LARSSEN'S LANE: Grey

Chapter 3.2 - No Turning Back

Chester arrived ten minutes earlier at a restaurant, where he was going to meet Joseph. This place looks fancy, a good place to drain a broke man's pocket like him. He made a call while heading in. "I just arrived. Where are you?"

"Tell the waiter at the doorway that you have an appointment with me. He'll give you a guide," said Joseph from across the call.

"Alright." Chester turned off his phone screen. "Damn." He mumbled.

As Joseph had instructed, Chester told the waiter at doorway about his purpose of being there. And the waiter gave him a detail direction of Joseph's table. Not so long after sauntering by following the direction that the waiter gave, Chester saw the man he was looking for.

There Joseph was—with a less formal suit than the first time he met Chester—sitting on a single chair at the terrace. In front of him, across his table, there was another single chair. He apparently hadn't ordered anything yet.

"Mr. Bradl?" Chester greeted.

"Hi. Take a sit." Joseph greeted back, mannerly stretched his hand over the seat in front of him.

"Thank you." Chester sat on the chair in front of Joseph. Rested his arms on the table.

"How are you doing?" The lawyer waved his two fingers over a waiter.

"I'm doing fine."

The waiter came with two books of menu list, handed each of them to Joseph and Chester.

"Thank you," said Joseph while opening the book. "Pick an order."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Bradl, I'm here for the document," said Chester, nitty gritty. "My friend's waiting in my car." Chester ignored the book in his hand.

"Why don't you take him here?"

"Her."

"Oh, sorry."

"Thank's for the invitation. But, I don't want to share my stuff with her."

"Do you think this is confidential?"

"So far, yes. Besides, you don't seem to have an extra seat. So ..., the document, please."

Joseph took his briefcase from his side then he picked out a brown envelope with legal paper size. And gave it to Chester. "I don't know if this is useful or not."

"Thank's anyway. And I'm sorry for cannot fulfil your invitation." Chester stood up.

After a handshake, Chester left Joseph. He walked with wide pace on his feet and a brown envelope in his hand, out of the restaurant back to his car.

Right when had been back in his car seat, Chester threw his envelope right away to the back seat. "Aight, now let's have dinner. I'm starving too."

Stacey lifted her head off the window where it laid. "You don't want to bring me in there?"

"You kidding? You know I'm broke lately. My insurance's still under claim process. I have to even let you pay for my dinner. Isn't that enough shame on me?" Chester started his engine and ran his car.

"Come on, I don't mind paying for it."

"But I don't like it. And ... I don't want to spend our time with that guy."

"Jealous?" Stacey teased.

"May I?" Waiting for any reply from Stacey, but the woman was only stared at him. So Chester just speeded up, leaving the town before the traffic got denser.

"You can sell your car and get enough money."

"Nope. It's the last thing that I'll do."

"You didn't even pay a penny for this car."

"That's what makes it special. My first winning bet."

~*~

It was just an ordinary dinner at a restaurant that showed a live music performance. There's an italic font named this restaurant on the signboard—Quiet Lady—and it says that this business was established in 1965. Silence was the only companion between the two people who had a mutual relationship. Up beating performing music couldn't even disrupt.

Chester had wiped out all his meal, his coffee cocktail was left half a highball glass. From his eye corner he could notice that the female singer took a sneak peek at him a couple times. No bother at all, he enjoyed it instead. At last, one single naughty smile was cast on when they looked at each other.

Stacey was on her last feed. She shook her head and smiled mockingly, watching some sort of silly, hilarious attitude of her baby boy never failed to amuse her.

The silence was then eventually broken by Chester's phone ring. "Netta." He asked permission. "Hey." Paused a couple seconds. "No, just some college stuff, social experiment. You can have it with your girls. I'm broke these days, you know it." Pause. "No. I've had enough of it. Hold on, are you with Dongwoo? I need to talk to him."

There was quite a long pause that gave Stacey enough time to try to figure out what her beneficial student was talking about.

"Hey, Dongwoo. How's it going?" One more long pause. "No, no, no, I'd rather set down the top speed, but not the acceleration, can you upgrade it?" Another long pause. "Yeah, that's it. Can you take care of it in ... three hours?" Paused again. "Aight don't worry, I'll be on time, just do your part."

Caller hung up.

"What's your business with that man in the restaurant?" Stacey started a topic.

"I wonder what the investigators concluded, and Mr. Bradl wanted to meet me. Welp, don't you think it's suspicious that he's so into this case and, like, he's gone paying attention to this case too far? I mean, He's a lawyer who is not standing for me but the Andrews, and he's not an investigator. But why he'd like to keep up? I could've just get the document from the internal investigator."

"Chess, be careful."

"That's how I'm doing."

"No, you're not. Listen, when you're running on a highway, there's no turning back. Once you lose direction, you're just going to get lost farther. Why don't you just leave your past and start a new life?" Stacey sipped her cocktail. "How old are you? Twenty? You must've known the words, 'Curiosity killed the cat', don't you? So, think again, you can have a better life. Toss your past."

"Thank's for the advice. But, when I'm on a highway, on high speed, I'll get to my destination. No matter what obstacles I've got to take. Even if I've got to take a longer track, get lost out of track, I'll be back on my track and reach my destination."

"And about your determination, fighting against drugs, it's a good goal. We're eye to eye. But to make drug business all the way out of this country is like you're digging a well in a shore. You're lucky if you're not soaked or even buried." Stacey gazed at Chester sipping his coffee. "How much caffeine in a day?"

"Uncountable." The coffee addict quaffed his cocktail for the last time and looked at his girl when she massaged her temple while her eyes scrunched "C'mon. I've got no spare time." Then he stood up.

"Go ahead. I'll take taxi."

"No. I'll drive you home, you're not looking good. We don't want bad things to happen to you." With a slight smile, Chester stretched his hand to Stacey.

Stacey took the hand. "Not to you either."

It took only about quarter an hour to get to Stacey's apartment, out of Irvine. Stacey was sitting still, not wanting to get out of Chester's car too soon.

"Be careful."

"Sure." Chester was about to get out of his car to open Stacey's side's door, when his elder date grabbed his hand.

"You better make a consideration before determination. You've lost almost everything. Don't make a mistake, that will cause you eventually lose everything. Really lose everything." Stacey put a tension on her last sentence.

Chester blew a heavy breath. Didn't argue, nor agree. He turned his head to Stacey. Being with a mature woman was always comfortable. After making sure his girl had been in her apartment by seeing her unit's light on, Chester ran his car, in high speeded as he used to do.

~*~