Unknown Friends

"Wait, wait, wait, Cindy used to come into the bar? ... Cindy?"

"Yeah sure, it was a couple years after Fred, her husband, was killed. She got to be kind of a regular. She'd sit at the bar and we'd talk most of the evening. She didn't drink much. I think she was just lonely. Carol was always off doing her thing and I guess Cindy just got tired of being alone."

I just nodded my agreement and Sammy continued.

"Anyway, that day at the hospital, she said you were the best thing that had ever happened to Carol. She was so happy when you two got engaged and was really looking forward to having you as her son-in-law. I think she thought of you as the son she never had. She was so pissed when Carol told her she had broken things off with you. Then she started to get upset again, so I asked her to come back to the bar with me and have a drink. I told her it would do her good to talk about what was bothering her."

"And so you brought her back here?"

"Yeah, I'd closed down early that day, so it was just the two of us. I poured us some wine and we sat and talked. She said a week or so before the shooting, she and Carol got into a big fight. Cindy was still pissed at her about how she was treating you and then she found out Carol was seeing Johnny. I guess it got really ugly and Cindy said all kinds things about Johnny. Carol stormed out and went straight to Johnny and told him everything Cindy had said about him."

"That stupid fucking bitch! She ratted out her own mother?"

"Yeah well, Johnny was pissed, so he dragged Carol back to her mom's house and confronted Cindy. It got nasty and Johnny slapped Cindy hard enough to knock her down. He told her to keep her mouth shut or he'd be back to shut her up permanently."

"Holy fuck, he hit her and then threatened her life?"

"Yeah, BIG mistake on his part! Ya see, one of the nights Cindy was at the bar, the Gray Man came in. It had been a long time since he'd been in my bar, but I knew who he was. Back in the day, he had been in the papers a few times and he was always pictured with the bosses. Some reporter hung that "Gray Man" tag on him because he always dressed in gray and no one knew his name. Anyway, he and Cindy got to talking and I guess they hit it off 'cause she met him there several more times and ... well... I think, maybe they... you know."

"Fuck me! Cindy and the Gray Man?"

"Well, like I said that was a long time ago and I've never seen them together since then, but I think he visits her whenever he's in town."

"So you think he just happened to be in town that night to visit her? What are the odds of that?"

"No, I don't think he just happened to be in town. Look Tommy, she never actually said it, but she kinda implied she had called him and told him what Johnny did to her."

"Holy Fuck! So those nights he was in here he was just hanging around me waiting for Johnny to do something stupid. I was his bait, but Johnny was his real target?"

"I think so. Of course he knew Carol was seeing Johnny and he knew Johnny would have to torment you about stealing your girl, so he just waited to make his play."

I sat and tried to digest all that Sammy had just told me. The Gray Man couldn't come at Johnny head-on without getting Tony and the other bosses pissed off. He had to make it all Johnny's fault. "Fuck, what if Bobby had't spilled beer on him?"

"About that ... I was behind the bar, so I saw what really happened. When Bobby grabbed your beer and started to raise it, the Gray Man moved closer to him and grabbed Bobby's shirt and jerked him towards himself just as Bobby raised the glass. Then when the beer sloshed on him, the Gray Man slammed the side of Bobby's head into the bar rail."

"Jesus Christ, he knew if he took down his pals, Johnny would make a move on him and he could kill him while making it look like self defense to the bosses."

Sammy studied me, "Tommy, you know you can never speak of any of this ever again, right? Besides, there is no way to know if that's really how it all went down."

"Who would I tell? Fuck, no one would believe it anyway. Holy crap! I think you better bring me another beer!"

I slowly sipped my beer hoping my heart would stop racing. Holy shit, Cindy and the Gray Man? I thought about Cindy, the sweet woman who had always been so kind to me, the woman who wanted me to be her son-in-law. I just couldn't wrap my head around the thought of them as a couple.

My friends had told me Carol took up with some traveling salesman and had moved away, good riddance. That was one person I never wanted to see again! I still had trouble believing someone that evil could have been raised by someone as sweet as Cindy.

As I thought about Cindy, it dawned on me that I hadn't been overly friendly to her when she visited me in the hospital. I think maybe I should make plans to visit her, and try to stay on her good side, because I sure as hell don't want her whispering bad things about me into anyone's ear.

End

Thanks for reading my story, I hope you enjoyed it. As always, I would be interested in any comments you care to make.

The description of "Gray Man" may seem somewhat familiar to some of you as it is very loosely based on a similarly described character in a Spencer Novel by Robert B. Parker. The Spencer series is one of my favorites and well worth a read.