Me, The Mentor: Chapter 12

Dinner that night was at a local Mexican restau­rant.  There were plen­ty of those to choose from, as one might expect from a south­ern Texas town.  The food was accept­able, but since I’ve nev­er been much of a fan of Mexican food, I found it unim­pres­sive but filling.

Fortunately, the place had a sep­a­rate bar, and we took seats there after din­ner to enjoy a drink before return­ing to the hotel.  She ordered a Bloody Mary and, since the bar didn’t seem to have much of a selec­tion of wine, I chose a Whiskey Sour, no ice. No Martini, shak­en, not stirred, for me.  I’ve always con­sid­ered Martinis to be drinks for wimps.

We avoid­ed talk about the mis­sion while there.  Not wise to dis­cuss such things in a crowd­ed room with lots of ears about, even though the own­ers might be like­ly to for­get any­thing over­heard dur­ing drunk­en rev­el­ry.  Besides, there was just the slight­est pos­si­bil­i­ty that some­one con­nect­ed to Shaddoe might be one of the drinkers near­by. We would have suf­fi­cient time the next day to fine-tune our plans.

On the dri­ve back to the hotel, Willa was unusu­al­ly qui­et.  I don’t know if she was think­ing about the mis­sion or some­thing else, but I chose not to inter­rupt her reverie.

We bid each oth­er good­night as we sep­a­rat­ed in the hall­way after I had tak­en her key and opened her door for her.  She paused ever so briefly just inside the door, with a some­what pen­sive look as she closed it behind her.

I knew I was near­ly old enough to be her father, but...

The black­out drapes in my room kept the morn­ing sun­light from fil­ter­ing in, and I was peace­ful­ly asleep when the now-rec­og­niz­able knock of Willa at the door woke me.  I piv­ot­ed my legs over the side of the bed and forced myself ver­ti­cal, grab­bing the robe off the chair as I grog­gi­ly walked to the door in the half-gloom of the room.

“What time is it?” I inquired, rub­bing sleep from my eyes as I opened the door.

“Almost nine o’clock, sleepy­head.  I’ve been up for hours.  Already did a three-mile jog around the neigh­bor­hood.  When you gonna do yours?”

“Don’t be cute, girl.  I quit jog­ging years ago.  Found out all it did was jig­gle your insides and wear out your knees.  C’mon in.”

She saun­tered into the room and assumed the chair she had occu­pied the day before, throw­ing her feet into the remain­ing one.

“Well, get your­self togeth­er, old man.  I’m con­tent to wait here, but don’t take all morning.”

The “old man” label didn’t sit well, but I head­ed to the bath­room for a morn­ing show­er, shave, (and oth­er morn­ing rit­u­als).  “Open the drapes, will you?  And feel free to make the bed.”

“Not bloody like­ly,” I heard as she rose to do the for­mer.  “That’s what L.T.’s pay­ing for.”

As I closed the bath­room door, I heard the radio come on and coun­try music fill the room.  I’ve done enough trav­el­ing to know that music avail­abil­i­ty is often cus­tomized to the area, a lot of gospel in the south, con­tem­po­rary in the mid-Atlantic and north­east, and occa­sion­al­ly some good clas­si­cal in the evenings, espe­cial­ly in col­lege towns with FM sta­tions.  I didn’t real­ly expect much besides country/western here in Texas.  Fortunately, the sound of the show­er drowned out most of it, but I got an ear­ful while shav­ing and brush­ing my teeth.  Too bad they didn’t offer Sirius XM here; we could have found just about anything.

Emerging from the bath­room in a tan shirt and brown trousers, I pulled a pair of socks from the dress­er draw­er and sat on the edge of the bed to put them on with my loafers.

“You seem all full of spit and vine­gar this morn­ing,” I offered.  “You were pret­ty morose last night on the ride back.”

“Just think­ing about our mis­sion,” she replied, unconvincingly.

I let it go.  “Well, let’s go get some break­fast.  Any choices?”

“Why don’t we just go to the buf­fet here?  We can get our fill of almost any­thing we want and the coffee’s plentiful.”

“Sounds good to me.”

Breakfast was quite pleas­ant.  There were not many guests at the hotel at this time of the week, so there was no crowd to con­tend with when we accu­mu­lat­ed our break­fasts, scram­bled eggs and pan­cakes for her, and an omelet with sausage links for myself.  As she had not­ed, there was plen­ty of cof­fee avail­able and we took pro­fuse use of it, enjoy­ing sev­er­al cups apiece dur­ing and after the meal.

We retired to the hotel lob­by, a last cup of cof­fee in hand, and set­tled into a cou­ple of chairs to check out the local morn­ing paper.   There was the usu­al nation­al news, which was also being broad­cast silent­ly on the wall-mount­ed TV near­by, and the local news was not very inter­est­ing since we were not famil­iar with much of what was going on in Del Rio.

While we were in the lob­by I noticed some­one enter the build­ing dressed as a deliv­ery man.  Carrying a pack­age, he approached the desk, and I heard him inquire about the room num­ber for me.  Tossing my paper aside and ris­ing from the chair, I hur­ried over to the desk while the guy with the pack­age was still there. 

“Hi,” I said.  “I couldn’t help over­hear­ing.  I’m Michael Tate.  Thought I’d save you a trip to the room.”

“Yes, sir,” he respond­ed, hand­ing the pack­age over to me.  It was unex­pect­ed­ly heavy, and I almost lost con­trol of it before regain­ing bal­ance.  He extend­ed a pad toward me.  “Would you sign this, please?” he asked.

L.T.’s peo­ple had thought of every­thing to make the deliv­ery look legit­i­mate, the uni­form the guy was wear­ing, the beau­ti­ful­ly let­tered deliv­ery van dis­play­ing WHITESIDE DELIVERY, and an 800 num­ber on its sides. Even the pad on which I – the recip­i­ent – would have to sign. 

“Well, now that we’ve got the pam­phlets we need, let’s go up to the room and go over the plans for the sem­i­nar,” I said to Willa, loud enough for the desk clerk to hear as I heft­ed the pack­age, we head­ed for the ele­va­tor and the deliv­ery guy left for his van.