Free Corridor Man by Mick James Page B

this is more than a little pathetic.” He glanced over at the stolen blanket and pillow lying on the floor next to the suitcase and the three brown paper grocery bags holding clothes.
    “I like to live simple,” Bobby said.
    They both nodded, but didn’t say anything.

Chapter Twenty-Six
     
     
    “And you were what, a banker?” Arundel asked and glared.
    “Actually a lawyer, with an accounting background, a CPA.”
    “But not a criminal,” Arundel said. He smiled coldly and moved the toothpick with his tongue from the left to the right side of his mouth.
    “I never shot anyone, never meant to harm anyone.”
    “Right, leave that to us folks without them fancy college degrees,” Arundel said. “You just left them penniless. Left ‘em to fend for themselves in a world where your kind make all the rules. ‘Course, if they needed any help it would just be cash up front. Kinda like them insurance types. You know, you pay year after year, then when you finally file a claim they don’t pay it and then they raise your rates just cause you tried to get what was owed you in the first place.”
    “It wasn’t like that.”
    “Oh really, then just what the hell was it like, Mr. Lawyer, accountant?” Arundel moved a half step toward Bobby.
    “All right now, Bobby you’ll just have to excuse Arundel, here. He holds some points of view ain’t all that popular with certain folks. But he don’t mean no harm, now. Do you Arundel?”
    “Just making a point,” Arundel said and gave Bobby a hard look.
    “Tell me again about these two looking to go after my mom.”
    “In the Escalade?”
    Her son nodded.
    “Well, like I said, they were driving a burgundy Escalade. I think it got pretty smashed up, maybe even totaled, but I wasn’t going to keep your mom there while I checked it out.”
    “What’d they look like?”
    “Can’t tell you too much. Both white. Younger, maybe mid-twenties, the one I stopped from going after her in the ladies room at Foxies, he was the same one put the window down when they drove alongside and then shot at us. He had dark curly hair, sort of a pug nose. They were both big, maybe not the size of you two, but not little. I’d say they were in pretty good shape.”
    “And the other one?”
    “The other one, the driver. I only caught him for a few seconds. Not dark hair, but not blond either, brown maybe heading toward red. Some might call it ginger colored.”
    Arundel gave a quick glance, just a flash of his eyes, but Bobby couldn’t determine what, if anything had been communicated.
    Arundel asked, “The one in the ladies room…”
    “He never got in there, I stopped him and wouldn’t let him in.”
    “…he have an accent?”
    “Not that I recall, he might have said just two or three words. I don’t remember an accent, but like I said, I can’t be sure.”
    Arundel nodded and rolled his toothpick over to the other side.
    “You guys think you know who it is?”
    They both shook their heads no, but in a rather unconvincing manner.
    “Why would someone want to hurt your mom?”
    “That shooting a while back,” Kate’s son said to Arundel.
    “Sexton’s,” Arundel replied, then nodded like it all made sense.
    “Thanks for keeping an eye on my Mom.”
    “Not a problem, you want to put her in a paper bag, I think I’ve got a spare around here,” Bobby said opening the cabinet below the sink.
    “No, you hang onto her. I’ll grab her a little later on. We’re out of here, take care of yourself, Bobby.”
    “You’re not taking the urn?”
    “I just told you, I’ll get it a little later,” he said and they walked out the door.
    From where he stood Bobby watched them head down the stairs then he walked over, closed his apartment door once they were out of sight and made sure it was locked.

Chapter Twenty-Seven
     
     
    He wasn’t due to pick up Violet Oxley for an hour. After which, he could look forward to an entire day of sitting and cooling his feet in the hallway