relevant, which is why he opted to give Dani the benefit of the doubt.
Deciding to let the DEA team do their thing without him looking over their shoulders, Ty made his excuses and left to do a little digging on his own. He made a quick call and, thirty minutes later, steered his car into a parking spot outside Pete's Place, the local watering hole.
“Hey, Jay,” Ty said as he slid onto an empty stool.
Jay turned his head, studied Ty, then turned back and took a sip of his beer. Jay had no use for niceties, or anything else that suggested form over substance. His slipshod appearance, grungy clothes, and too-long hair, were a cover for one of the greatest strategic minds Ty had ever encountered. Jay's private security company was one of the best in the country and the only reason he was not a rich man was because he chose not to be, picking and choosing clients by whatever whim interested him on any particular day. He wasn't an easy man to get along with, but they'd been friends long enough to consider each other almost brothers.
“Late lunch,” Ty nodded to the empty plate in front of Jay.
“God, I hate primadonnas,” Jay started without pretense. “I got called to do a job down on the point. Some local girl who made it big in the movies and wants to come back and flaunt it. Big house, lots of cars, the whole nine yards.” Jay's opinion of the woman, and her choices, was clear in the tone of his voice. “Anyway, she hears about my company, demands I come out to set up her security. No ‘Hi, Mr. Alexander, could you find a time to come and look at my place? I heard you were good,’” he mimicked. “No, it was more like ‘You will show up at eleven a.m. or suffer my wrath, which is worse than god's.’ I should have known then to stay away.”
Ty chuckled. Jay was a sucker for women, always had been, always would be. He'd never been suckered by one, his natural sense of preservation tended to kick in within about the first ten minutes. But the next time a woman called with some sob story about her security, he'd rush right over. He had what some people referred to as overly-developed protection instincts. Whether they were well placed or not was a constant source of debate between the two men.
“So I get up there,” he continued. “And she starts screaming when she sees me. I mean, shrieking her fucking head off. Who would have guessed such a little thing had such a mouth on her? God, I don't know how she made her money but two-to-one says it was in some horror flick. She had a screech that could peel paint.”
Jay shook his head and took another sip. “She thought I was some stalker or freaky fan or something like that. So her personal security comes out and tries to take me down. What a sorry bunch of mother fuckers. It took me all of about two minutes to put them on the ground.” He sighed in resignation. “So there we are, four downed security, one shrieking movie star and me.”
Ty was laughing now. “So what did you do?”
“I crossed my arms and leaned against my truck until the little banshee quit. I figured she'd either figure out I wasn't a stalker or run out of breath and pass out. To be honest, I was kind of hoping for the latter,” a ghost of a smile appeared. “After about thirty seconds she must have figured out I wasn't there to rape or kill her. She stops screaming, but then starts yelling at me. ‘Who the hell are you?’ and ‘Get the hell off my property!’ and all that kind of shit.
“So I wait again until she's quiet and then I tell her who I am. For one second, the expression on her face almost made the whole ordeal worth it,” he did smile now. “But then she got pissed again and started yelling at me about her security, who were starting to move around. They weren't hurt, but she didn't know that. She started yelling about lawsuits and assault and all those things. None of which would have held up, since they attacked me first, but the little spit didn't think of that.”
“And…?” Ty prompted when Jay stopped and took another sip.
Jay shrugged. “After about thirty seconds my ears couldn't take it