The decoy

Chapt 32

Chapter Thirty Two

The All Starr Gym was every bit as grim as Sebastian had expected it would be. The sign was air brushed and it had a stylized picture of a bare chested Cam Starr holding a barbell in each hand. His animated biceps were as big as his head.

The gym was on a small side street in downtown Winona next to a coin laundry. Sebastian parked in front of the laundry and approached the front door of the gym.

He peered into the large front window but it was frosted and difficult to see through. The gym customers didn't want people peering in while they are pumping iron in their spandex.

There didn't appear to be any lights on inside and there was a cardboard sign in the window with the closed side posted out.

Sebastian had told Jessie Vail that he would be as much as two hours late but now he was here in less than an hour and it looked like no one was there. Maybe there was a change of plans and she had to leave. Keon had probably called her and she was on her way to the hospital. It was odd that she hadn't called Sebastian but it was understandable that a mother would rush off to her daughter and not think to cancel a meeting.

Still something about the sealed up gym seemed odd. Sebastian wondered from why Jessie had wanted to meet here with Sebastian and Starr.

Maybe she and Starr had stepped out or maybe she was setting Sebastian up. He thought about turning around and getting his gun out of his truck but he was impatient. He would try the door first. The door had a large window but it was also frosted glass and he couldn't see anything through it either. He pressed the buzzer on the door frame and a voice called out.

"It's open. Come in."                                                                   

Sebastian thought again about getting his gun from the car but he pulled the door anyway and stepped into the All Starr Gym.

All the lights were out except a small row of pot lights above a juice bar.

Cam Starr sat on a stool at the bar and Teddy Arsenault stood behind the bar mixing something in a blender. Starr had his back to the door but Arsenault was facing Sebastian.

The gym took up two small store fronts, about fifty feet wide and twenty five long. It was decorated in a sort of seventies work out theme. Sebastian thought of Olivia Newton John in spandex and a head band "getting physical". The east wall was a mirror from floor to ceiling. Near the window were a half dozen seldom used cardio machines, including three bikes and three other things that looked like you should stand on them and swing your legs somehow. In the middle of the room were two large weight machines and free weights littered the entire room. The west wall was decorated with dozens of large posters of body builders in full pose wearing tiny spandex swim suits.

"Glad you could make it. Grace isn't coming," Starr said without turning to face Sebastian, "She asked if we could talk to you, maybe talk some sense into you. Maybe convince you to stop talking so much. Stop asking people shit and bothering everyone. Pezzo killed Paul and now the pussy killed his own self. So we are here today to convince you it's time to close up and go home."

Arsenault smiled and stopped the blender. He poured the mixture into two tall glasses and passed one to Starr who still kept his back to Sebastian.

Both men were very large. Starr was not in a suit and tie now. Both Teddy and Starr wore their work out gear, track pants and tank tops. They had been lifting weights and their arms were swollen even larger than their normal size.

With his back to Sebastian and hunched over the bar, Starr's shoulder's appeared enormous. Very tall and heavily muscled, he no longer had that defined look of a competitive body builder that he had perfected as a young man. Now Starr's muscles were thick and heavy and were clearly the result of years of exercise and steroid use.

Sebastian stood just less than six feet tall and now that he was in training he worked hard to keep his weight down. Starr was five inches taller and close to one hundred pounds heavier. He was a gorilla.

Arsenault was a slightly shorter version of Starr. He was closer to Sebastian's height but he also had forty pounds of extra muscle on Sebastian.

Where Starr was dark haired and handsome, Arsenault had thinning blond hair and big wire rim glasses. He looked like an overly muscled accountant and there was a certain desperateness to him.

There was something crude about Teddy Arsenault. The kind of guy you didn't sit beside on a city bus. He had spent too much time incarcerated and no longer was comfortable amongst people. He was anti social enough that he had no boundaries of behavior. He was dangerous.

Teddy had never had close friends, he had stopped communicating with his family when he was just a kid and he was not capable of a romantic relationship with a woman. Arsenault didn't like being around people except his friend Cam Starr.

Arsenault and Starr had known each other since childhood. Arsenault had worked for Paul Vail right out of school just like Starr but he had run into trouble and spent six months in lock up. Once he got out he continued to get involved in petty criminal activity and never held a regular job afterwards.

When Starr opened the gym, Arsenault had a place to spend his time. Starr paid him a small salary to look after the place and Arsenault spent his days lifting weights and waiting for Starr to come and join him.

"I am between places right now," Teddy Arsenault often said and so most nights he slept and showered at the All Starr Gym.  Arsenault admired Starr. They both liked body building. Starr had won some local contests and Arsenault admired him for that. He also liked the fact that Starr could move with people like the Vails.

Starr kept his back to Sebastian and said, "Come sit here."

Sebastian hesitated. Arsenault finished his protein shake, put the glass on the bar and pulled a shotgun out from under the bar.

There were five stools at the bar and Sebastian walked over and sat at the one furthest from the two men.

"Make mine a chocolate brownie shake," he said.

"You're an asshole," Starr said.

He turned to look at Sebastian for the first time since he had entered.

"You have caused so much trouble. The Vails were nice people, man. They never caused no trouble. Now it's a huge mess."

Starr looked at Arsenault.

"Go lock the door. We are going into the back room."

Sebastian considered making a move for the gun but he decided to let things play out. Teddy locked up and they walked through a brown metal door into a storage room at the back of the gym. It was about fifteen feet by twenty. There were no windows and it had another metal door right at the back which led to a laneway running behind the gym and the coin laundry.

It was used as a receiving area and as storage for the gym.  There was an old wooden desk in the corner with an office chair behind it. Starr pulled the chair from behind the desk and placed it in the middle of the room.

"Sit down," he said to Sebastian.