20080522

IF you need me, just holler into the sewer

The next evening, Rob and Angela meet at the local brew pub for dinner. Neither wants to cook, and Angela can’t be in her own restaurant a minute longer. If she’d known -- really known -- what she was in for with this restaurant shit --

They sit in a booth near the bar, the Friday-night crowd coalescing around them. Rob scans faces, battling the uneasy feeling he’s being watched. Half an hour ago he found a business envelope under the Land Rover’s windshield wiper, the inscrutable sentence SOMEBODIE’S GOT SOME EXPLAINING TO DO magic-markered on it in big, childish letters. In the envelope, judging by what he could see through the paper, a stack of photos. He didn’t open it: his cohort, Dave Duvall, whose E-Type was in the garage for the second time this month, was a few steps behind him, needing a ride. Then, as he was dropping Dave off at the brand-new condo building catty-corner to the brew pub, Angela was pulling up in the Jetta right behind him. So the envelope had stayed under the Rover's seat.