Free Corridor Man by Mick James Page A

waiting,” she said, then stepped out and walked up the driveway to her front door. She unlocked the door and stepped inside without looking back.
    He gave her the finger from behind the passenger door and drove off.
    Bobby was just tidying up the kitchen area after dinner when someone knocked on his door. Since he didn’t have a peep hole to look through he had to ask, “Who is it?”
    “Kate’s son. Here to get my mom.”
    He glanced over at the kitchen counter. Fortunately, he had just removed the plate he’d washed and leaned against the urn to dry along with the fork he’d set on top of it. He opened the door.
    “How’s it going, Bobby?” The young man smiled and walked in. He was dressed in a nondescript T-Shirt and jeans, the T-shirt stretched taught over his muscular chest. The fabric around his large biceps looked like it was about to rip. A black guy about the same age and size followed in behind him. The guy had a toothpick hanging out of the corner of his mouth. Neither one bothered with any form of introduction.
    “I set the urn right over here, on the kitchen counter,” Bobby said making a beeline for the urn. He kept talking as he grabbed a dish towel and wiped a few drops of water from the fork he’d left on top. “Lovely little bit of wood, I’m sure she would be pleased,” he smiled and pretended to polish the top and sides.
    “Not sure she’d even know,” her son said looking around the sparse surroundings before he asked, “Exactly how long you been living here?”
    “Me?”
    The two visitors both looked at Bobby like he was nuts.
    “Just a couple, well maybe four weeks. I’m sort of getting resettled.”
    Kate’s son nodded and smiled. “You just got out, didn’t you?”
    Bobby nodded.
    His visitors grinned.
    “I knew it. Picked up on it the other night, you had that sense about you. A fella can tell, just a certain way about you.” He flashed a quick smile, then got serious, very serious. “So maybe those two you mentioned, driving the Escalade, maybe they were looking for you all along.”
    “The shooters? Not likely.”
    “You locked up with some bad asses, you give ‘em some of that privileged boy attitude? A lot of folks don’t like that shit.”
    “I wasn’t locked up with real criminals, I was with bankers, lawyers, and accountants.”
    “Not real criminals? Shit, now that’s funny. You think that’s funny Arundel?” he said to his sidekick.
    “Shit.”
    “Listen, they weren’t after me. Just for starters they were looking for your mom at Foxies. I’d never even been there before, Foxies. I told you one of them tried to go in the ladies room after her and I had to stop him. Told him to get the hell out of there, he backed off, went away, once he realized he’d have to deal with the likes of me. Then they were out on the street looking for her. Hey, they would have got her right then and there if I hadn’t pulled into traffic the way I did. I tried to lose ‘em in traffic, but the bastards found us, somehow. They would have had her for sure if I hadn’t reacted when they shoved that pistol out the window, it looked like a .45 or maybe a .357, big damn thing. Most guys would have frozen under fire. I didn’t have that luxury. I slammed into them a couple of times, then jumped the curb, raced down the sidewalk and blasted down that alley so I could get her the hell out of danger. I lost count of how many rounds they got off. Of course, I was more than a little preoccupied at the time.”
    “You knew they were following you?”
    “Following me? You think if they were trying to kill me I would have shown up at the funeral home? Hell, I’d be halfway across the country by now. Instead I brought her ashes home and …”
    “Okay, I get it. You can’t take a little joke, Bobby, sorry. I didn’t think you’d get that upset.”
    “I’m not upset,” Bobby half yelled.
    “Good, glad to hear it. So, like, what are you going to do about furniture? I mean,