Baby Daddy (19 page)

“
What did you find?” I asked.

“Lots of tour things like programs, play lists, some songs
, letters, contracts and other things like that.  I didn’t have time to read them all.  I’ll go through them more thoroughly and put them in order.”  She put the lid on that box.  “It was pretty cool because most of it was in Roger’s handwriting…I guess it was his handwriting.  Pam showed me some samples here in the office, and they looked the same to me.”  She blushed.  “Of course, I’m no expert.”

“
It probably was his,” Christopher told her.  “He liked to write everything in longhand.  He hated computers, remember?”

Liberty’s confidence level
blossomed.  “I also found some envelopes filled with photos.”  She picked up five manila envelopes out of one of the other boxes, each with one of our names printed on them in Roger’s distinctive lettering.  “I didn’t go through them, but it looks like it might be things about our moms and the times when he was dating them.”  Solemnly, she handed them out to us.

No one rushed to open the
ir envelope.

I suspected their emotions were running along the same
wavelength as mine…and I didn’t, especially in front of everyone else, want to deal with whatever memories or intimate details of my mother’s romance with Roger that might be inside.  I would wait until later, in the privacy of my room, when I was mentally ready to view that part of my mother’s secret past.

Suddenly, m
y new phone rang, causing me to jump. I pulled it out of the pocket of my slacks and looked at the display screen.  It showed a call with a 512 area code which meant it was local, but everyone who knew I had this number was in the room and obviously not calling me.  They all stared at me as I answered it.  “Hello?”

There was silence
on the other end…then the call disconnected.

“That’s weird
,” I said, looking at the phone as if it would tell me who the caller had been.  “Whatever…they hung up.”

Reno’s cell phone rang.  He pulled the phone out
, glanced at it and answered it.  “Yo.”  He listened for a moment.  “Who is this?”  He looked at us and shrugged.  “They hung up.”

Then Dallas’ phone
rang with the same result, followed by Tulsa’s and finally Liberty’s.  We compared phones and all showed the calls came from the same number.  We tried calling it back, but no one answered.

Christopher looked worried.  “That’s not good.  Whoever it is knows more about us than we know about them.”

“How could anyone have gotten our numbers?” Dallas asked.

“Either there’s a leak from the inside or someone has extraordinary connections,” Christopher mused.

We were all too exhausted to add this to our worry list right now.  We already had people trying to blow us up, run us off the road and shoot us.  And we were no closer to knowing who it was than we had been this morning.

Reno stood up, “
I’m ready for happy hour…anyone else?”

“What do you
say we give Gerald the night off and grab a good steak here in town somewhere?  I’m hungry and I’m tired of looking at a computer screen,” Tulsa suggested, anxious to go.

“
Sounds good to me,” I agreed.  “Liberty, do you want me to put your kitten in your office?”  She had decided to keep her in there until she got a little older so she couldn’t hurt herself in the warehouse.

I took the kitten to
Liberty’s office and made sure there was enough food and water to last until tomorrow.  Then I turned off the light and shut the door.  Everyone else, including Liberty was waiting for me in the lobby.  All we had to do was to agree on a restaurant and given only Christopher and Dallas were familiar with Austin, we looked to them for a recommendation.

Christopher locked the front doo
r and we exited through the warehouse to the rear parking area.  He set the alarm and made sure the employee door and the garage doors were locked.

“
Find 401 San Jacinto on the van’s GPS…Earl’s Steakhouse…great food.  Let me call them first.”  Christopher took out his cellphone, located a name on his contacts list and hit it.  He listened to it ring, then said, “Hey, Paul…It’s Christopher.  How are you doing?   Yeah…thanks bud, I appreciate it.  Listen I have a party of six for tonight…can you handle us?”  Christopher smiled. “The private room would be perfect.  These are the five newest owners of Scandals…Roger’s kids.  Yeah, that’s right.  See you in ten.  Thanks man.”

“I take it you’ve eaten there before,”
Reno laughed.  “I like the way you roll.”

“They have some am
azing steaks, seafood, a killer wine selection and the Crème Brulee is amazing.” Christopher took his keys out of his pocket, hit the lock release on his Mustang and then the button to open the gate.

We all got into
van, programmed the address in, which turned out to be unnecessary because we ended up following Christopher in a little Scandals caravan across town and parked in the same lot.

As soon as w
e entered the restaurant, Paul greeted us.

“Welcome to
Earl’s Steakhouse.”   He grabbed Christopher and slapped him on his back.  “Good to see you again, man.  Good timing.  We have live music tonight.”

“
That’s great,” Christopher said.  “We need the diversion.”

“
Would you guys rather sit in the main dining room?  We can scoot some tables together.  The singer’s name is Jimmy Patterson…a real up-and-comer in Austin.”

Christopher looked at
us, then said, “Okay?  Let’s do it, Paul.”

“Why don’t you wait in the bar so I can get the tables moved…
first round is on me.”  He disappeared into the kitchen and quickly emerged with wait staff to rearrange the tables.

The bar was crowded but a large party was called to be seated, so we
sat down on their stools and ordered drinks.  As promised no bill was delivered.

I sipped my Diet Coke and observed the range of characters around us.  It ran the gamut from pearls and Louboutins to feathers and sandals.

“Interesting clientele here,” Liberty whispered to me.

“There’s no way to be underdressed or overdressed in this town,” I commented.

“Hey, Christopher, did Roger ever come in to places like this and jam?” Liberty asked.

“Probably, but not after I knew him.  Roger lived music when he
had the band.  But after he quit, he never looked back.”  Christopher took a drink of his rum and Coke.  “Do you like music?”

“
I love music.  I taught myself how to play the piano and guitar, and I sing a little,” she admitted.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if some or all of you inherited Roger’s talent.  He was self-taught, too.  He couldn’t even read music
in the beginning, and yet he wrote some great songs,” Christopher told her.  “He used to tell me that the songs just started playing in his mind, and he had to write them down so they would stop driving him crazy.”

“When I was going through the boxes today, I noticed he had jotted
songs down on whatever was handy,” Liberty said.  “They were written on napkins, labels off beer bottles, matchbooks and even toilet paper.  There were a lot of them.”

“Roger always said
he never knew where his inspiration came from,” Christopher laughed.

“I’m glad we came here tonight,” she told him.  “G
oing through all that band stuff made me want to hear some live music.”

Paul walked up and smiled.  “Your table is ready
.  The waitresses will bring your drinks.  Please follow me.”

I had never gone to such an upper class restaurant and was amazed at the service
.  I helped Liberty slide off her stool and balance herself on her crutches, then we followed the others into the main dining room to a long table where we all had a good view of the stage.  I was pleased to notice that Christopher had left two empty seats for Liberty and me.  I took shameless advantage of Liberty’s slower pace to grab the chair next to him, then helped her ease into her chair.  The waitress had followed us, carrying our drinks on a tray.  Somehow she managed to put them in front of the correct person before taking Liberty’s crutches.

“I’ll put these out of the way,” she said.  “Just let me know when you need them.”

I was impressed.  That was probably why I had hated being a waitress.  I had enough trouble remembering who had ordered what, much less think about things like crutches.

“Your menus,” Paul said as he handed out the menus first to the girls then the guys.

“Where to start, huh?”  Liberty blinked as she looked through the thick menu.  “I bet they don’t eat family style here, do they?”  Everyone smiled.

The meal took the be
tter part of an hour.  We were just finishing our desserts when the singer walked onstage, sat on the stool and adjusted the microphone.  He looked around the room and smiled as he played a few chords.

“Good evening ladies and gentlemen
.  My name is Jimmy Patterson, and I’ll be here until eleven tonight.  If you have any requests, please drop ‘em in my jar over there…and I wouldn’t be insulted if you clipped it to a dollar bill.”  He nodded toward a mason jar on the edge of the stage.  A few more chords as he adjusted his stool, the microphone and the volume.  “I don’t do Bieber, Kanye or Brittany.  But I’ve done Bonnie Raitt and a little Taylor Swift…their songs that is.”

With that he
moved into a credible rendition of Blake Shelton’s
Sure Be Cool If You Did.
  That transitioned into a Zac Brown Band song and then one popularized by Luke Bryan.  He did an amazing job and the entire restaurant and bar was completely engaged.  The songs continued for another forty-five minutes, mostly country, but also some top forty.

Finally,
Jimmy pulled his guitar strap over his head, held his guitar down at his side and waited for the applause to die out.  “Thank you very much.  I’m going to take a short break but before I do I encourage you to hang around…have another drink…meet you neighbors.  When I come back I’m going to try to get my longtime friend, Terry Roth up here on the stage with me.”  The crowd applauded and yelled.  “Ah, you remember Terry?  His old band Scandals started right here in Austin.”

The crowd roared their approval.

Jimmy smiled.  “He’ll like that…his hearing ain’t too good, mainly because he’s as old as dirt…but maybe he’ll jam with me on the next set…so stick around.”  Jimmy propped his guitar up on the stand, left the stage and headed to the bar and his destiny with a cold Budweiser, I assumed.

“
Who did he say was part of Roger’s band?” I asked, shocked.  I don’t know what I thought, but I guess I assumed the rest of the band were all dead or something.

Liberty
leaned over.  “Terry Roth.  I saw his name in some of the band’s memorabilia today.  Do you know him Christopher?”

“
No, but I knew he was part of the band. Roger never talked about him though.”

“Another round
?” the server asked.

“One more?  Christopher facilitated the answer.  Everyone nodded.

“I want to see one of the guys who played with Roger,” Reno said.

“
That’s pretty cool,” Dallas agreed.

“One more set won’
t hurt, I guess,” Christopher said.  “Don’t forget, you guys promised to help me move my stuff into storage tomorrow.”

We all groaned, but it was all for show.  It would actually be a relief to be doing something else besides chasing down killers and dodging bullets.

“I just feel bad that we didn’t get more accomplished,” Reno grumbled.  Patience was clearly not one of his virtues.

“We made some progress today,”
Christopher declared.  “Shit, sometimes your best days in this business are the days you learn what door leads nowhere and what roads not to go down.”  He held his nearly empty glass up in a salute.  “To us.”

“Wh
o’s driving you home tonight?” I asked.

“You are
.”  Christopher reached into his pants pocket, pulled out his car keys and handed them to me. “Thanks…that’s one ticket I can’t get out of.”

I tried not to get too excited about the fact that he was trusting me with his beloved Mustang.  Of course, I was the only one with a driver’s license who hadn’t had any alcohol tonight.  But I preferred to think he had chosen me for a reason other than that.

“Okay folks…I’m back!”  Jimmy said as he slid back on his stool and pulled the microphone closer.  “I hope my break was as good for you as it was for me…thank you Lisa.  You guys in the bar take care of her…she’ll take good care of you.”  He winked at the beautiful young woman behind the bar. “Great news…he agreed to sing a couple songs with me, and what an honor it is to share the stage with this guy.  Fresh from the Grammys…Terry Roth.”  Jimmy started the applause and we all clapped as a man who appeared to be in his fifties made his way to the stage with his guitar around his neck.

“Hello folks,”
Terry said as he adjusted his microphone and neck strap.  "What an honor to be here in my home town with Jimmy.”