All Sales Fatal (20 page)

A truck’s headlights swept around the corner of the building, and an engine growled as the vehicle trundled toward us.

“Enrique!” Eloísa gasped, then bolted, clinging to the building’s shadow before taking off, fleet as a deer, for the strip of woods bordering the property. I spun and took two strides in the opposite direction, thinking I’d make it hard for him to choose a target. Without warning, my knee, already annoyed by the dancing, collapsed under me. I hit the ground in a crouch and flung up my forearm to shade my eyes from the truck’s lights. As I was preparing to roll away from the chrome grille bearing down on me, the truck slowed and stopped.

“Everything okay, ma’am?” a voice called from the cab. The accent was pure Virginia, and I was pretty sure it didn’t belong to a guy named “Enrique.” The truck’s door opened and a lanky man stepped down. As he came closer, I saw he was wearing a gray Phat Cat tee shirt. Club security. I breathed a sigh of relief.

“I’m just getting some air,” I said, pushing to my feet. I breathed in deeply through my nose to demonstrate.

He eyed me carefully. “We’ve got volunteers to drive you home if you’re indisposed, ma’am.”

He meant drunk. I wondered if he thought I’d been buying—or selling—drugs. Had he seen Eloísa scamper off? “I’m fine.” I balanced on one foot using my good leg. “See?”

“Maybe you should come with me—”

The door behind me sighed open, and the security guy and I turned as one. Jay Callahan stood there, sizing up the situation. “You feeling okay, honey?” he asked, crossing to me and putting a solicitous arm around my shoulders. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.” His hand squeezed my shoulder hard.

I wriggled out from under his arm. “Just fine, babycakes.”

“I’ll take her home now,” Jay told the security guy, a reassuring “I’ll keep her out of your hair” note in his voice.

“Thank you, sir,” the guard said, climbing back in the truck.

“I am not drunk,” I growled at Jay as he walked me out of the alley and around to the front of the club, the truck trailing us—probably to make sure we really left.

“‘Babycakes?’” he asked, a laugh in his voice.

We arrived at the parking lot, and he steered me toward an Audi sedan. “I can’t go home with you,” I said. “Kyra.”

“I already told her I was taking you home,” he said, opening the door for me.

“Oh.” Since I didn’t really want to return to the club and since Kyra would probably dance until closing time, I slid onto the seat. “Thanks.”

“You can thank me by telling me what you were up to back there,” he said. “That guy was on the verge of busting you for drug dealing.”

“Pooh,” I said. “I don’t even have an aspirin on me.”

He gave me a look as he started the car. “Address?”

I gave it to him. Leaning back against the comfortable seat and absently massaging my knee, I told him about chasing Gilda through the mall and the arranged meeting with Eloísa. “She was on the verge of telling me where she thought Celio was going in the mall when the security guy spooked her. She took off like a bat out of hell. I doubt she’ll
agree to talk to me again.” Not that I had any way to find her—I didn’t know either her or Gilda’s last name.

“Are you going to tell the police?”

The car’s motion was making me drowsy. That plus the shot of adrenaline and the evening’s tension made me feel like I could nod off. “I should,” I said.

Jay tapped long fingers on the steering wheel. He drove fast but competently. “‘
Cuetes
,’ huh? Now, why would Mr. Arriaga think he could get his hands on some guns at the mall?”

Studying his profile, I got the impression that he wasn’t so much speaking to me as working through something aloud. “You tell me,” I suggested, more convinced than ever by his apparent understanding of the term “
cuetes
” that he knew a suspicious amount about the illegal buying and selling of weapons.

He slanted a look at me and immediately returned his gaze to the road. “Me? I’m just a cookie ba—”

“Yeah, yeah—you’re just a cookie baker, an entrepreneur trying to make a buck, an Average Joe who runs his business by day, watches
Survivor
at night, and plays softball with the guys or waxes his car on the weekend.”

Jay chuckled. “Actually, I don’t even own a television—can’t stand the drivel that’s on it, and if I want to watch a ball game I can go to a sports bar; I play softball with guys
and
gals, coed team; and I run my car through a car wash every other month or so. I’ve never been one of those guys who obsessed over his ride, not even in high school. But now you mention it, maybe I’ll tell the car-wash crew to wax her next time I go in.” He patted the dash. “If you like softball, you could play with us next Monday evening. One of our regulars had a baby last week and is going to miss the rest of the season. Wuss.”

Despite myself, I laughed, feeling a warm tingle of
pleasure at the invitation. Spending some time outside the mall with Jay Callahan would not be totally painful, I realized. “I used to play some, but not in a long time. And you didn’t see what happened back there.” I jerked my head toward Phat Cat. “Half a dance and my knee gave out on me.” I massaged the offending body part, half angrily.

“We’re not recruiting for the Orioles,” Jay said. “Drue played right field for us Saturday morning and had the baby that afternoon, which ought to give you an idea of how low we set the softball-skills bar. In fact, you meet all the requirements: two X chromosomes.”

Was my knee a bigger physical handicap than being nine months pregnant? Probably not. I hesitated, pleased that he’d invited me, that he wanted to spend time with me—although playing coed softball together wasn’t really a
date
—but leery of looking like a fool.

“Have you thought about a knee replacement?”

I stiffened.

Jay caught the motion and held up an apologetic hand. “None of my business.”

Damn right it was none of his business. I didn’t have the inclination or the energy to fill Jay in on the details of the injuries to my knee and the surrounding soft tissue, tendons, and ligaments. He didn’t need to know about the metal rod in my femur or the pins in my fibula. Despite that, I said, “The docs aren’t sure it would do any good.”

Jay only nodded in response and I yawned. Next thing I knew, he was shaking me awake outside my town house. “Your pumpkin coach has arrived, Sleeping Beauty.”

“I think you’re mixing your fairy tales,” I said groggily. Unbuckling, I opened the door and stepped out, keeping my weight on my good leg. I bent to look in at him. “Thanks for playing knight errant—even if I didn’t really need rescuing.”

“Knight errant?” He feigned disappointment. “Not Prince Charming?”

“You’ve got to work your way up to that.” I closed the door and went into the house, smiling to myself.

Sixteen

I arrived at
Fernglen the next morning determined to figure out what Celio had been up to in the Pete’s Sporting Goods wing. I’d go store by store if I had to, and see what kind of response I got when I dropped hints about Celio and guns. I’d had to use my soft brace on my knee this morning and was walking stiffly when I arrived at the security office to find Joel already manning the security cameras.

“Overdid it with the dancing?” he asked with a nod at my leg.

“How’d you know I went out last night?”

“Kyra mentioned it.” He’d initially been pretty nervous around Kyra, but after the three of us had worked together to demonstrate how a killer could set up a body in a display window, they’d become buddies.

“Big mouth,” I said.

“Her or me?”

“Both of you.”

He grinned. “You can still swim today, can’t you?”

“Sure.”

Before the stores opened, I caught up on paperwork and finished my application for the director of security position, which I walked over to Pooja’s desk. “We’ve already got four applications,” she whispered, looking toward Curtis Quigley’s office.

“Really?” I don’t know why I was surprised; with the economy the way it was, people with fine arts degrees or who’d been laid off from construction jobs were probably applying.

“Yes. Victoria Dallabetta, Dusty Margolin from Nordstrom, and two gentlemen not associated with the mall.”

I left the mall manager’s office not feeling quite so confident I’d get the job. Dusty Margolin was well qualified for it, and Vic Dallabetta might be, too. And for all I knew, the unknown applicants had spent thirty years each in law enforcement or private security. I shrugged it off. I’d either be the new director of security for Fernglen or I wouldn’t.

Kyra came around the corner just as I placed my hand on the security office door. The blinding grin on her face told me she’d had a good time at Phat Cat.

“We need to do that more often,” she said.

“Dancing?”

“Going out. Doing new stuff. Meeting new men.”

Aha. “So you met an interesting man?”

She nodded.

“Mr. Red Shoes?”

“Uh-uh. I don’t think you saw Kyron.”

“Chiron? Isn’t he a satyr or a centaur or something in Greek mythology?”

“Kyron with a
K,
” she said.

“You can’t ever marry him. Kyra and Kyron would be just too much. Can’t you see it on a Christmas card: ‘Happy Holidays from Kyra and Kyron and our little Specials K’s.’”

Kyra hooted.

“What’s he like?”

“Tall, dark, handsome, fabulous dancer, snappy little Bimmer convertible, nice house in Octagon Park.”

I raised my brows. “You went home with him?”

She grinned again but changed the subject. “So, how’d it go with your snitch?”

“She’s not a snitch,” I said, mildly annoyed. “She’s really torn up by her cousin’s death. She wants to help catch his killer, but she’s afraid of the gang he ran with.”

Kyra sobered, and I thought she might be thinking about her brother. “I can relate to that. Did she know anything?”

I shrugged. “Maybe. I’m going to check a couple of things out.”

Fernando Guzman came around the corner, dragging a mop and bucket. We all exchanged “good mornings,” and Kyra said she had to open Merlin’s Cave. I adjusted the brace, which was pinching my thigh, climbed on the Segway, and headed toward the wing where Celio Arriaga had ditched his cousin to conduct some business that might, or might not, have been related to guns.

I’d be methodical, I decided, and go down one side and up the other. I’d check out all the businesses, not making assumptions about any of them. Accordingly, I walked into Nailed It and gagged as a sharp wave of acetone knifed my nostrils. I wasn’t much of one for beauty treatments, but the shop seemed similar to the nail salons my mom used to drag me into: rows of polishes to choose from, eight massage chairs poised over foot basins gurgling with hot water, narrow tables staffed by smiling men and women.

“Mani-pedi?” asked the owner, coming forward with a smile that showed a gap between his front teeth.

“Not today, Yong. I’m wondering if you’ve ever seen this man in here?” I showed him the creased photo of Celio
Arriaga. The other workers, not having any clients this early, watched us curiously and chattered softly in Korean. One woman eyed me uneasily and disappeared into a back room.

He studied it. “Is the murdered man,” he said, eyes lifting to my face.

“Yes.”

He shook his head sharply. “Is not customer. I told you this last time you asked.”

“I know. Can you ask your staff?”

Taking the paper from my hand, Yong showed it to each of his employees. I didn’t understand the whispered Korean, but the head shakes told me he was batting zero.

“Thanks anyway,” I said when he handed me the photo along with the news I expected. “I don’t suppose you keep a gun here, for protection?”

Yong’s face closed down. “I have baseball bat,” he said. He said something to one of the women, and she obligingly lifted a Louisville Slugger from beneath the counter and held it over her head. “But security very good here. I don’t need.”

I thanked him and left.

The Herpetology Hut was next down the line, and I went in to find Keifer loosing a live rat in Agatha’s enclosure. The heavy python looked like she hadn’t even noticed the rodent, but I didn’t figure it would be there by the end of the day. I averted my eyes. Keifer noticed and grinned, teeth white against his dark skin.

“Squeamish, EJ?”

“It doesn’t seem like a fair fight,” I replied. “Not with the rat trapped in there.”

“How many of life’s fights are fair?” he countered.

“True enough. I don’t suppose you’re selling guns out of your storeroom or running a ‘Buy a snake, get a Colt Python for free’ promotion?” Though I’d told myself I’d interview
all the business owners in the wing impartially, I knew Keifer too well to believe he was peddling guns.

Keifer looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “What are you going on about, EJ?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted.

Flipping his dreads over his shoulder, he asked, “Does this have to do with the banger who got killed, or with Woskowicz’s death?”

“Maybe both, maybe neither.”