Natalie

She slid into the next stool like poetry in motion. If she were a day under fifty, he’d eat the hat he wasn’t wearing, but ohhh, she looks great to seventy-year-old eyes. When he was in his prime, she’d have been the sort of tasty morsel he hunted in bars like this. Now he was lucky to get a passing look as the young ladies passed on the way to the “Ladies”. But he could dream, and as she settled into the stool next to him, it was like a dream come true.

She reminded him of an older Natalie. He’d wooed her back in his Boston days; when he’d relocated to Montreal, he’d left her pregnant and without a forwarding address. He’d always wondered what had come of her and the kid, if she’d had it. That last fight had been a doozy; she’d promised to track him down no matter where he went, and no matter how long it took, and destroy him. That last night she’d pulled that little pearl-handled .32, and it had been nip and tuck getting away. Out the fire escape, down three flights, and then getting a cab to Logan and the flight to Montreal.

She just looked at him with a coy smile, as though she expected him to recognize her immediately. Then his phone rang. It was Phil; he was just across the room. Why didn’t he just come over? Why was he scurrying for the door? “Dan! It’s her! It’s Natalie!”

Then a younger version of the woman slipped up behind him; he almost panicked. She was Natalie.

“This is my scummaster dad, Mom?”- ” In the flesh, Sarah.”

He just about lost it. He looked at his phone, looked at young Natalie, and then focused on the older Natalie.

She watched him and smiled as he looked at his phone, turned pale, and quickly left the room.

They followed him, and without a word being spoken, shoved him into the ladies’ room, locked the door, and slammed him against a stall. Older Natalie reached into her bag, pulled out the pearl-handled .32, and shoved it under his nose. There was a stench filling the room. He suddenly realized the source was him. “Please don’t kill me, Natalie. It was all a mistake! Everything I have is yours; just don’t kill me.” ” You’re not worth the bullet, Sam. Besides, I can bleed you better alive than dead!” She reached into her bag and pulled out a fat envelope. “It took a couple of years to find you, then some more to get the prep work done, but whatever you have? We own.”

Then she threw the bundle of legal documents at him, put away the .32, and the pair walked out. On the way, she tossed him one final thing, a lawyer’s business card. “Here, you’ll need this.”

” You’re not going to kill me?” ” Kill you? Why should I do time for you, you piece of scum? You’re worth more to Sarah and me alive… we’re going to gut you for every penny you’ve stashed away. So long, sucker!”

With that, she walked out of the bar, but not out of his life.