What the fuck was he doing?

The street we parked on was lined with dilapidated muti-family housing. A half-dozen bandana clad guys hung around on a stoop nearby. I was pretty sure I’d just left a couple of them behind at the state penitentiary. Dick got out, looked around skittishly, and headed to one of the rundown buildings. He disappeared down a set of concrete stairs that looked like it led to a basement entrance.

A few minutes later, another man headed to the same door. This guy had a long, matted beard and wore a wool cap and heavy army jacket, even though it was still close to eighty-five degrees. He was also scratching his face incessantly and looking around frantically as he walked.

Dick was in a crack den? The day was getting a lot more interesting.

After spending two years in a prison full of criminals, I was anxious to get the fuck out of there as night fell. The neighborhood that had seemed desolate was suddenly starting to come alive—with people who didn’t go out until they could hide in the shadows of darkness.

But I waited. If Dick could be out here, so could I. More than an hour passed before the Princess Fucker jogged up the stairs and onto the street. With a brown paper bag in his hand, he wasted no time getting in his car. His fancy ride pulled away as soon as his door was shut.

I didn’t follow him.

Curiosity had gotten the best of me and before I knew it, I was locking my truck. I hadn’t planned what I was going to do once I got to the door—buying a vile of crack as evidence to show Aubrey that Dick was a dick, probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do. I would have to settle for understanding what I was up against and worry about what to do with the information later.

The stairwell was narrow, with only a few steps leading to a closed door. When I got to the bottom, I found the door was actually left a crack open. There was also music coming from inside. I edged it open. At first, a little. Then a little bit more. Until the door suddenly swung open, and I nearly fell into the building.

I looked up expecting to find a gun to my head for breaking into a crack house. But what I found couldn’t have been more different. A priest was holding open the door and extended his hand into the room behind him, welcoming me.

“Come in. Ladels of Love is happy to feed you this evening.”

It took a minute to realize what I’d just walked into. A soup kitchen. The Princess Fucker wasn’t buying crack; he was feeding the indigent.

Fuck me.

I was definitely going to need to up my game.

Chapter Twenty

It seemed Aubrey and Dick were quite the pair of philanthropists.

Sitting in my truck on Jefferson a few days later, I opened the local newspaper, and smack dab in the middle of the community section was Aubrey’s beautiful smile along with an article about a new animal shelter that had just opened up.

Local attorneys Aubrey Bloom and Richard Kline of Sherman, Kline and Lefave, LLP attend the grand opening of the Park Street Animal Shelter. Kline and Bloom, a member of the Park Street board of directors, helped raise over five-hundred-thousand dollars to support the shelter’s new facility.

At the end of the article, there was a phone number for the shelter. I immediately dialed it.

A girl answered, “Park Street Animal Shelter?”

“Hi, I was wondering if you’re looking for any volunteers?”

“Actually, yes, sir. We are in dire need of dog walkers. Is that something you might be interested in?”

“Absolutely. I could come by this afternoon.”

“We’ll have you fill out some paperwork we need to process, so you may not be able to start until later in the week.”

“That’s fine. I can’t wait to help.”

Take that, Princess Fucker.

Stalker, landscaper, goat sitter…add dog walker to the list of new occupations held by Chance Bateman during my stay in Temecula.

The daily routine now consisted of having virtual Starbucks breakfast with Aubrey, hitting the gym, landscaping (aka Pixy time), followed by late afternoon strolls with anywhere from three to five dogs at once. For someone without a real job, I was busier and in better shape than ever before in my life.

One Friday afternoon, I was at a park walking a Great Dane, a German Shepherd mix and a Greyhound when a text from Aubrey came in.

Aubrey: Received your new contract today. They need you to sign it this afternoon so they can meet a production deadline.

Trying to control all three barking dogs with one hand, I used my phone’s voice to text feature to respond.

Chance: I’m dog walking at Slater Park. I can come there right after.

Aubrey: Dog walking?