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smiled, told her it wasn’t bad, and forced it down. We finished dinner a little after nine o’clock and headed out of the restaurant. She grabbed my hand as we walked and leaned against me. “You still want to watch a movie?” I asked.
    “Yeah, sure. Let’s just watch something at your house though. I mean, if that’s OK?”
    “That’s perfect.” I walked Callie to her car then found my shiny new Corvette sitting at the back of the lot away from the other cars. She called me on the ride back to my house and said she was making a stop at the gas station. It gave me enough of a window to give my place a quick once over. Callie hadn’t stayed over in a few days and it was turning back into a bachelor pad.
    I wrestled with Butch at the door and made for the kitchen. The empty beer cans on the table found the trash and the dishes in the sink made their way into the dishwasher. Callie walked in as a few stray articles of clothing met the bottom of the hamper.
    She held a plastic bag with a few items inside.
    “What did you get?” I asked.
    “Twizzlers and gas station wine. Nothing but the good stuff.”
    I laughed. “I hear that gas station wine comes highly recommended.”
    I uncorked the wine and filled two glasses from the cabinet. Callie hugged Butch and talked to him. We sat on the couch and went through the list of on-demand movies looking for something we’d both enjoy. We found the bedroom before finding a movie.

Chapter 4
    The seedy little bar was fifteen minutes from downtown Tampa. Ray parked the Bentley and stepped out. The small parking lot had a few old pickup trucks and an older Pontiac that didn’t look fit for the road. A trailer park sat just on the other side of the railroad tracks behind a small tree line strewn with garbage. He walked to the front doors noticing the stragglers lurking along the back of the bar in the distance. They were homeless, intoxicated or both. He pulled the front door open and entered. It smelled of smoke and stale beer. The jukebox played a country tune. The place was dark. A handful of neon beer signs lined the walls. The walls themselves were a dingy yellow, stained from smoke. The bar was shaped in an L. It was mirrored on the bottom with a brass foot rail. The top was a thick lacquered wood filled with burns and dents. Ray took the first open seat at the bar. Two stools away on the right was a woman in her fifties. She looked to be a prostitute. To his left was a man passed out at the bar. The bartender walked up. “Get you something?”
    “Yeah, let me get a Jack on the rocks.”
    The bar tender splashed the whiskey over a few cubes of ice and sat it in front of Ray. “Three fifty, Buddy.”
    Ray pulled his wallet from the inside pocket of his suit jacket and opened it. Inside sat over a thousand in hundreds and a few hundred in fifties. He slid out a fifty and laid it on the bar.
    The bar tender gave him a sideways glance. “That the smallest you got?”
    Ray took a drink from his glass. “Yeah, is that a problem?”
    “Nah.” He took the bill to the register and brought Ray back his change. “You aren’t from around here, huh?”
    “No.”
    The bartender nodded and went to the phone at the end of the bar. The woman to Ray’s right scooted a seat closer. “You must be from the city. I like men from the city.” She rested her hand on his shoulder. “Ooh, you’re a big boy.”
    He looked at her hand. It was wrinkled and dirty. She smiled at him exposing a black tooth near the back.
    “Get your hand off of me.” Ray looked back down at his drink and pulled it to his mouth for a sip.
    “Oh, you’re like that?”
    Ray sat his drink back down in front of him and swatted her hand off of his shoulder. “I said get your hand off of me.”
    The woman mumbled something that Ray couldn’t make out and went back to her original spot at the bar. He pulled the sleeve of his suit jacket back and got the time from his watch: 9:52 p.m. His contact should have