Family Secrets: A Jake Badger Mystery Thriller by Glenn Rogers

Author:Glenn Rogers [Rogers, Glenn]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2015-05-24T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 34

It was lunchtime when I left June's office. I was hungry and there was a pretty good Chinese place, Chen's, not far from the Lindell Industries corporate offices. It was always crowded at lunchtime because the food was good and the portions were large. I pulled in their lot and parked my Wrangler between a BMW Z4 and a Porsche 918 Spyder. Nice cars. But I thought my dirty black Jeep, sitting high off the ground on wide knobby tires, lent an air of brutish sophistication to the lot.

I went inside the crowded restaurant and found a small table in the back of the room, on the right. It was the last empty table. Chen's looked like most other Chinese restaurants: a fish tank near the entrance, Chinese murals on the walls, Chinese lanterns hanging from the ceiling. Booths lined the walls. Tables with chairs filled the center of the large dining room. A waitress came by with water and took my order. I opened Plato’s Republic on my iPad and read while I waited. After a few minutes, an attractive Asian woman approached my table, somewhat timidly. Like nearly all Asian women, she was smallish, slim, with long silky black hair. Soft spoken. Pretty.

“Excuse me,” she said, just barely loud enough for me to hear her, “all the tables are taken. Would you mind sharing your table?”

“Not at all,” I said.

She smiled, hung her purse on the back of the chair, and sat down opposite me.

“My name is Kim,” she said.

“Nice to meet you, Kim. I'm Jake.”

“I've never eaten here before,” she said. “Is the food good?”

“Very good,” I said. “That’s why there are no empty tables.”

A waitress came by with water and a menu and Kim ordered.

When the waitress left, Kim said, “I'm here on business.”

I looked up from my iPad. “Really.”

“My first time in Los Angeles,” she said. “I just flew in this morning from San Francisco.”

“So what do you think of our fair city?” I asked.

“It's flat.”

I chuckled. “Compared to some sections of San Francisco, most of L.A. is pretty flat. We do have some hills, though, scattered around here and there.”

She smiled. “Would you like to show them to me?”

I'm six three and in good shape. Several women have told me I'm good looking. I don't know about that. What I do know is that women do not usually take the initiative in trying to meet me. Heidi was making that effort, but she’s my neighbor so that doesn’t really count. But here it was happening for the second time today. Earlier, there had been the woman in the park. Now this nice looking Asian woman was asking me to show her around L.A. That sort of thing just doesn't happen to me. Yet it was happening. Or was it?

“Well, Kim,” I said, “as pleasant as that prospect sounds, I am involved in an important piece of business myself and will be flying to the East Coast first thing in the morning. I have a lot to do in preparation for my departure.

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