Read Online Charley by Shelby C. Jacobs - Free Book Online Page B

say, you seem to have the attitude of a bar owner but I could never tell it by looking at you.”
    Coach’s face lit up with his smile, and I could see instantly why I was first attracted to him. I smiled back and prepared to hear some of that Midwestern charm.
    He never skipped a beat.
    “You’re beautiful and sexy. I love your long hair. It looks better dry and brushed than it did soaking wet. And the tan … do you lay out in the sun often?”
    If you only knew, Coach. I might let you see there are no tan lines, if you are a good boy!
    “I try to get to the tanning salon occasionally before summer comes. Then I lay out a bit.”
    I lay out nude. I would like for you to join me.
    “I love the chocolate pearls, they accent your skin.”
    Yeah, and give you an excuse to look at my 34Ds.
    I loved the attention. I hadn’t been flirted with like this in a long time. He smiled and continued talking. I heard the words, but I wasn’t listening. I was just drinking in his smile and his looks, and thinking about my sexy dreams with him. I couldn’t get the image of him in those soaking wet white shorts and what they revealed out of my mind.
    Finally he unexpectedly asked a question that broke me from my trance. “Charley, how did you get into this business?”
    Fortunately, Wilma arrived at the table with our drinks and appetizer. I was anxious to talk with Coach, but I wanted Wilma to meet him. “Wilma, this is Phillip McCoy. He’s here in town with the Coach’s Convention. Randle and I met him several years ago when he played for the Grizzles. Coach, meet Wilma, our assistant manager. She was with Jimmy’s when it first opened.”
    Coach stood up. “Glad to meet you Wilma.”
    I watched carefully. I didn’t get a good gauge on Wilma, but she was polite.
     “Good to meet you, Coach McCoy.”
    Wilma paused a minute before turning to me. “Do you want to order now or wait?”
    “Coach, how about you?”
    “I think I’m ready. I’ll have the swordfish. We don’t get good seafood in my part of Ohio. And just water to drink please.”
    I ordered my normal steak salad with dressing on the side.
    When Wilma had gone, my attention shifted back. “Now what did you ask me?  Oh yeah, you asked how I got into this business? I’ll try to make it short. The original owner was Jimmy Brewster. I married his son, Randle. You met him. He was good man, who stupidly got himself involved with a local crime boss. It cost him his life. He was killed shortly after the gang wars broke out in the late 1990’s. A short time later, the crime boss himself was killed in the Bar, in this very booth as a matter of fact.
    “So Randle was killed? I am so sorry, Charley, I didn’t know. It must be painful for you to talk about it. Did they ever catch the killers?”
    “Yes, I think about him often. No, they were never able to make an arrest. We all know who did it. When the crime boss was killed, Jimmy was the only one who got a good look at the killer. Jimmy was so furious about Randle’s murder he agreed to testify about the killer, as well as everything else he knew. He was placed in the Fed’s witness protection program. Jimmy’s wife had died, and next his son was taken from him, so he had no family left. He asked me to take care of the place until he got back, but he never made it back! He was killed less than three months after going under the Fed’s protection. The killers have never been publically identified, so the case remains officially unsolved. Jimmy left me the Bar in his will, and I’ve run it ever since.”
    “That must have been a difficult time for you. So that’s the infamous past the hotel doorman up the street was telling me about.”
    “That’s it in a nut shell.”
     
    Coach had been on the edge of his seat as I told the story. He leaned back in the booth and exhaled.
    “Whew, there is a lot more to you than just a pretty face. You’ve been through a lot. That explains the pictures at the bar I saw up