The Smiling Puppy Cafe Book I: A Body, a Bandit, and a Cafe Sneak Peek of Tentative Prologue

Before

Halloween Night

(the previous year)

Funny thing about quiet — it don’t last forever. Simon said someone wanted to hire me for a bachelor party. Now, I don’t usually do private parties, but I needed the money so I took the gig. I get there and these fool-ass men are already drunk. Who cares? It’s mad money and Lord knows I need all I can get right now. I’m not even trying to play. I want to get in, do my job, and get the hell out. Simon always warned me about going off by myself, but what can happen?

Extra cash I keep telling myself, but this goes against everything Mama raised me to be, to do. I’m supposed to be graduating from college in the spring with my friends, but I’m gonna fail two classes; can’t take them in the summer neither. Have to wait until the fall. Tuition fund ran out and I need this money to pay for those classes. Sure, the semester is only half over. I could go to the classes I’m already enrolled in and try to catch up, but you know, that shit don’t never work. I screwed up. Too many late nights. Can’t tell Mama I’m going to fail. She’ll ask why. Because of this damn job, that’s why. I didn’t intend for this to be a long term gig. Do it a few times and be done. Man, that went left way too quick.

Shit. Before I know it, I’m spending too much time at the club and not enough time studying for my classes. I’ve stayed away from the drugs, though. Some of these other girls? Man… they get into some bad shit. Wind up dead and shit. Still, here I am, knee deep in it. I might as well be doing drugs. Damn. I’m a fool because now here I am with this dude who’s name I don’t even know, and all he has to do is flash a few hundreds in my face and I’m down. Before I know it, we’re in a cheap motel room somewhere between Columbus and Dayton having our own party. He’s rough, which I’m okay with at first. Then he starts knocking me around, choking me and shit with his necktie. The more I struggle, the more he’s excited. He don’t get it. He don’t see that he’s killing me. I take my last breath looking into his eyes, tears running down my cheeks. Only when I go limp does he stop.

Yup. You heard right. Old dude kills me. It’s weird. Like, I die fast, but I’m watching everything this fool is doing. He’s making one mistake after another. He staggers around the hotel room, half from inebriation and half from shock, screaming and crying like a damn little girl. He checks for my pulse, and when he doesn’t find one, he heaves in the toilet. Classy. Once he cleans the hotel room, he wraps me up in some damn old plastic from his trunk and ties it with a red cord to keep me secure. No turning back from here. 

We drive for a bit along a road; bumps and turns toss me around in the trunk. That’s right. I’m still with him. Dead, but still with him. Watching all this stupid shit he's doing. The car comes to a stop. He opens the trunk lid and lifts me out, but he ain’t all about being gentle. We’re at a dam, it looks like, out in the middle of nowhere. He chucks me over a shoulder with steady footing and walks to the edge of a concrete barrier rim above water. He turns around and heaves me backwards over his shoulder, over the railing, and down into the water. I fall, fall, faaaaallllll. He’s not satisfied until he hears my body hit the water with a splash. I sink down, gone forever. Who the hell gonna find me here? 

Well, Mother Nature for one. She can be a bitch sometimes. A storm's coming, and it will bring more pain than anyone cares to see. The question is, who can weather it to bring justice? Not me because I’m dead. All sorts of havoc is gonna raise up.

Quiet don’t last forever.