“Not if you don’t tell me what this is about.”
Like brother, like brother. Stubborn to the last.
“Forget it. See you Saturday at Dad’s barbeque.”
“You comin’ with Lee?’
“No, I’m not coming with Lee. I’m pretty sure we’ll be broken up by then. Later.”
I hung up and opened the phone book on my cell. I scrolled down to Lee, took a big breath and punched the button that would call Lee, a button I’d never punched before in my life.
He answered after one ring. “Yeah?”
“Lee? It’s Indy.”
A customer walked up and asked for a double espresso and I gave him a one minute finger and Jane started banging the portafilter against the sink to loosen the last pot of grounds.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“Fortnum’s.”
“I thought I told you to stay at the condo.”
As if I ever did what I was told.
“I have a business and I’m down two employees. I had to come to work.”
“Less than twenty-four hours ago, people were shootin’ at you.”
Hmm, he sounded pissed off.
“Jane can’t handle the store in the morning all alone, she’ll go meltdown.”
Why was I explaining myself to him?
“Listen, you have to stop Kitty Sue, she’s telling everyone we’re together.”
“We are together.”
“We’re not together.”
“Who has she told?”
“Dad, Marianne Meyer, Hank, God knows who else. This is getting out of hand. It has to stop.”
“Mom didn’t tell Hank, I told Hank.”
“Why would you tell Hank?” This was said in a near shout and the customer took a step back.
Lee was silent for a second, thinking thoughts I could not fathom, then he changed the subject. “When do you close?”
“Six.”
“Don’t leave the store. I’ll come by tonight at six to pick you up.”
“Lee…”
“See you at six.”
Then he hung up.
Rat bastard.
* * * * *
Ally came back to get me with news of no Rosie at Rosie’s house.
I asked if there was any Lee at Rosie’s house and that was a negatory too.
We took off to go see Rosie’s friend, emergency contact numero uno. He had a house in the Highlands area. Great old houses and bungalows, though Rosie’s friend didn’t live in one that had been renovated. For that matter, he didn’t live in a block that had a single house that had been renovated. Or in a block that had a single house with more than a dozen blades of genuine grass growing in their yards or decent curtains in their windows. It was semi-wasteland.
We knocked to no answer.
We sat in my car and called the house number on my cell phone, no answer.
We scanned the neighborhood and Ally pointed to the end of the block.
We got out of the car and walked to the corner Stop & Stab which had surprisingly not been crushed by the overabundance of Denver’s convenience stores. A guy of Arab descent stood behind the counter.
We walked up to him and he smiled.
“You want gum?” he asked.
“No, we’re…” I started to say.
“Cigarettes? They’re bad for you but I have to sell them or I’ll go bust. Everyone in this neighborhood smokes cigarettes.”
I shook my head and then wondered briefly why Lee smelled like tobacco, I hadn’t seen him smoke since he enlisted.
I noticed Ally staring at me like, “Hello?” and I shook out of my Lee Reverie.
“You know Rosie Coltrane?”
“You’re not buying goods?” the counter man asked, looking both disappointed and defeated.
I couldn’t help myself, he immediately made me sad.
“Yes, mints,” I grabbed a pack of mints and put it on the counter.
He stared at the mints.
I stared at the mints.
Ally stared at the mints.
The mints seemed lonely and the purchase of the mints was not going to do anything to help feed this man’s family.
I put another pack of mints on the counter, followed it with two candy bars and then walked over to the fridge and grabbed two bottles of water and two diet pops.
On the way back to the counter, I grabbed a box of cream-filled, prepackaged cupcakes. I hadn’t had a cupcake in ages.
He happily started ringing up my purchases. “Who are you looking for again?”
“Rosie Coltrane. He works for me and didn’t come into work today and I’m worried,” I lied.
I was a good liar, I’d been doing it since Lee, Ally and I were caught behind the garage trying to smoke leaves when Ally and I were eight and Lee was eleven. I came up with the imaginative excuse that we were thinking about roasting marshmallows but didn’t know how. Malcolm bought it, kids, marshmallows, my cute, angelic smile. It all seemed benign and plausible.
After we got off with just a lecture about fire safety and the danger of matches, Lee tousled my hair.
Happy memories.
“I do not know a man named Rosie. What kind of man has a name like Rosie?”
“Rosey Grier?” Ally tried.
“I don’t know a Rosey Grier either,” the counter man said.
“Football player? Helped catch Sirhan Sirhan?” Ally prompted.
“I don’t follow American football. I know no Sirhan Sirhan. Is he a football player too?”
“No, he assassinated Bobby Kennedy,” Ally explained.
“Oh my gracious! I certainly don’t know of him!” the counter man exclaimed, horrified.
I decided to cut into the history lesson. “Our Rosie doesn’t live around here but his friend does, down and across the street about four houses. His name is Tim Shubert.”
“I know Tim, he buys lots of cheese puffs and frozen pizzas.”
If Tim was a stoner the caliber of Rosie, I had no doubt he bought a lot of cheese puffs and pizzas.
“Rosie’s thin, about five foot six, dirty blond hair, looks a bit like Kurt Cobain but his face isn’t as pointy,” Ally put in.
“I know no Kurt Cobain but I have seen a man of this description with Tim. Is his name really Rosie?”
“Nickname,” I said, “his name is Ambrose.”
“Ambrose is a perfectly fine name. Why does he not call himself Ambrose?”
Ally looked at me.
I decided to ignore that one. Any answer would have to span a generation and a culture gap. I didn’t have it in me today, in less than twenty-four hours, I’d been shot at, physically dragged out of bed and kissed by Lee Nightingale three and a half times (yes, I was counting and the half was the kiss he planted on my neck).
I was a woman on a mission and I didn’t have time to explain a dud name like Ambrose.
“Have you seen him lately, like say, today?” I asked as I paid for my purchase.
“No, not today.”
“Tim?” Ally asked.
“Not Tim either.”
He handed me the bag and I took it, at a loss for what to do next.
“Jeez, Indy. Don’t you read detective novels? You own a bookstore for God’s sake,” Ally hissed and then turned to the store owner.
The counter man smiled huge. “You own a bookstore? I love books. What bookstore do you own?”
“Fortnum’s, on the corner of Bayaud and Broadway,” I answered.
“I know that. My wife goes there. Books are cheap there and then you can sell them back and get cash money.”
“Yep, that’s it.” I nodded and smiled, happy to meet a customer-by-proxy.
Ally was busy scribbling my name and numbers on a piece a paper she found in her purse and when she was done, she handed him the paper. “Maybe you could give us a call if you see Rosie or Tim. Would you do that?”
“Of course. I’m an employer, only my wife works for me but I understand how impor
tant it is to trust your hired help. I will call you.”
“Thanks.”
We went out and sat in my car and stared at Tim’s house while we thought about what to do next. We both were new at this. Neither of us had tracked down a stoner-on-the-run before. We’d stalked plenty of guys, but we’d known where to find them.
We both ate a cupcake to get the brain juices flowing.
“That was a nice guy,” I said through yellow cake and cream.
“Yep,” Ally replied, her mouth equally full.
Someone tapped on Ally’s window and we both jumped and swiveled our heads to the side.
I nearly spewed better-living-through-chemistry cream on my windshield at what I saw.
It was Grizzly Adams, but the serial killer version. He was enormous, had lots of wild, blond hair, a thick, seriously overlong (we’re talking ZZ Top here) russet beard and was wearing a flannel shirt even though it had to be nearly ninety degrees.
He was also carrying a shotgun and had some kind of freaky-ass goggle apparatus on the top of his head.
“You want somethin’?” he growled.
“We’re looking for Tim Shubert,” Ally replied calmly.
“He’s not here,” Grizzly said, “move along.”
“Yep, yep. Going!” I shouted and started the car, put it into gear and took off.
“Where are we going?” Ally asked.
“Hell if I know.”
“We should have asked him some questions,” Ally said, completely at ease
“Right. No. We’re trying to avoid me getting dead. Definitely you getting dead. I don’t talk to people who carry shotguns around in broad daylight.”
“He looked interesting,” Ally said contemplatively.
Shit.
* * * * *
It was just after four.
After our introduction to Grizzly, we’d swung back by Fortnum’s to help out Jane for awhile and ask if she’d heard from Duke (answer: no).
Now, Ally and I were in my dark blue VW Beetle, windows down, sunroof back, sitting outside Rosie’s house sipping leftover water and waiting.
My Beetle wasn’t exactly a rock ‘n’ roll-mobile but it was cute. It had cream leather seats that were great in the winter because they heated up. Now that it was summer, the seats stuck to your legs and every time you got out, it felt like three layers of skin tore off (another reason to wear jeans).
Denver had killer weather, as in nearly perfect. Summers were hot but usually at night it cooled off enough to sleep under a cover. Spring and Fall were volatile and allowed for variety in wardrobe. Winter was never too cold because there was no moisture in the air. The occasional blizzard was a bummer and sometimes there were snowstorms in July but nearly every day was sunny and the blue skies of Denver could not be beat.
We’d already called Duke, like, a gazillion times. Duke and Dolores were visiting Dolores’s parents in Pagosa Springs and they were supposed to be home in the morning but had still not arrived. I didn’t know Dolores’s parents’ number or her maiden name. We were stuck on that score.
I found Duke’s disappearance curious and a little scary. Though Duke had been known to go walkabout, except it was walkabout on a Harley.
Duke didn’t do cell phones and I was loath to go to Evergreen. Although Rosie would likely be there or go there, at least eventually as that was where the diamonds were, so might Lee and I had decided I was definitely back to avoiding Lee.
I had not come to terms with this abrupt about-face and needed time to process it.
Who was I kidding?
There was no processing going on.
Lee and I were not gonna happen.
I hated to break Ally and Kitty Sue’s hearts but I’d seen Lee tear through a variety of women’s lives and I wasn’t going to be one of them.
These days, he was never home.
I had no idea what he did for a living but I was pretty sure it was dangerous.
And he was way too damn cocky.
Ally and I were both staring at Rosie’s house and I was trying to pluck up the courage to drive to Evergreen and maybe have a scary faceoff with Lee that I had to have the cojones to win when someone tapped on the back passenger window.
“Shit!” I jumped and shouted.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”
In Ally’s window was a nice-looking man, though a wee-bit steroid ridden and overdeveloped in the chest area but he had a good haircut, shirt, tie, slacks.
“We’re a bit jumpy. We’ve had kind of a rough day,” Ally explained, smiling her flirty smile.
Conversely, although Ally could head bang with the best, she was a White Hat type of gal. She liked the good boys. She liked preppies and corporate types and definitely men in uniform. She understood a good guitar riff but she liked her men clean-cut and ties and uniforms drove her wild.
“You lookin’ for Rosie?” the man asked.
I blinked.
Were we that obvious?
“Uh, yeah,” I replied.
He nodded. “I live over there.”
He pointed in the vague direction of “over there” and both Ally and I followed his finger, not sure precisely which house “over there” was his then looked back to him.
“Is Rosie in trouble?” the guy asked.
“Does Rosie get in trouble, do you know?” I asked in return.
The guy shook his head. “Not that I know of. Quiet guy. Killer coffee.”
We all nodded.
“I’m Gary,” he said.
Ally extended her hand. “Ally,” she said and then she pointed to me, “and this is India.”
Upon hearing my name, he turned and looked over his shoulder and gave a nod.
Ally and I turned and looked over our shoulders too.
Too late.
Before I could react to the two men running toward our car, my door was wrenched open, I was dragged out and I let out a howl when the backs of my legs were ripped from the hot leather seats.
I stopped my howl midway with an “oof” because I hadn’t taken my seat belt off and when the guy yanked me out, my belt jerked me back.
“Jesus, Teddy. Release the belt,” another man said.
I took this opportunity to scream.
Teddy dropped me, I hit the side of the seat and I used the steering wheel to pull myself back into it.
Ally had already been hauled out the other side, she wasn’t screaming and that scared the shit out of me.
I had no time to look for Ally as Teddy’s hands came around to undo the belt and I bent forward and bit his arm.
“Fuck!” He reared back and punched me in the cheekbone.
Hard.
I have never, in my life, been hit by a man.
I got in a bitch slapping catfight at a Public Image Limited – Big Audio Dynamite double bill but we were in a mosh pit gone bad. It was punk, it was expected.
Getting hit by a man hurt.
A fucking lot.
So much, I quit screaming and concentrated on the burning hurt that was radiating out of my cheekbone into my entire face.
“Teddy, for Christ sake. Are you nuts? She’s Nightingale’s. He’s gonna rip your dick off. This is supposed to go smooth.”
I opened my mouth to scream again and started back with the struggling.
Then Teddy was pulled away, someone touched me with something and after that, I didn’t remember a thing.
Chapter Five
Cupcakes
I came to feeling very funky and unable to move my limbs.
I focused on what appeared to be the ceiling of a car and heard voices from what sounded like really far away.
By the time the car stopped, I was able to move a little bit but not much. I was feeling tingly all over and my head was fuzzy.
The door to the car was opened and I was hauled out with hands under my armpits. Whoever hauled me out put me on my feet, my legs buckled and I nearly went down before I was caught. It was time again to lament
the mini-skirt as a girl doesn’t want to be tossed around by bad guys while wearing a short skirt.
“Shit, hold her up, you moron.”
Two guys, one of them I noted was Goon Gary (not The Moron), dragged me by my upper arms through a tidy garage and into a house. I was shaking my head, trying to clear it and thinking not much of anything except that I wished I was wearing jeans.
I was taken into a room and heard a man say, “Jesus, what the fuck?”
The answer came hesitantly. “We had to stun her.”
“What happened to her face?”
This answer was more hesitant. “She bit Teddy so he hit her.”
“Christ! Which part of ‘I want this to go smooth’ did you not understand? Nightingale’s going to have a shit hemorrhage. Get her some ice then call Teddy, get him out of town.”
I was planted on a couch and not processing much of their conversation. I was focused on getting my fingers to move. I was together only enough to notice Goon Gary and The Moron making a hasty exit and that the couch I was on was a really nice couch, fluffy and covered in cream silk damask. I’d only just bought my couch a couple of months ago and I was still in couch-assessment mode, the kind of mode that unconsciously comes whenever you make a major purchase.
I succeeded in lifting my head to look at the guy who’d been talking. He was wearing gray slacks, a maroon shirt with a monochromatic tie. He was short, had to be in his fifties and had jet-black hair with white at each temple. He looked like what I would guess a younger Grandpa Munster would look like. Except a lot more creepy and definitely scary but not in a comic way.
“You okay?” he asked me.
No, I wasn’t okay. I’d just been punched in the face and then kidnapped.
I just stared at him.
“I’m really sorry about his,” he said. “I’m having troubles with some of my employees.”
No shit.
I thought it but didn’t say it, I hadn’t recovered enough to form words.
Gary came back with an ice bag wrapped in a kitchen towel and handed it to me. I was happy I had enough limb coordination to put it on my face. My cheekbone hurt like hell.
“This didn’t go as I’d planned. I just wanted to have a chat. I heard Nightingale had a woman and I was curious,” the man said to me, his tone surprisingly conciliatory.
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