Liberty City, Newport Safehouse. November 2001.
It was a cold day outside as the wind howled against the windows as the apartment's sole inhabitant, Claude woke up out of his comfortable bed because of his alarm clock and his Sumo Wordman Pager going off at the same time, shutting the clock off and getting up and fishing his pager out of his leather jacket, he looked at the message to see it was from Maria Latore, the woman he saved back at the showdown at Cochrane Dam with Catalina and the same woman who got him into trouble with her late husband, Salvatore Leone, in his mind, he deeply regretted saving her due to her annoying presence and rabbles about fashion and shoes. But back to the message at hand, it read: Hey Babe, it's Maria, come meet me at the Tarbrush Cafe in Bedford Point.
Sighing to himself, Claude got dressed in his usual attire, Black leather jacket, black shirt, olive green cargo pants and blue sneakers, and after combing his hair he took the elevator down to the ground floor and stepped outside to greet the icy ground as he slipped and fell on his back, letting out a pained grunt as he got back up using the floating baseball bat as a crutch as he carefully walked across the icy concrete towards the garage as the door lifted up automatically to reveal a teal 2001 Kuruma and a 1970 Diablo Stallion sitting neatly side by side just waiting for their owner to choose whom to drive, Claude chose the Stallion as he reached in and unlocked the driver side door by pulling up on the tab on the door card through the rolled down window and got inside and turned the ignition and the car struggled to spark due to the cold weather.
After the tedious process of turning and waiting to avoid flooding the carburetor before turning the ignition one more time, the car finally started as Claude smirked to himself as he revved the throaty engine several times before closing the door and slowly drove out the garage and up the incline to greet the busy Libertonian traffic of cars and pedestrians alike, having to honk his horn to get them out of the way so that he could get his day going already as he roared down the road heading past Belleville Park, where the weekend annual Medieval Millennium Fair was taking place, with the band of traveling minstrels, knights and the buxom fair maidens and the mysterious prancing German named Hans delighting the fair goers Claude noticed as he stopped at the traffic lights and waited for said lights to turn green before gassing the rods to Bedford Point.
Splashing some passersby with the water on the road, Claude parked the Stallion in front of the Tarbrush Cafe and stepped out carefully and walking up to the stores door underneath the glowing green signage above and opening it and inhaling the aroma of the scent of fresh coffee beans and pastries and he noticed Maria waving him over and he unzipped his jacket and placed it on the back of his chair and sat down.
" Hiya Fido, good morning! " She greeted him in her shrill Italian accent. " How are ya?...*beat* right, you don't talk much...well, I had a great time last night just so you'd know. " Claude simply nodded in understanding in response. " You're a little rough around the edges like cheap toilet paper, but I believe deep down you're not such a bad guy underneath. "
Claude stared at her in confusion over being compared to toilet paper and the good guy underneath piece of wording he's heard so many times on tv and movies, if the guy could speak a word, he would definitely voice his utter disbelief at this woman's intelligence and ponder what did Salvatore Leone saw in her in the first place...oh, her big tits...of course, something that Claude can understand since Catalina had them as well, but He would rather move on from this topic as soon as possible and that came in the form of a bizarre request from Maria.
" So...you know that fair going on in the park? I was thinking we could go and maybe check it out together? like a date perhaps? " She suggested with hope in her eyes.
In Response, Claude simply shrugged and got out of his chair, grabbed his jacket and Maria's hand and the two walked outside of the cafe towards the Stallion, getting inside as driving off to Belleville Park to spend some time together.