Page 11 of Daddy Defender
You shouldn’t have taken no for an answer.
“Don’t tell me, boy trouble,” the bartender says as he walks past to deal with another customer.
“Pfft. Something like that,” I reply. “More trouble than it’s worth.”
But despite my show of bravado to the bartender, I know that I’m only delaying the inevitable here. There’s no way that I’m not going to follow Bodie and keep an eye out for him.
For tonight at least…
If the boy decides to split and haul his butt out of town tomorrow, that’s on him. But in the here and now, it’s my duty to make sure that he’s safe.
I might get paid a handsome sum to be a Night Ops man, but it’s a job of honor too. The money we receive in exchange for risking our lives is all well and good, but it’s not the main motivator—our desire to protect, serve, and put ourselves in the most dangerous situations imaginable is what drives us on, keeps us fighting when almost any other man would quit.
“Here, have this on me,” I say, turning to my left and sliding my untouched new beer over toward the old timer who looks like he could do with some good luck.
I leave some money on the bar and turn and walk outside. It’s time to track the boy down and keep an eye on him. This might be Sunny Ferns, but that doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous from time to time. I’ve seen some things go down here that wouldn’t look out of place in an old Western movie, real outlaw shit. And if Bodie is connected to any of that, then I’m betting that this might be an uncomfortable night for him.
But the only question is where the hell is he planning on staying?
As I step inside my dusty old truck, my Guard brain begins to kick into gear…
Surfer boy.
Van.
Enough room for a bed in the back...
Beach.
I’m thinking that he’s headed to the coastal strip. That’s where all the surfers and drifters go when they want to sleep in their vans and cars without having to shell out for a motel or one of the bougie bed and breakfast places in town.
And assuming that I’m right about that, then I’m thinking that the boy will want to be somewhere where he’s low profile, not surrounded by people asking questions and potentially reporting back to whoever it is that is so blatantly causing all this crap.
Which leaves one little cove, close to the edge of town.
It’s quiet, secluded, and not one that the tourists and casual travelers even know about. But something tells me that it’ll be right up the boy’s street. He might be a pain in the ass, but I can tell that he’s smart too—maybe too smart for his own good, and that’s why he’s in this mess to begin with?
But that’s a question for another time.
Right now I need to put the truck into gear and get driving…
The jazz flows smooth from my truck’s old radio, Miles Davis’s trumpet cutting through the night like a blade wrapped in velvet.
I keep the volume low, just enough to fill the cab without drowning out my thoughts. I still need to be able to think, stay alert, and generally have my wits about me.
Sunny Ferns’s coastal road winds ahead, the ocean a dark shimmer under the moon. My hands rest easy on the wheel, butmy mind’s already working, piecing together where surfer boy might hole up…
He’s got that wild, stubborn streak, but he’s scared, and scared people don’t think as clear as they think they do. Bodie’s strong-willed, smart, but he’s impulsive and nervous too—it’s an interesting but potentially dangerous combination for him right now.
I let the music pull me back, just for a moment, to a lighter memory...
Me and Cole, crammed in a beat-up Jeep, hauling ass across the Mexican border after a job in Tijuana.
Twenty hours, no sleep, just us, a crate of warm soda, and my jazz playlist blaring. Cole, big as a damn mountain, kept griping, “Man, this horn shit’s gonna make me crash. Put on some Metallica or I’m tossing your phone out the damn window.”
I laughed, cranked the volume, and told him to broaden his horizons. Cole’s a great guy, one of the best, but when it comes to cultural stuff he really was pretty basic when we first met—and didn’t change much after years together either.
But on this occasion, by hour ten, he was humming along to Coltrane, too stubborn to admit he liked it. We ribbed each other the whole way, but that’s what brothers do—push, pull, keep each other sharp…
