“Just get him out of here,” Ginny said. “Get them both out of here. Please.”
The crisis sorted, Penny leaped out of Ginny’s arms, crossing the floor to where another human was inspecting Theodore’s throat. Her human looked up and saw her there.
“Hey, you.” His voice sounded strange, but he was smiling. Penny’s tail lashed one more time, even as she purred her pleasure that he was all right. Not even the sight of the puppy on his knee, his hand stroking its fur, could ruin her good mood.
14
The cops weren’t the same ones who’d come out the last time someone came into Mary’s looking to do damage, but they’d obviously heard about Georgie.
“Looks like your dog’s been teaching that cat some lessons about being badass,” the younger of them said to Ginny, eyeing all three animals clustered by the door as though expecting Parsifal to suddenly sprout fangs.
The gunshot woman had been loaded into the first ambulance, and taken off, while statements were taken from everyone in the bar. The injured man—still moaning about his face—was being packed into a smaller emergency vehicle that had been called once the situation had been assessed. The other cop said something to the paramedic, and then stepped back, the doors closing just as the vehicle took off down the street.
“I think Penny was born badass,” Ginny said after a moment, when the noise of the sirens died down. The cop smiled politely, made his excuses, and joined his partner outside on the street, where they seemed to be comparing notes.
“They’ve suggested that we hire a private security guard,” Teddy said glumly, watching them through the window. “Because yeah, that’s the rep we want, exactly.”
Ginny patting him on the arm. “Still. Nobody seems too traumatized, and only the bad guys got hurt. That’s good, right?”
“Excuse me?” Stacy raised her hand, dragging their attention back to the others. “I haven’t had my hair pulled that hard since I was in fourth grade.”
“You got close enough to get grabbed,” Seth said. “You haven’t been listening to a thing I been teaching you?”
“I was serving customers! How was I supposed to know that she was going to go all psycho hair-pulling on me?”
Ginny tapped Teddy on the arm and tilted her head, indicating Hollins, who had calmly given his statement to the cops first, and was now waiting off to the side, near the table they’d been sitting at originally. A quick look at him, you’d never think he’d walked up to a knife-wielding sociopath and shot her in cold blood. Or maybe that was exactly what he looked like.
He’d had a permit for the pistol, fortunately. And since there were witnesses galore that the woman intended to do significant harm…
“It seems fair to expect that those individuals will roll over on their employer, yes?” he said to them now.
“Maybe,” Teddy said. “Depends on if they were paid enough to ensure their loyalty. But the cops have enough to charge them, and if they’re smart they’ll make a bargain.” He didn’t think they were very smart in that regard. “Either way, their boss knows that officials are watching, so I suspect he’s going to close up shop, at least for a while.”
“Good.” He must have seen surprise on their faces, because he looked exasperated. “I told you, as I told that female. I did not like their methods, and will be pleased to see them shut down.”
“And it doesn’t bother you that you’re going to be called to testify?”
“I’m a respectable businessman,” Hollins said. “Here to meet with potential business partners, who are entirely on the side of good, if not always the letter of the law. Why should I be worried?”
Since they didn’t actually have any evidence against him, Teddy had to, reluctantly, give him that.
“And he will certainly have more pressing matters now than coming after two reasonably intelligent but relatively powerless amateur investigators,” Hollins added.
“That helps us, but it still doesn’t help Deke,” Ginny said. “He’s still homeless, and the cops still want to talk to him. And the moment they do that, the minute he gets flustered, he’s toast.”
Hollins made a coughing noise, stage-perfect faux-concern. “I take it, from your comments, that this individual is not one who wishes close contact with the police?”
“You know that already,” Teddy said. “You do your homework.”
“As I was saying before our discussions were so rudely interrupted, it was because he worked for me, however indirectly, that your friend got into this bind,” he said. “Therefore, I will make reparations.”
“Not a deal? Why the change in tone from earlier?” Teddy didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but this had the look of a Trojan horse more than a pet pony.
“I have already determined that neither of you is interested in a continuing association. And if this bar has already developed a reputation among the local police, then it would not suit my needs, either.”
“Well, there’s a silver lining,” Ginny said, quietly snarky, and Teddy grinned at her. If she was back to snarking, then everything was under control. Or nearly, anyway.
He turned back to Hollins. “Reparations how?”
“So we just let the bastard go?” Seth sounded like he was a hundred percent done with everything.
“It’s not like we actually have anything we could nail him on,” Ginny said reasonably. “His concealed carry was in order, by the cops’ standards he did the righteous thing in shooting that crazy woman, and like he said, far as anyone knows for certain he’s a respectable podiatrist who happened to be in the wrong place at the right time, or something.”
It was a few minutes after midnight, and Tonica had finally kicked everyone out, claiming they’d had their fun earlier, leaving the four of them leaning against the bar in various poses of exhaustion. This was also the first chance they’d had to fill Seth and Stacy in on the discussion they’d had with Hollins.
“So we keep quiet about what little we know about the puppy mill, don’t give his people any grief, and he makes all this go away?” Tonica was still having trouble swallowing that, too, even though he’d agreed to it.
“It’s… not a bad plan, actually. He pins all the blame on the maintenance guy—turns out, he’s the guy who came around every month to check on the dogs, at all the houses, not just Deke’s. Hollins is pretty sure he’s the one who actually did set the fire—that’s why he was there in time to ‘rescue’”—Ginny used air quotes—“Shana and Deke in the first place. Said he’s the kind of guy who’d do pretty much anything for a hundred. So Hollins will just pay him a little extra to take the fall. Cost of doing business.”
“We just have to say he was the one who had the dogs in the basement and Deke, being hard of hearing, never realized it,” Tonica added. “Since that’s more or less the line Deke was taking, anyway…”
“And the maintenance guy will go along with this?” Stacy was frowning, too. She had really wanted everyone to go to jail.
“He’s going to get nailed for the fire, one way or the other,” Tonica said. “Better to get paid for it, too, I guess. Nobody died in the fire, and an unregistered puppy mill isn’t illegal, just skeevy. And it’s not like the people he works for are all that concerned about clean references. His willingness to take a fall might actually make him more employable.”
Ginny glared at her ginger ale, wishing it was something stronger but not trusting herself with booze, this late at night. Georgie might be able to sleep comfortably in the storeroom, but she couldn’t. Then again, she wasn’t sure even booze would help her sleep well tonight.
“He’s a bit player, Stacy,” Seth said. “Long as those goons turn on their boss, the fights at Sammy’s are over, and from what these two say, Hollins sounds like the kind of guy who, when he cleans his house, cleans the entire neighborhood, if you know what I mean. Even if the cops drop
the ball on their end.”
“Good,” Stacy said, and knocked back the last of her beer, slamming the glass onto the counter with a little too much emphasis.
“It’s not perfect,” Ginny went on, “but this way Deke gets people to leave him alone, which was pretty much all he wanted, anyway.”
He still didn’t have a place to live, but being homeless because of fire was a lot better than because you were evicted—especially when nobody was claiming that the fire was your fault.
Hollins had also offered Deke a job—a legitimate one—but neither of them had felt like they could accept on Deke’s behalf. Whatever those two agreed to, Ginny and Tonica had decided the less they knew, the better.
Teddy noted that Seth still wasn’t looking happy. “Who twisted your shorts, old man? We did what you asked.”
“Yeah, mebbe. But seems like that Hollins guy solved most of the problems, means what you did was just a whole lot of running around and shouting. So much for your vaunted investigative skills.”
“Excuse you?” Both Ginny and Penny’s hackles rose at that, Teddy was amused to note.
“You fell over the answer, and somebody else solved the problem, Blondie. That ain’t what I was paying you for.”
“You fired us,” Tonica replied.
“And you never actually paid us our retainer, either,” Ginny pointed out.
“Well, that’s convenient, innit?”
And there was the next round of Old Coot vs. Mouthy Dame, off and running. Teddy was about to pour himself another beer and watch the show when his phone vibrated at his hip. He looked at the display, and stepped away from his friends to answer it.
“I’m busy.”
“No you’re not,” his oldest sister said, sounding far too alert considering it had to be 3 a.m., her time. “You don’t work on Mondays. I’m tired of you ducking your shit.”
Teddy raised his eyebrows at that, but trying to interrupt his sister when she was in flow was pointless.
“There’s a conference call on Wednesday and you will get your ass on it, all right? Nobody’s going to make you come back to the East Coast if you don’t want to, but you are going to own up to your damned responsibilities this once, Theo.”
“Yeah. All right.”
There was silence on the other end of the phone. Clearly, she had expected more of a fight. Equally clearly, his cousin hadn’t told the others that he’d already given in. He sighed. The politics of family was much harder than the politics of the bar.
“All right, then. Eight p.m. Be there, Theo!” And then she ended the call, as abrupt as ever. No doubt there was a senator or a diplomat who needed handling more than her baby brother.
“Tonica!” Ginny was calling him over. Apparently he was needed to cast the deciding snark. Maybe he hadn’t fallen so far from the family career-tree as everyone thought. For once, the thought amused rather than depressed him.
As he passed by the bar, he lifted his arm, and Penny leaped onto it, walking up to his shoulder, where she draped herself comfortably, her claws digging in just enough to make themselves known.
“That’s twice now you’ve helped out,” he said to her. “Maybe we should make you and Georgie official members of the team, hmmm?”
Penny purred in his ear, and flexed her claws in satisfaction, as though to say what took you so long to figure that out?
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book owes a great deal to Barbara Caridad Ferrer (again), for above-and-beyond, the Tenants Union of Washington State, for answering oh so many odd questions, and the ASPCA, for everything they do.
Also by L.A. Kornetsky
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Pocket Books
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Copyright © 2014 by Laura Anne Gilman
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ISBN 978-1-4767-5004-0
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CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Acknowledgments
L.A. Kornetsky - Gin & Tonic 03 - Doghouse Page 22