With the exception of Monday’s incident, the week went without episode. Wednesday, Alex accompanied Valerie to the hearing. There was no doubt the judge would rule in favor of granting Valerie the restraining order, especially after what just happened.
He did, but the problem was the restraining order was only good for three weeks. Bruce had to be served first for it to be permanent. Anybody but Valerie could serve him. Alex wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Unfortunately, when Romero went to serve him at the homeless shelter listed as his primary residence, they hadn’t seen him in weeks. His probation officer was no help either. He’d finally returned their calls today, simply to say that Bruce was only required to check in every ten days. The last he’d heard from Bruce, he’d said he was staying at the shelter at night and looking for work during the day. Bruce wouldn’t be required to check in for another week. There was no way of getting a hold of him either, since Bruce supposedly didn’t have a cell phone. The whole system was a damn joke.
Bruce was more frightening than Alex expected. He’d been in the armed forces until he was dishonorably discharged for computer fraud. Most of that information was classified, so Romero was having a hard time getting the details of it. But apparently this guy was some kind of computer wiz. Great. This just kept getting better and better.
All his priors were violent ones. His stalking wasn’t just limited to following his victims around. In all the cases, he’d done extensive snooping, hacking into their computers to gain more info. He’d even served a couple of weeks in a mental facility. Why they ever let this nut out was beyond anything that made sense to Alex.
Most of his crimes included attacks against women. The only one that included an attack on a man was when he tried to run an ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend off the road. Alex more than welcomed the animal to come after him. He’d make sure the guy got what he deserved, but most importantly they’d have him locked up.
The only positive thing that came from the background check was that it appeared his ex-wife’s disappearance was more of a self-initiated disappearance. There was evidence she’d already changed her name once. Her family never even attempted to file charges against Bruce. Basically they accepted she’d disappeared and went on their merry way. It was unlikely that a family would do that unless they knew where she really was and were intentionally keeping quiet about it.
Very small consolation, but at least as far as Alex knew, Bruce didn’t have blood on his hands… yet. With that thought lingering, Alex decided to check on Valerie. He walked toward the back room. The restaurant was just too damn loud for him to make a phone call out there.
Once in the back room, he was quickly distracted going over some of the wedding details on the computer. When he was done, he decided it was better to leave Valerie alone. Hank would call and update him if anything happened. He went back to the bar. The place overflowed with loud patrons now. Alex leaned over to Sal. “You sure we’re not over capacity?”
“We’re good now, but we had to turn some people away. They weren’t too happy about it, either. It’s a good thing we had Romero’s people here. They started getting rowdy.”
Alex frowned, taking it all in. The tables were crammed and every booth at the bar taken, with people crowding around each booth. He sure hoped Romero’s guys knew what they were doing.
He took a stroll to check everything else out. Workers diligently transformed the banquet room upstairs into a wedding paradise. The flowers would arrive in the morning. His parents would be pleased. They were both home working on the trinkets they’d pass out at the wedding. Alex told them he could just order them already made, but they insisted they had to be personal and hand made.
By the time he’d made it back to the bar, the fight was in full swing and everyone cheered loudly. Alex watched along with the crowd. It was a good fight with both fighters going at it.
One of the waiters nudged him on the arm. “You have a call on line one.”
Alarmed, Alex reached for the cell phone on his hip. Maybe he hadn’t heard it with all the noise. He had no missed calls but he still felt the need to rush to the office to take the call. He picked up the phone as soon as he got to it, forgetting to close the door behind him.
“This is Alex.”
“Whose ass do I have to kick to get a beer around here?”
Alex pressed the phone against his ear not sure, if he’d heard correctly. “What was that?” He reached for the open door with his foot and kicked it shut.
The caller raised his voice. “I said whose ass do I have to kick to get a beer around here? The service sucks! I’ve been waiting for over twenty minutes.”
Alex felt his adrenaline jump-start. Almost certain he knew, he asked anyway, “Who’s this?”
“Who do you think it is, ass**le?”
Alex smiled gripping the phone. “You here, Bruce? I can get you a beer. Where you sitting?”
Bruce cackled. “No, I’m not at Moreno’s anymore. No, no… I’m at Tres Italiano. You know where that is, Alex?”
Alex squeezed his fist shut. It’s where the girls were having dinner. He gulped hard in a failed attempt to remain calm. He texted Romero to come to the office ASAP. “Yeah, I know where that is.”
Bruce cackled until he was coughing, then he started up again. “Is that your pretty little sister with Valerie? And your brother’s lovely wife-to-be? Her name escapes me… oh that’s right, Sarah. ”