The Paladin Book 1 Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Sunday

November 28th

I was right, after Alicia and I kissed, everything changed. Samantha and I hadn’t talked since her freak out on me, that went double for Gerry as well who only knew there was drama between the two of us and naturally picked her side. I hadn’t donned the Paladin outfit at all that weekend either; it was the first time in six months, but I felt an odd sense of relief. I always had a feeling in my gut that I was doing something wrong when I wasn’t out fighting crime, even if it was just taking a night off. That all changed after Alicia and I kissed. I no longer felt defined by my need for the Paladin, no longer felt responsible for my other half, because it wasn’t my other half. Instead of the shame in my gut, I felt butterflies in my stomach while Alicia and I prepared for our first date.

“I can’t believe you’re taking this girl out to meet all those nerds. Back when I was younger, a date was at a nice restaurant, you dressed up in a shirt and tie, you brought a bouquet of flowers, and afterward, you met each other’s family. Now that was class,” my dad insisted. I lifted up my bouquet of sunflowers, proving I wasn’t that far off the mark.

“I wonder why he’s not taking her home?” Blake joked, giving a nod to my dad.

“What about you, Lise? What’s your opinion on Booker taking this girl to The Cave? Because every second I think about it I feel more and more like romance is dead,” my dad posed.

“The Den you mean? I think it’s sweet, sure we might not understand it. But you and Alicia are doing something you both love, that’s all that’s important. I will say I wouldn’t be against meeting this girl. I feel like she just popped up out of nowhere, now you two are dating. You know there was a time I used to know about these types of things before they happened,” my mom pointed out. I gave her a look. “But that’s okay. Because you know what, I’m not going to be the overbearing mom. You’ll bring her over when you’re ready and I am totally okay with that,” she elaborated, patting me on the shoulder, letting me know how not-okay with it she really was.

“This is all under the assumption that she’s real,” Marian chimed in.

“How’s Kevin doing by the way?” I replied, knowing my sister had just broken up with her boyfriend. That shut her up pretty quickly.

“Alright, we’re going to be nice. Booker’s going to have a good date, and we’re all going to be supportive,” my mom made clear, looking at Marian and my dad. My dad put his hands up in surrender.

“I’m just trying to give some advice. You want to make a good first impression. Imagine her dad finds out their first date is at some sweaty, and ILLEGAL video gamer bar? I mean that place does not have the proper licensing, and certainly isn’t up to code. What would her father think?” my dad justified. Probably that it sounds like a perfect date.

“I guess it’s a good thing I’m not taking her father out isn’t it? And honestly, you’re blowing it way out of proportion,” I replied. My dad shrugged me off before I gathered all my things to head out the door.

“You got everything? Money, phone, flowers? You made sure to put on plenty of deodorant right?” my mom asked.

“I’m good Mom,” I groaned, rolling my eyes. She quickly fixed my hair and brushed down my flannel for any lint.

“Alright, have a good time honey, and don’t stay out too late, it is a school night,” she reminded with a wink. I nodded and headed out the door, leaving my mom lingering a little as she watched her son go out on his first real date.

I knocked on the penthouse suite door and within a second Alex was in the threshold giving me the hairy eyeball. He looked more hesitant and skeptical now than I had ever seen him, and that included my job interview. Something was up and naturally, being the oblivious idiot that I was, I hadn’t picked up on what that could be.

“She’ll be out in a second, she’s just fixing her makeup,” he assured as he continued analyzing me. “Hm, sunflowers, her favorite,” he noted, taking the wilting bouquet of grocery store-bought flowers from my hands to put into water.

“Something wrong?” I posed.

“Depends. You tell me. What are your intentions with my daughter?” he asked, raising an eyebrow as he filled a five thousand dollar vase with five dollar sunflowers.

“Intentions? I intend on taking her out for a date, getting her some food, and then take her back before ten thirty. My mom has a curfew for dates,” I explained.

“Mhm. And how do I know that I can trust you with my daughter?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I’ve noticed a pattern of drama following you. Between your numerous dealings with the Deckards, and that kerfuffle on Thanksgiving, I’m picking up on a lot of craziness in your life. How do I know you’re not going to get Alicia caught up in it?”

“I’m turning over a new leaf Alex, I’m putting all that ‘craziness’ behind me,” I assured.

“Mr. Romero. When we’re at the office you can call me Alex, but outside of work, while you’re dating my daughter you can call me Mr. Romero or sir,” he corrected.

“Dad! Stop busting on Booker,” Alicia insisted, making her entrance stepping down the staircase leading to her room like she owned the building (almost as if she did). She was in a cute short blue mini-dress, with matching heels, and her hair teased out in a massive mane of curly black hair. I’m pretty sure my jaw literally dropped and if it weren’t for Alex giving me a glare it probably would have stayed hanging. Guess she missed the part where I said ‘Semi-casual’ in my text. “Oh my God did you get me sunflowers? They’re my favorites,” she fawned, clacking down the stairs in her heels, granting me a big hug. “That’s so sweet, isn’t it dad?”

“Like honey,” Alex agreed with a feigned smile.

“Let’s head out Book, can’t wait for the surprise you were talking about,” she insisted.

“What surprise?” Alex replied. I gave him a half-hearted smile and Alicia dragged me off as I received a demonic gaze from Alex.

The cab pulled into the shabby Southside parking lot in the back of a strip mall, leaving Alicia and I smack dab in one of the sketchiest parts of town. I didn’t need to say anything for her to pick up on it and instinctively she grabbed a hold of my hand.

“Is this your surprise?” she asked skeptically.

“Have a little bit of faith, follow me,” I assured. I led her along the back side of the strip mall until I felt the rumbling of dubstep coming from the concrete. I then turned to the door with a giant red X painted over it and opened it up, a wave of music blasting me like a sound cannon. I slowly went down the steps, Alicia clacking behind me and when we reached the bottom the full glory of The Den was revealed. There must have been at least twenty full-sized widescreen TVs, along with another twenty smaller TVs and enough personal computers to run a Best Buy. In one corner there were the fighting game buffs, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Tekken, Guilty Gear, Smash Brothers along with a few others. In the second corner, they had the shooters, Call of Duty, Battlefield, Counter-Strike, Halo. The third corner was all about the racing games, Forza, Gran Turismo, Mario Kart. Fourth and final corner was everything that didn’t fit, MOBA games, strategy, puzzle games, and the like. Dead smack in the center was a circular bar with a full selection of drinks, as well as a pretty solid food menu.

“Holy crap!” Alicia exclaimed.

“If you’re a gamer and you live in Tar City, there is nowhere else to go!” I yelled over the music. She looked at me with a big smile all over her face. “You like it!? It’s not too much is it!? Because if it is, we can go!”

“I just didn’t know places like this existed!”

“In Tar City, there are tons of speakeasies! Perfect for underage drinking or if you want to find something more illicit if you’re into that sort of thing!”

“I love it! Smash Bros is calling my name!” she yelled back, nodding towards the fighter games.

“Oh really? I happen to be the best Ness player north of New York City! So why don’t you boot up a game while I get us some grub?” I offered. She nodded with an expression that could best be compared to a kid in a candy store and headed over to the fighter game section. I maneuvered my way through the herds of nerds and made it to the bar counter. “Eddy! Can I get the rest of that rum bottle, a couple of shot glasses, and a large pizza!?” I asked. He nodded, trading me the bottle and glasses for a wad of cash. Once again navigating through the nerds, I made my way to the fighting game corner where Alicia had already gotten started. A crowd of boys had already started to form around her as she proceeded to kick the crap out of the local color.

“Stop spamming!” her opponent yelled in frustration.

“It’s called zoning, here’s the block button, try using it,” she retorted, pointing to her opponent's trigger. The crowd gasped and then burst out in laughter at the roast. That was the final straw and the boy recklessly tried throwing out a Special B but was trapped in the animation, getting booted off the map by Alicia in an instant.

“Gentlemen and lady! Your winner is Pink-baby!” the mock commentators announced. The boy yanked out his controller and stormed off leaving the crowd to praise Alicia for winning in such dominant fashion. She cleared a spot for me and I sat down next to her, the crowd starting to split when they realized she was with me.

“You just three stocked Cheese. He won our last two tournaments, and now we all get to recall the time he got spanked by Pink-baby,” I noted.

“Not the most intimidating tag is it?”

“Well I think this is the first time he’s been beaten by someone wearing electric blue pumps, so I think it’ll stick with Cheese until his dying day. Where’d you get it? The tag that is, not the pumps, there’s always a good story behind the name.”

“My mom, actually. I used to play Kirby when I was younger and she couldn’t tell me apart, so I told her I played the one that looked like a pink baby so she could pick me out, which seemed to do the trick. Until she died that was my nickname, just between me and her that is, my dad actually knew who Kirby was.”

“Wow, they call me Mister Nice Guy cause I don’t trash talk, but yours is way better,” I scoffed. She snickered a little at the thought.

“So Mister Nice Guy, what’s with the booze? How do you even get stuff like this?”

“Oh, this little thing? Well Pink-baby this establishment is underground, has about ten different rotating venues in a year, cops can’t catch it, probably why my dad hates it. So that means all of the alcohol your father’s paycheck can buy us. As you can see, only the finest for you,” I elaborated, displaying the bottle of cheap rum. “And this is the fun part, one shot per loss, and you get to pick your opponents next character.”

“Are you trying to get me drunk on a school night?” she posed, giving me a look of mock shame.

“That entirely depends on how good you are at Smash,” I assured.

“Then you’re on,” she accepted. I poured out a shot each for us and we clinked glasses, getting a warm-up shot to prepare for the night ahead.

I stumbled out of the taxi door in the North end, doing my best to walk in a straight line to the front door of the Tech-Sync tower as I followed behind Alicia. Things hadn’t exactly gone as I had planned. Having lost to Alicia more times than I could count, I, in turn, took more shots than I could count, leaving me more than a little bit tipsy by the cab pulled up to her building. We got to the double doors and Alicia turned around giving me one last beaming smile.

“I had a really good time tonight Booker, the best I’ve had in awhile,” she made clear.

“Me too,” I agreed with a slight slurring of the words.

“Oh, I know you had a good time. Promise me you’ll gimme a text when you get home okay? Want to make sure you get back safely,” she insisted. I nodded, holding up my three middle fingers.

“I swear, scouts honor.”

“Good,” she confirmed with a smirk. She then leaned in and I met her halfway, giving her a parting kiss. “Like I’m kissing Captain Morgan,” she joked, tasting the rum on my lips. I snickered.

“Good night Alicia.”

“Good night Booker, see you in class,” she finalized, heading back into the Tech-Sync building. After grabbing the pizza from the back I waved off the cabby and began walking back to my house, realizing I needed to sober up a little before coming home. Things felt good for once, I didn’t spend my walk planning a new bust or thinking about gang activity. Instead, all that was on my mind was Alicia and the delicious pizza in my hands.

An hour later when I came sauntering through the front door my entire family had headed off to their rooms for the night. Everyone except my dad, who was sitting in his La-Z boy waiting for me. As soon as I entered the room I could feel something was up. My dad had a manilla folder resting in front of him and a scotch poured out, a telltale sign things weren’t good.

“Hey, dad… what’s going on?” I posed.

“Booker, I think it’s time you and I had a talk,” he started. I read the labeling of the file upside down, hoping to find some clue as to what was going on. Romero.

“Hold on? Did you follow me on my date?” I put together.

“I get concerned about who my children are dating, and since you wouldn’t give me a name I thought I’d do a little bit of police work,” he rationalized.

“And that’s exactly what your problem is, your first thought was to do a little police work. God forbid anything in my life that is friggin private!” I sneered.

“I want you to take a look at something,” he explained, handing me the manilla folder. I opened it up and the first image I saw was a woman’s lifeless body with two bullet wounds flush on each side of her chest. I shuttered, the woman looking familiar to me. “That’s Tatiana Esperanza, also known as Tatiana Romero. Alicia’s mother.”

“What about her dad?” I sighed, closing the file then offering it back to him.

“Keep reading, under where it says lead detective,” he insisted. I sighed once more, peeling back the pages, reading the full report. Detective William Kelly.

“Wait, you worked the case? You never told me that.”

“There’s a lot of cases I don’t tell you about, ones I can’t even tell your mother about, the ones that keep me up at night. And that damn case, that one has haunted me since the day the Chief put it on my desk.”

“What happened?”

“I got too close. You know how I said I knew Alex when we were kids? Well I did more than just know him, he was one of my best friends. His dad was a no-show so your grandfather was like a father to him. When I went off to the military we grew apart. I always kept an eye on him though, smart kid that he was I knew he was going to be big. Then ten years down the line I get this file on my desk, my childhood friend’s wife had been murdered. So naturally, I promised him I would not rest until I brought her killer to justice,” he started.

“And?”

“And then I found the murder weapon, dumped five blocks away in a back alley. Took me two weeks of sifting through dumpsters and trash cans but I found it. Then I realized that I’d seen the gun before, it was your grandfather’s old six-shooter. A gift he gave to Alex. Sure the serial number had been filed off, and the prints had been wiped, but I knew the gun anywhere, and I knew only one person could have done it,” he finished.

“No, that can’t be true dad. Alicia is his world, I don’t believe he’d do that to her mother,” I made clear.

“No? He wouldn’t? You know what Booker, you’re probably right. The jury certainly agreed with you, all twelve of them that died within three years of the case,” he replied. I was lost for words, I didn’t believe him, but I knew he wasn’t lying. It was his word versus Alex’s.

“That doesn’t make this Alicia’s fault.”

“You’re right son. But bad people like Alex tend to bring good people down with them. It happened with Tatiana, it will happen with Alicia, and I don’t wanna see it happen to you.”

“That’s not going to happen, dad, not to me and not to Alicia. She’s a good person and I won’t let her get brought down by Alex,” I made clear, handing back the report as I walked away from my dad.

“Where are you going?” he demanded.

“To bed, I’ve got school in the morning, remember?” I sighed, walking off to my room, ignoring my dad’s frustration.