why.
My eyes were pulled to the bottom of the page where I found a few printed words. I quickly guessed they were the name that belonged to the face, Mr. Alexis Rene LeBlanc. What did you do to draw Dempsey's attention? As I sat there wondering who the man was and what he possibly could have done to merit this kind of scrutiny from Dempsey, I eventually turned the photo over. And on the other side I saw more text and immediately wished I hadn’t. What was there was an address, presumably the man’s home address, along with a simple command, take care of the problem.
As I thought about what that command implied I almost missed the kitchen door squeaking open. I hurriedly slid the photo back into its envelope before turning around to greet Dante with a smile. And apparently it came out as more of a scowl because the man quickly shoved my coat into my arms, hopefully my watch and phone were inside the pockets. Seeing Dante’s face I knew that if I was missing anything else I would simply have to replace it.
I could tell he wanted to turn around but he must have received a warning to play nice because he held his ground, waiting in case I had any more requests. So of course, I decided to press my luck with a few more questions. But since I didn’t want to truly expose my ignorance I needed to lay a little groundwork. “I looked at the other envelope.”
I had taken a slight pause to steady myself but Dante interrupted, his apathy apparent. “Good for you.”
I kept my annoyance down and as calmly as I could manage, asked my question while avoiding his eyes. “So what does ‘take care of the problem’ mean?”
“How stupid are you?” I flinched at his words but I had expected something like them. When I glanced up his face displayed open contempt.