The Stalked Girl

by Evan Ronan

  I park it on a metal bench in the stands while Lucy gets ready. She yanks the swim cap on, jumps in, adjusts her goggles, and off she goes.

  Next time I’ll bring a paperback. Mom always had two books with her, wherever she went. Plus an upstairs book and a downstairs book in the house. How she kept track of all the different plots and characters, I’ll never know.

  Then I realize I do much of the same thing, only it’s with businesses, not books.

  Lucy falls into a comfortable rhythm and swims freestyle for twenty minutes straight before giving herself a break and switching to breaststroke. Me, I’m lucky if I can get all the way across the pool without it feeling like a wind sprint.

  I lapse into an almost mesmeric state watching Lucy slice through the water. Back and forth. Back and forth. She glides with an animal grace.

  While I’m waiting, I try Ashlynn at Lazarus Realty again. As I pull up her number in my call history and hit the DIAL icon, I wonder exactly what I want out of this deal, if anything. They’re prepared to make an offer but the unreasonable part of doesn’t want to sell. It’s the pool hall. It’s where I grew up. It’s where I got to be around men when I was just a kid. I watched and learned and sometimes I think I learned more useful things in that pool hall than I did in high school.

  “Hi, Greg!” Ashlynn answers. “I was just going to call you.”

  The infamous just going to call you line. “Hi. So, listen, I only have a few minutes and was hoping to get down to business.”

  “That’s no problem. I have a meeting in five minutes. Greg, we really like your property. We will have to make some improvements and repairs to the building and the ground itself …”

  Yada, yada, yada, all the usual disclaimers preceding a lowball offer on a fine piece of real estate.

  “We are prepared to make a firm offer of four-oh-seven.”

  Four hundred grand.

  It’s a nooooooo brainer.

  I own the place free and clear. The pool hall earns a little, but not much. It’s really the property and the land that have any significant value. And I’m sure I can talk them up a little, probably get them to four-twenty-five, maybe four-fifty. Who knows? It’s a good spot in a decent strip mall on a highway with lots of traffic.

  Pop was smart when he bought it, many moons ago.

  Ah, Pop.

  How could I ever sell your hall?

  I know that’s exactly what he’d want me to do. If he was still the owner, he’d take the money and run in a heartbeat. Pop loved the game but he was a business first and pocket billiards enthusiast second. He’d grab the nearly half a million and cry all the way to the bank. He’d spend a third, invest a third, and save a third. That’s what he’d do.

  That’s what I should do.

  “Mr. Owen? Are you there?” Ashlynn asks.

  “I’m here,” I say. “I’ll have to give it some thought. I think the property is worth significantly more than that.”

  And she gives me many more of the standard reasons why my property isn’t worth what I think it is. I half-listen, just waiting for her to take a breath.

  “It’s a very fair offer,” she concludes. “And we’re prepared to move on it. You can have cash, in hand, by the end of the month.”

  Out of habit, I almost counter. Almost. But I don’t.

  Sentiment, that stone cold killer of profit, holds me back.

  “Out of curiosity, what do you plan on doing with the property?”

  “Oh.” She clams up. “We’re just buying on behalf of our client. We’re not privy to their plans.”

  “I see,” I say. “Who is your client?”

  “I’m sorry, Greg, I’m not allowed to disclose that. I can say it’s a group of property investors, and they have their eye on many different locations. I get the sense they want to move, and they want to move quickly, so their money might be spent already somewhere else if you wait too long to give us an answer.”

  There’s more to the story.

  “I understand. I’ll get back to you as quickly as I can.”

  After hanging up, I lean back on the uncomfortable metal bench till my back digs into the uncomfortable metal bench behind me. I think about Ashlynn’s offer, think about it some more, then decide to get smart. A group of property investors might be a couple small fries wanting to sound bigger than they are, but it also might be some serious players.

  Sometimes these guys come in and buy the whole strip.

  Light bulb moment.

  I call Lee, the eponymous owner of the Chinese restaurant four doors down from the hall.

  “Hey, Greg,” he says. Lee is second-generation. We have a lot in common, actually. His parents opened the restaurant two decades ago, now he runs the place.

  I go for the Mandarin. “Neehow, Lee.”

  He laughs at my poor pronunciation. “You want the usual?”

  “No thanks. I was calling about something else. Were you approached by anyone about your property?”

  There’s a racket in the background on Lee’s end. A whole lot of Chinese being tossed around.

  “What did you say?” Lee asks.

  I wonder if he’s stalling for time. I can never tell with Lee. The guy is a stone cold killer in the card room. We’ve gone out to the casinos before. Mostly we don’t challenge each other, two sharks circling the waters and leaving enough for the other guy. But one time it came down to me and him at a final table in a small tournament, and Lee played my ass.

  “Has someone called you about your property?” I ask.

  “Nobody’s called,” he says, which leaves several possibilities. They could have stopped by to talk to him, or emailed. I wouldn’t put it past Lee to answer me truthfully and still play it close to the vest. “Who contacted you?”

  “It’s probably nothing,” I say, not answering the question. “I get these calls all the time.”

  “Yeah, me too,” he says.

  Oh man are we both full of crap.

  Lee changes the subject. “Are you playing next week?”

  He’s referring to the small tournament out in Valley Forge. It’s only a five hundred dollar buy-in, so relatively low stakes. But I’ve been out of the poker habit for almost a year and know I’d be rusty. I like to play cards but I hate to gamble. Besides, this case is just going to get bigger and bigger.

  “Probably not. The pot is yours.”

  He laughs. “If I’m lucky.”

  Luck’s got nothing to do with it. Lee is very good at getting people to underestimate him.

  “Alright, pal, I’ll talk to you.”

  “See you, Greg.”

  Lucy is still doing her laps, back to freestyle again. She shows no signs of slowing down, even though she’s been at it for about thirty-five minutes now. I wonder how long it takes to complete the swimming portion of a triathlon. Look it up quickly on my phone:

  Between thirty and forty minutes.

  Holy hell.

  She’s literally just completed the swim portion of a triathlon, while I sat here getting older, fatter, and less mobile.

  Pretty sobering.

  Lucy’s pace slows a bit. I can’t even jokingly call her a slacker, though. She keeps going for another five minutes then drifts the last half-length of the pool back to where she started. Off go the goggles, off goes the cap, on goes the towel. Quickly she dries her feet and extracts running shoes from her bag, which just seem to slip on without any effort. Lucy motions at me.

  Time to go.

  “You swim better than I breathe,” I say.

  She kind of giggles.

  “What’s next?” I ask.

  “The bike now.”

  “Alright.”

  Back outside, she’s all business. We don’t exchange another word as she tosses her gym bag and towel on the passenger seat, gets the bike out of my car and throws a leg over it. Then she looks at me.

  “Is this alright?” she asks.

  “Is what?”

  “I know you weren�
�t planning on … watching me today?”

  She can’t bring herself to say protect. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. We’ll work out a schedule moving forward.”

  Her voice cracks a little. “Thank you, Mr. Owen.”

  “It’s Greg.”

  She balks. “Okay, Greg.”

  “And you’re welcome. Now how far are you going?” I ask.

  “About twenty-five miles.”

  “Let’s get after it then.”

  She actually cracks a smile.

  “I’ll follow in the car.”

  I turn to get in the driver’s seat, but Lucy calls out.

  “I don’t want them to stop me.” Determination fills her eyes. “I can’t let them stop me. I’ve worked so hard for this. I know I’m still young, but looking back at my life, I realize everything I’ve ever done has led me up to this point. Do you know what I mean?”

  “It has. And that means Brody and Adam can’t stop you,” I say. “Unless you let them. Are you going to let them?”

  She shakes her head. “No.”

  “Eyes on the prize,” I say. “When’s the qualifier?”

  “Six weeks.” She’s on the bike, raring to go now. “I have to be ready.”

  “Then you will be.”

  She gives me the nod, and I get in the car. Funny, but now I’m pumped up too and in my head a rock ballad is blasting and I’m visualizing one of those cheesy but awesome montages from a sports movie released in the 1980s. The one with the athlete training hard, overcoming obstacles, and besting their personal records in the days leading up to the big event. Six weeks.

  She’ll be ready.

  Off we go.

  Lucy leads us out of the parking lot and I activate my hazard lights. Like all cyclists everywhere, Lucy selects a road with no shoulder of course, quickly becoming the bane of every passing car. I’ll have to ask her why cyclists do this. It’s one of life’s great mysteries.

  She pours on the speed, getting up to twenty miles per hour. Unlike the pool, where Lucy slid effortlessly through the water, I can tell she’s pushing herself on the bike. Whether that’s because she’s not as strong with the wheels, or because she’s fatigued from the swim, I have no idea. But she’s working her tail off.

  My phone buzzes. A number I don’t recognize. I activate the speaker phone.

  “Greg Owen.”

  “Greg, my man!”

  It takes me a moment. “Is this Miles?”

  “Yeah, brotha. How you feeling?”

  “Good.” I frown. Miles, I thought, was still inside. So I ask very delicately, “Where are you calling me from?”

  “From home, man. I got out last week!”

  “Congrats,” I say. We’ve got too many people in prison if you ask me, and Miles was one who didn’t need to be there. He was locked up for running moonshine. Frigging moonshine. “Early parole?”

  “Good behavior, man. I ain’t never been accused of that before.”

  We both have a good laugh at this. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m calling to make you a business proposition.”

  “Another one?” I ask, straining to recall what the last idea was. When I was visiting a client at the joint last year, I randomly bumped into Miles and he propped me about … “How’s the blog going?”

  “The blog is great, and it’s just the top of the funnel, man. I give them a ton of free content, then they sign up for the course about getting ready for the joint. Or if they’re already inside, then they can get the other course. Now it’s all passive income, brotha.”

  Passive income. The two sweetest words in the English language.

  For the record, I never thought Miles would make money through a blog because, well, it’s a blog. And only one percent of the one percent of the one percent make any money blogging these days, even with all the affiliate links and other crap out there. But good for him.

  Ahead of me, Lucy veers right at the fork in the road. I’ve been creeping up on her, so I slow down a notch to give her some breathing room. Traffic is starting to pick up some more. I realize it’s late afternoon and we’re getting close to rush hour.

  “What’s the new idea, Miles?” I ask.

  “Check it out, yo.” I can hear him closing a door. “A lot of chicks are into guys who were inside, man. They like the bad boys, you know what I’m saying?”

  Where is he going with this? “Yeah.”

  “But they don’t want their mother, or their sister, or even their friends to know. They don’t want to take the shit for it, right? At the same time, brothas just getting out have a hard enough time with everything else, never mind getting laid. So we hook them up. Check it out, we put together a discreet hookup service for women looking for cons and cons looking for women.”

  A dating site? Seriously?

  He keeps going. “It’s like Ashley Madison, only more niche. This way, women don’t need to be embarrassed about finding these guys, and the guys don’t have to hide their records. We provide them a private forum to connect so they can hook up. Win-win-win.”

  “Ashley Madison for women who like cons?” I say.

  “Exactly! That’s our unique value prop, brotha!”

  It’s just so crazy, it might actually work.

  “I’ve got a lot of irons in the fire right now, Miles.”

  “Aw, come on, man. Don’t give me that bullshit.”

  “I honestly think it’s a great idea,” I say. “But I don’t know a thing about running a website like that. Ashley Madison got hacked to all bloody hell a few years ago, and they had pretty sophisticated people running their cyber-security.”

  “That’s why we hire the right people, get us a couple dots from off the boat who are young and eager to make a fortune.”

  “Thanks, but no thanks,” I say.

  “Greg, brotha, this is your chance to get in on the ground floor of something that could be huge.”

  “You’re probably right. Next time we talk, you can say I told you so. Alright, gotta run.”

  “Yeah, I heard. You playing the knight in shining armor again.”

  Everybody knows everybody. And everything.

  “I’m more like a squire, and my armor is pretty damned rusty. But I try my best. I’ll talk to you soon, brother. Glad you’re out.”

  “Me too. Alright, Greg.”

  Ah, Miles.

  I don’t remember ever giving him my phone number and wonder how he got it. But then again, it wouldn’t be too hard. All he’d have to do is swing by the pool hall and ask Bernie for it. Bernie wouldn’t think twice about giving my number out to somebody, nor would he remember to tell me he had.

  Good help is hard to find.

  The pitch of the road changes and we’re going uphill. Lucy is struggling to maintain her speed at this angle, dipping below the twenty mile per hour mark. I slow even more. Some asshole behind lays on the horn. I wave at him.

  With just one finger.

  Fifteen

  Lucy surprises me by finishing her route at the pool hall. We ride around back, I park, and she reverses the process from earlier. Back in goes the bike, out comes the gym bag. She’s soaked through with sweat and is breathing heavily.

  “I plotted this route last night,” she explains. “The neighborhood behind the pool hall has a ton of hills.”

  I nod. “How are you feeling?”

  “The bike wore me out.”

  “It wore me out just watching you.”

  She kind of laughs again.

  “How far are you running?” I ask.

  “Not far today. Just three miles.”

  “Slacker.”

  This time she laughs fully. “Do you have any bottled water?”

  “Sure do.” I motion. “Come on inside.”

  We enter through the back door of the pool hall. I lead her past my office, which looks like a disaster zone, and out onto the floor.

  Roy and Wally, playing in the far corner, stop their game to watch us. At th
e register, Bernie looks up from his laptop, taking a break from the Great American Novel to literally drool over the girl who just walked in with me. Five other tables are running, which means it’s unusually busy. At this time of day, the hall is normally quiet.

  “Hey, guys,” I call out. “This is Lucy Hale, soon to be an Olympic athlete.”

  Roy and Wally put down their cues and meet us at the register. Bernie’s jaw is still slack, his mouth wide open. He is in awe of this woman.

  “Hi,” Lucy says, a touch shy.

  “This is Roy and this is Wally.” I gesture at the two. “They fight like they’re married. But don’t let that fool you. They actually love each other.”

  They smile and shake Lucy’s hand.

  Roy says, “Greg has a lot of faults.”

  “Gee, thanks, Roy.”

  Roy continues, “But being oblivious isn’t one of them. You’re in good hands here.”

  Wally nods. “He doesn’t eat well, or dress well, and his businesses leave a lot to be desired, but Greg is a good guy.”

  “Stop selling me, guys,” I say, laughing.

  Roy and Wally keep up with the jabber, so much so that Lucy is in stitches. Bernie’s mouth is still open, like a Venus fly trap.

  “And this is Bernie,” I say. “He’s hard at work on a novel.”

  Lucy smiles and offers her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  Her physique and pretty smile has robbed Bernie of the power of speech. Miracles do happen. Completely flustered, he shakes her hand.

  Before his gaping mouth and wide eyes get even weirder, I say, “Hey, Bernie, could you get Lucy a bottled water?”

  “Red or white?” he asks, and we laugh at this. Bernie hasn’t even realized what he’s said.

  “I’ll go with the regular water,” Lucy says, not wishing to embarrass him.

  Bernie looks at her like she’s said something weird. Then he hops to. As he turns in the chair, he very nearly knocks the laptop off the counter. He reaches into the small fridge behind the counter.

  “Sorry, I just put them in. They’re not very cold,” he says.