Free Abducted: A Jake Badger Mystery Thriller by Glenn Rogers Page B

build
that had been impressively augmented. Her short hair was blond but the roots
were darker. She had lively, intelligent eyes.
    “Something back in one of the
corners,” I said.
    She led us to a table with
three chairs and we sat. Alex sat next to me. Susan sat on the end. I ordered
three Diet Cokes.
    Susan leaned in and   asked ,
“Do   they   all   shave   their … um?”
    “Yes,” Alex said.
    “Why?”
      “So there is an unobstructed view,” he
said.
    “You’re enjoying this, aren’t
you?” she said, obviously annoyed with her brother.
    When the waitress returned
with the Cokes, I paid and tipped her and asked about Al Humphries.
    “I serve drinks to cops,” she
said, “I don't talk to cops.”
    “Do I look like a cop?” I
asked.
    “Maybe not you,” she said.
Then nodding toward Susan and Alex, she said, “But these two certainly do.”
    Susan said, “I'm not a cop.”
    “No? What then? A grad
student writing a thesis on the exploitation of women in the sex industry?”
    “As a matter of fact,” Susan said,
“I'm working on my Ph.D. in forensic psychology and ...”
    I held my hand out toward
Susan and said to the waitress, “Look, I’m not a cop and neither is she. We
just need to talk to Al Humphries. Okay. There doesn't have to be a problem
here. We just have some questions.”
    She thought about it a
moment. “I'll pass on your request. Whether or not he talks to you is up to him.”
    “Thank you.”
    In a few minutes, three big
guys approached our table. I recognized Humphries from his mug shot photo.
    The three of them pulled up
chairs and sat down opposite us. Al was directly opposite me, with a friend on
either side of him. Humphries was a rough-looking guy. A big
head on a big body. Looked like he outweighed me by forty pounds. Long hair.
Tattoos. But clean shaven . He smelled of Aramis cologne. Same stuff I wear. He wore Levis and a
Levis vest over a black tee shirt. His buddies were also big. Dressed
similarly.
    “Who are you?” Al said.
    I handed him my card. “Jake
Badger,” I said.
    He looked me, studied my card
a moment and looked back at me.
    “You look familiar. We meet
somewhere?”
    I shook my head.
    “Your name is familiar, too.”
    One of his buddies said, “There
was a cage fighter a few years back named Jake Badger.”
    “That's right,” Humphries
said. “You that Jake Badger?”
    I nodded. “Yeah.”
    “Who are these two?
    “Just friends.”
    “Friends,” he said.
    “Friends,” I said.
    Humphries regarded me a
moment and said, “You were good. You had what, forty fights?”
    “Forty-two.”
    “Won all of them.”
    I nodded.
    “Why'd you quit?”
    “Gomez.”
    “That the guy you messed up?”
    I nodded.
    “Rough sport. You won.”
    “I lost my temper,” I said. “I
didn't just win the fight. I hurt him. He was in a coma for six weeks.”
    He studied me. “Lost your
temper, huh? You got a bad temper?”
    “Depends,” I said.
    “On what?”
    “On whether or not people
piss me off.” In my peripheral vision I could see Susan watching the exchange.
She appeared to be fascinated.
    Humphries laughed and looked
at his two buddies. “It depends on whether or not people piss him off.” He
laughed again. “That's funny.”
    He noticed I wasn't laughing.
He looked me in the eye and said, “So, Mr. Badger, what do you want to talk
about?”
    “Monica Nolan.”
    Albert's face
hardened .
    “That bitch killed my son,”
he said, menacingly.
    My eyes bore into his and I knew
he could see the anger there. I sensed a slight adjustment in Alex's position.
He was getting ready, just in case. He put his right hand inside his coat. The
big guy sitting opposite him saw, stiffened and watched him closely. And while
I couldn’t see Susan, I knew she would be getting scared. The contrast between
her and Monica was stark. Monica would have been ready to throw down with these
guys. Monica's a warrior. Fight, or pull her weapon and shoot, she'd have