He hadn’t gotten the “personal shit” vibe from anyone he’d met at the shelter. Admittedly, he hadn’t met everyone yet, and some folks could keep their stink hidden, but…
“If it were easy, they wouldn’t hire you guys to do it,” he said, and flagged Stacy down for that coffee. While he waited, he took his phone out of his jacket pocket and entered a contact number. Nobody answered—he hadn’t expected them to—so he left a message. “Hi, it’s Tonica. I was wondering if you know anything about Lightspeed Security? Give me a call. It’s not life-or-death, but it’s kind of time-sensitive. Thanks.”
Ginny might have contacts in local government and with credit card companies; he knew bouncers and bartenders. And bouncers, as a general rule, knew about security companies. Especially, they’d know if the company hired part-timers and college students rather than trained professionals. Not that he suspected the night watchman of being their thief—most of them knew better—but better to rule that out now rather than regret it later.
Despite the growing crowd, as the after-work rush built, nobody came over and bothered him while he worked, for which Teddy was thankful. The beer at his elbow was refilled without a fuss, a platter of cheese and coarse toasted bread showing up at one point, although the kitchen wasn’t open yet. He ate and drank methodically, and at six o’clock switched over to water, before the start of his own shift.
When his phone rang just as he was closing the notebook, dissatisfied with his results but unable to think of anything else, he stared at it in surprise, as though not sure what it was at first, then accepted the call.
“Hello? Oh, hey, I didn’t expect to hear… huh. Really?”
He’d hit the jackpot: his contact not only knew Lightspeed, but had done some work for them.
“Good to work for? They pay on time? Hire decent people? I mean, other than you.”
His parenthood got roundly insulted, and then his contact gave him the skinny on the company. Teddy opened the notebook again and jotted down whatever he thought was relevant, and asked a few more questions before thanking the other man and hanging up the phone.
“Hrm.” He poked his notes with the pen, thinking through what was written there. Nothing that needed to be acted on—or even could be, considering it was after business hours on a Friday night. There were ways to reach people, especially security service people, after hours, but if it wasn’t urgent, that only pissed them off, and rightfully so. It could wait.
Besides, he was on shift, and Stacy looked like she could use the relief.
* * *
Friday nights were usually pretty quiet at Mary’s. It wasn’t the kind of place where people got out-of-control drunk, more like politely shitfaced, and normally the only time Teddy had to break out the bouncer moves was when a guy creeped a little too much over the line—and most of those times, the patrons shut it down before he had to go under the bar and get involved. That was another reason that he really liked working at Mary’s.
Tonight, though, a little after nine o’clock there was a tension in the air that was making him scan the crowd more alertly than usual. It wasn’t terribly crowded, but the noise level was high. Clive had gone home, Seth was in the kitchen, and Stacy was back to working the tables, taking orders and clearing away tables as people left. Everything looked normal.
If Ginny were here, she’d—but she wasn’t. Dinner plans, she’d said. Jesus, when had he gotten so used to her being around all the time?
He finally spotted the trouble when Stacy let out a yelp that carried, even through the noise. Three guys, college students or recent grads, well dressed and well into their third round, and they might’ve been drinking before they got here, too. One of them seemed to think that Stacy—petite and young-looking—was fair game, and his buddies weren’t dissuading him.
“Damn it.” Normally he’d send Seth over—it took a seriously drunk idiot to hit an old man who looked as tough as Seth still did—but it would take too long to get his attention in the kitchen. And leaving the bar unattended was a massive Don’t.
“Hey!” His voice cut through the crowd, conversations falling silent in its wake. The three drunks looked up, same as everyone else, wondering who he was shouting at.
“Hands off the staff !” Teddy said, still not shouting, but clearly audible. He’d done time onstage in high school, and some lessons you remembered, even two decades later. “Yes, you three,” he added, even as Stacy was removing herself from Grabby’s hands, giving him a glare worthy of Mistress Penny at her most offended.
There was a moment when everything could have stayed calm, where the three would either slink out, embarrassed, or shake it off as harmless fun, or—
Teddy saw the sea change in Grabby’s face, the hint of anger that too often led to violence, and he was heading under the bar before anyone else got involved. He didn’t bother grabbing for any of the implements of drunk-correction stashed within reach. With luck, nobody would try to play hero, because he really didn’t want the cops coming back here anytime soon.
“You sleazy little prick,” he heard Stacy say, while he was still half under the passway, and came up again in time to see her swing at Grabby’s face, her fist connecting perfectly with his chin.
Seth, the ex-boxer, had been teaching her some moves. Grabby didn’t go down completely, but he did let go of her, falling backward into his chair like someone had cut his strings.
Teddy halted his forward momentum and watched as she took a handful of the guy’s collar and leaned in to say something in his face. She’d taken down their would-be assailant last time, too, although she’d used a tackle to do it. Maybe he’d let her handle all the drunks from now on?
Grabby’s buddies had apparently decided to treat this as hysterical rather than threatening, and were laughing their asses off. In the corner, someone hooted in derision, and there was a scattering of applause for Stacy before everyone went back to their drinks and conversations.
That was Mary’s. Patrick was insane if he thought fiddling with it was going to improve things. Teddy shook his head and wondered, briefly, if Ginny was enjoying her evening as much as he was.
At that moment, an older man walked in, and Teddy raised a hand in greeting. “Hey, Simeon!” Ginny had said he owned a dog who came from the shelter. Maybe he’d gotten to know some of the staff there.
* * *
Ginny woke up a few minutes after 6 a.m., still bleary-eyed from getting in too late—alone, but not entirely sober—and utterly unwilling to do the responsible dog owner thing, even with Georgie’s big brown eyes staring hopefully at her from the side of the bed.
“No.” Her voice was too thick, and she coughed to clear it. “Go back to sleep, baby. ’Nother hour?”
Georgie whined a little, deep in her throat, and Ginny relented.
“All right,” she said, reaching out to tousle Georgie’s flopped-over ears. “All right, give me a minute. Go get your leash.”
The sound of clawed paws on the hardwood floor receded into the living room, and Ginny slipped into sweatpants and a long-sleeved cotton T-shirt, shoved her bare feet into sneakers, and went out into the living room, where Georgie sat patiently waiting, leash in her mouth. She took the leash—no longer wincing at the inevitable drool on it—and hooked it to Georgie’s collar, and then the two of them took the elevator down to the street.
Saturday morning walks were more social than the weekday ones—fewer people rushing through before heading off to work. Ginny spoke with the owners of a pair of Pomeranians named Max and Valerie, a Labradoodle she only knew as “Pookie,” and Chester, a black-and-tan mutt of dubious but friendly origins, passing the time while their four-legged companions did their thing.
It was a good day for shmoozing: the leaves on the trees were turning pale red and gold, and the morning wind rustled them lightly, making people even more inclined to take it slow. They talked briefly about the weather, the latest local zoning scandal, and the chances of the Seahawks maki
ng a decent pick in next year’s draft. Ginny didn’t actually care about football, but she’d done some work with a player’s wife back when she started her business, and had discovered that being able to half-ass some interest was a good networking tool.
Ginny knew that she should have been trying to work the dog owners for information while they chatted, see if any of them had heard any rumors or gossip about the shelter, but couldn’t think of any way to bring it up, short of “and is your dog a rescue,” and then what? “Oh, have you heard anything about them maybe having financial trouble?”
It was a relief, after that, to be alone again on the street, just her and Georgie. Ginny’s head ached despite the fresh air, and her ankles ached from wearing heels all night, and all she wanted to do was crawl back into bed and have a lazy weekend watching movies, or catching up on her reading.
Freelancers didn’t get weekends, though. And freelance investigators certainly didn’t get weekends, not once they were on the job. Once they said yes, the clock started ticking. Problem was, unless Tonica had found something out last night, they had no idea where to start.
She’d totally blown chances this morning, probably. Tonica could have done gotten information from the other dog owners without blinking, and made them believe that they were the ones who’d asked originally. She was good at telling people what needed to be done, or asking them what they needed and making it happen, not getting them to share something without making it seem important.
She did have one undeniable skill that Tonica lacked, though. And she could do it while Tonica was still asleep. Ginny had learned from experience that after a closing shift, he wouldn’t wake up until ten at the earliest, and more likely noon.
So as soon as Georgie finished her social and scatological rounds, and had been rewarded with breakfast, Ginny went into her office, flipped open the slender file she had tossed there the night before, and went to work.
“This,” she told the dog, who had curled up and settled in for a nap under her feet, “this I can do better than anyone else. Well, better than most, anyway.”
Georgie merely burped in response.
The employee records she had gotten from the shelter were bare-bones, just their resumes, start dates, job descriptions, and salaries where applicable, but it was enough to start digging through the public records, at least.
“First things first. Nobody has any immediately obvious outstanding debt, but how do they look under the surface?” She tapped her fingers on the desk, frowning. “And how do I look under the surface, without access to a Social Security number or authorizations?” Usually a client gave her the information she needed to do her job. Here… the client didn’t have access to that, and Este was too savvy to leave a detail like Social Security numbers in the files she handed over.
Usually Ginny appreciated competence, but here it was making her job more difficult, not easier.
When in doubt, ask someone sneakier. Or someone who has that access legally, and owes her a favor they really want to pay off.
She picked up the phone again and checked a number against her database before dialing it.
“Darren. Buddy. Old pal.”
Her IT guy grunted a response, already suspicious.
“How would you like to dump that poker game debt you’ve been carrying for the past few years?”
“I’ve already worked it off twice over, fixing your computer, woman,” he said. “Just tell me what you want and I’ll tell you if I can do it.”
And Tonica said she had no people skills.
* * *
Several hours later, feeling rather pleased with herself despite now owing Darren a large, unspecified favor, Ginny called her partner and told him to meet her “at the office” in an hour.
She got to Mary’s a little later than that. After pausing to say hello to the regulars, already set up for the afternoon, she saw Tonica, looking rumpled despite his brush-cut and freshly pressed shirt. He was behind the bar even though he wasn’t working that afternoon. He’d probably chased Jon, the new guy, off for not wiping a glass right, or something. Not that she had any right to nitpick someone else’s perfectionism tendencies… “Hey,” she said.
“Hey yourself,” Tonica said, half of his attention on the drink he was mixing. She slung herself onto a bar stool, placing her bag on the stool beside her and pulling out her tablet and a folder.
He finished what he was doing, took a sip, and made a face, dumping the rest of the drink into the sink behind the counter. “Okay, whoever requested that drink last night is insane, or a masochist.”
His voice had the usual tone of cranky bullshit he’d perfected, but there was something off. “What’s wrong?”
She was getting better at reading people. Or maybe she just knew him well enough now to see that the usual easy snark was strained today.
He made a face. “Busy night last night, and Patrick came by earlier. He brought people in to look over the place. They were making notes and drawings and basically annoying the hell out of everyone.”
“Drawings?” She knew he’d been giving them crap about costs, and hanging over their shoulders rather than letting them get work done, but this sounded like something new.
Tonica lifted his hands in a “who knows” sort of gesture. “Architects, their card said. I think he wants to do renovations. Maybe, I don’t know, turn the parking lot into an open-air patio? They spent a lot of time out there.”
“Well. It would be nice, in the dryer weather,” she said, doubt coloring her voice. It wasn’t as though all that many people drove to Mary’s except on trivia night, so parking wasn’t an issue, but she wasn’t entirely sold on the need for a patio, either.
“This place is exactly the way it should be,” he said. “It’s got the right vibe, we have enough room, and shutting down even for a while, or trying to make a go of it during renovations, could be a disaster. He’s an idiot. But he’s the idiot who owns this place. It just made last night somewhat stressful.” He shrugged, and gave the bar back to the new guy, then came out to join her on a stool on the customer side. “So, how was your night?”
She felt herself blush, and hoped against hope that he didn’t notice. Yeah, no luck there.
“Why Gin Mallard, did you have a date last night?” He leaned forward, his expression moving smoothly from annoyed to intrigued. “A good date, from the way your ears just turned red. Do tell.”
“A pretty good date, and no, you don’t get any details.” So much for her theory that he wouldn’t be nosy. She should have known better—if he thought he could get under her skin somehow, he’d never let up. Teddy Tonica was like the king of annoying, if he thought it might be useful later—or amusing, now.
The truth was, it hadn’t been so good that there were any details to share, anyway—unless he really wanted to know how her veal had been, or how many glasses of wine it took her to consider and then discard the idea of inviting her date up for a nightcap.
At least one more than she’d had, it seemed.
“Waiting for Max to show up before you spill, huh?”
“I don’t tell Max everything,” she retorted. Not now, anyway. When she and Max worked together, he’d had more chance to dig the details out. Of course, there had been more details to dig then. And Max had shared all of his, too. In intimate and occasionally gory detail.
“But I, at least, did not let play interfere with work,” she said, changing the subject. “Spent the morning working my mojo, which, despite what you may think, is just as useful as poking people until they squeal.” She put the folder down on the countertop with a solid thwap. She preferred to copy everything from her desktop onto her tablet for convenience, but Tonica liked paper. And since she didn’t trust him not to drop her tablet, or spill something on it, she was perfectly happy to give him printouts.
“I have never doubted your ability to make the Internet sit up and beg,” he said. “Or anything else, for that matter.”
“Flattery
gets you nothing not already agreed to,” she said tartly, and he grinned back at her. Whatever had been bothering him when she came in, it seemed like work was the cure. She totally understood that.
“There are a total of eight people working at the shelter, plus occasional volunteers who only come in every now and then, or when they hold one of their sidewalk paws-and-greets, like where I saw Georgie. I’m discounting them for now, because it’s unlikely they’d have access to the inner office, and certainly not unsupervised.”
“Okay,” he nodded, listening. “So who do we have?”
“Starting with the bosses? Este Snyder and Roger Arvantis founded the place when they retired. Not married, have never filed any partnership papers, but they’ve been living together for the past twenty years, although it looks like Este owns the condo, at least on paper. She worked PR, was really hot stuff for a while, and he was office manager for the firm, so I’m guessing that’s where they met. He’s younger than she is, by the way.”
She looked up to see how he took that, but he just raised his eyebrows and waited for her to continue.
“Since they started the shelter, she’s been the public face, such as there is one, doing all the daily hands-on stuff, while he’s more behind-the-scenes. Once an office manager, always an office manager, I guess. And, as we learned, he handled the grant-writing. At least until he had heart problems about six months ago, at which point we know what happened.”
“What kind of heart problems?”
“I don’t know.” She hated having to admit that, and she knew he knew it. “Digging into hospital or insurance records is harder than it looks, without access to, well, anything personal.” Her agreement with Darren definitely did not go that far, even if he had the knowhow to hack hospital records.
L.A. Kornetsky - Gin & Tonic 02 - Fixed Page 9