Argo’s drew its share of visitors, too, and there was always the random tourist group from Ohio, West Virginia, or a province in Canada who got lucky enough to score a seat at the Green Table because of a last minute cancellation. Morgan didn’t find their conversations as tantalizing as those of the regulars, but still, cheesecake was cheesecake. Decadent calories for the mind.
Transients always brought a unique set of dilemmas to the Green Table: which attractions were worth the money, how they hated the thought of going back to work, in-laws and family issues, and guilt about spending so much money on vacation. Inevitably, their conversation always turned to food. The incredible food they were currently spooning into their gullets, a rehash of the food they’d eaten last night, and a discussion over where they might have dinner tomorrow.
Yes, Morgan thought, tourist conversations are usually predictable, and he was glad that the Green Table usually played host only to local VIPs. The current table’s occupants weren’t VIPs, however. They were parents of an employee. Just ordinary locals, one of whom was bitching instead of enjoying the food. He categorized their conversation as cheesecake of the key lime variety: bittersweet with an overriding aftertaste of sour.
The woman sitting at the Green Table lowered her voice, and Morgan automatically adjusted the volume of his earbud. “I don’t care if this is Argo’s,” she said to her husband. They were the parents of a college student who worked in the kitchen, a kid named Brent who had given them an Argo’s gift certificate for their wedding anniversary. “He’s a glorified busboy, for goodness’ sake. He should be doing something to get ready for a real career, something he can make a living at. Something he can list on a résumé.”
Morgan watched the monitor and saw the man pat the woman’s forearm. “Brent still has a year of college, Helen. A lot of kids his age work at restaurants. You should be glad that he has a job.”
“Beth Plowden’s son is a year younger than Brent and he’s working an internship at the television station. A paid internship.” The woman paused to chew a bite of food. “Even Laura’s boy has a good job. He earns enough money to pay for his own apartment.”
The soothing tone of the man’s voice told Morgan that such conversations between husband and wife were commonplace. “If you want Brent out of the house, we can set him up in an apartment near the campus.”
“That’s not the point! I just… I just wish he had a little ambition. I wish he was more like his older brother.”
“Honey, Brent is a great kid and I think we should enjoy this wonderful meal, which, by the way, is thanks to him. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” she said. “But I doubt Brent actually paid for the gift card. I’m sure he got it free since he works here.”
Disgusted at her attitude, Morgan abruptly stood, almost knocking over his desk chair. The woman was like a female version of Garland, he thought. She didn’t recognize her son’s abilities and talents. She was probably always too busy berating the kid, just like Garland used to ride Morgan’s ass when he was a teenager. Some people are effervescent, others aren’t. But an outgoing or shy personality had absolutely nothing to do with ambition, he knew. Morgan would have bet money that the kid had ambition, and plenty of it. He could tell by Brent’s work ethic, even if it was only a part-time job bussing tables. The boy was never late, did his job well, and never complained.
Compelled to intervene, Morgan pulled on his suit jacket and left the tiny office. The door’s lock was designed to engage automatically any time the door was closed, and he was careful to check his pocket for the key before pulling it tight. He found Brent unloading one of the commercial dishwashers. The boy was tall and stringy, with reddish hair and long bangs that almost concealed an acne-riddled forehead. Once his skin cleared up and his body had a chance to fill out, Morgan thought, Brent would be a fine-looking man. He motioned the employee over, and they walked outside through a rear delivery door. Startled by the appearance of her boss, a server stubbed out a cigarette, popped a mint in her mouth, and hustled back inside. A small piece of wood was wedged into the frame of the door to prevent it from shutting fully. The air was refreshingly cooler than that in the kitchen, and the night sky held an early moon. Much more pleasant than the confines of his office, Morgan thought. Although not nearly as interesting.
“Yes, sir?” the kid said once they’d positioned themselves against the metal railing that lined the loading ramp.
Morgan looked into the kid’s face. “What exactly is it that you want to do in life, Brent? Or, at least, what would you like to do for a career after college?”
“Uh, I’m not really, uh, into the restaurant scene,” Brent said. “I’m working here to save money. With the tip share and all, it’s more than a lot of my friends make, you know what I mean?”
Morgan knew he’d caught the kid off guard and Brent had over-thought the question. He tried again. “I’m not asking because I want you to move up the ranks at Argo’s. I’m curious. What do you have planned for the future?”
Brent took a step back and squinted at his boss in the yellowish glow from the building’s security lighting. “Honestly?”
“Honestly.”
“I’m going to Alaska for eight months to intern for the Department of Fish and Game. They provide housing and everything.” The kid studied his shoes for a moment, shuffled his feet. “It’s a very cool deal. After that, I’ll go through a criminal justice program while I work in their wildlife conservation division. And then I’ll be set up to become a park ranger. I can stay in Alaska or apply to work at any state park in the country.”
Morgan’s instinct had been correct. The woman sitting at the Green Table was a dolt. “That’s great. You’re going after what you want.”
“I guess so. I’m already accepted into the program.”
“But you haven’t told your parents?”
Brent’s expression changed, and Morgan realized his mistake. “Just a guess. I know what it’s like to deal with a demanding parent,” Morgan explained. “I was afraid to tell my father anything when I was your age.”
“Well, in my case, it’s my mom. She’s totally high-strung. I think I’m going to wait and tell them about Alaska, like maybe right after graduation. Or I guess I could tell my dad and let him tell her.”
Morgan opened the loading door and food preparation noises drifted out: long-handled stainless spoons clanking against giant pots, oil sizzling, tableware being stacked, and the strange, barked sentences that constituted kitchen language.
“Not a bad idea.” Morgan held the door for Brent and followed the employee back inside. “Maybe you should go somewhere with your father—just the two of you—and you can fill him in on your game plan.” He looked into the kid’s confused face. “By the way, thanks for the job you do here for us.”
“Uh, sure. I mean, yes, sir. You’re welcome.”
When Morgan reached the Green Table, Brent’s parents were finishing dessert.
“Hello, I’m Morgan. I understand you’re celebrating twenty-five years together and wanted to stop by to wish you a happy anniversary.”
“Oh, thank you,” the woman said. “Are you the manager?”
“I’m the owner. But in the restaurant business it’s all one and the same.” Morgan produced a modest grin. “Manager, server, window washer, you name it.” He still didn’t enjoy doing it, but he had definitely gotten the hang of polite, meaningless chatter.
“You’re Brent’s boss, then,” she stated.
“Yes, and let me say how thrilled we are to have your son working for us while he’s finishing school. He’s such a reliable employee, and so smart, too.” Morgan lowered his voice for effect. “And how many kids ever treat their parents to a dinner at Argo’s? Even with the courtesy discount, the gift certificate cost half his paycheck. He really wanted to make this night special for you.”
The woman’s already stretched face cinched up more, and her mouth puffed into an “O.” Morgan left the table
feeling good and realized that he was hungry for the first time in days. Ravenous, in fact.
NINE
Nestled in a vibrating chair and feet soaking in bubbling water, I studied up on the latest fashion trends in Vogue magazine—especially the undergarments and lingerie—and tried to ignore Spud and Fran. The day spa had a total of four pedicure chairs, but I had a feeling they were purposely leaving the last chair next to my father empty until Jersey and crew had left the building. It was my regular place for manis and pedis, and I hoped they wouldn’t blackball me. After all, I didn’t ask Fran to go. She’d invited herself and talked Spud into joining us. It was his first ever pedicure. And everyone within hearing distance knew it.
“That feels like you’re trying to yank my toenail off, for crying out loud! What the hell are you doing down there? Using a pair of pliers?”
“Nope,” the girl countered without missing a beat. “Somebody borrowed those and didn’t give ’em back. These are cuticle trimmers. Very sharp cuticle trimmers. One time, I sneezed and snipped off the top of a little toe. Would’ve gotten fired, too, if I hadn’t found it floating in the water.”
Good for her. I made a mental note to leave a big tip. If only somebody were around to tip me for putting up with Spud on a daily basis, I’d be a wealthy woman.
I stretched my head from side to side to loosen up tight neck muscles. “Spud, a pedicure is supposed to be calming. Can’t you just relax and let her do her thing?”
“Sitting naked on a blender would be more relaxing than this,” he muttered. My father has a knack for offering visuals that people immediately wish they hadn’t visualized. And he mutters in a way that is akin to shouting. A chuckle came from one of the massage rooms.
Fran’s head appeared from behind an oversize fashion magazine. “Take a few five-count calming breaths, sweetie. You know, the kind we do in yoga class.”
“That yoga crap landed me in the hospital, for crying out loud.” Spud squinted at the girl working on his feet. “Ouch, ouch, and ouch! Can’t you go ahead and paint them or whatever you do and let’s be done with this torture?”
She smiled up at him. “What color would you like, Mr. Barnes?”
Wearing a pair of headphones—the noise-blocking kind with a hard plastic muff over each ear—my nail tech, Jenna, arrived. “Since you’re reading, I figured I’d listen to a little R and B,” she said with a wink.
“No problem,” I mouthed, wishing she had brought me a pair. I slid my holstered Ruger around the waistband of my jeans to a more comfortable position at the side of my hipbone, instead of toward the back where I normally carry it, and readjusted the hem of my top to cover it.
Jenna caught a glimpse of the gun. She stopped patting dry a foot and removed one ear cuff. “Thought you retired, Jersey.”
“I did. Sort of.” Months ago, I’d confessed to her that I had every intention of leaving home without a weapon. However, strapping on a hunk of stopping power is part of my daily routine, a habit like flossing and putting in contact lenses and wearing a bra to push up my size D’s. “There’s a patch for everything else. Nicotine. Waning hormones. Back pain. But they haven’t yet made a patch for retired security specialists.”
Spud let out a sound like a wounded dog. “Holy bejeeezus! Are you into that maraschino crap, for crying out loud?”
“You mean masochistic crap, baby. Like masochism, the opposite part of sadism. Maraschino is the sweet cherry that goes into a drink.”
“What?”
“Never mind,” Fran said. “That’s okay. It wasn’t on the Word-A-Day calendar.”
“Remind me to never come back to this toe salon,” Spud muttered.
Jenna replaced her headphones and pulled my other foot out of the water. Fran went back to her magazine. Spud crossed his arms and squinted at his nail tech, who threw him an air kiss and kept filing. I’d planned to get a manicure as well but decided that it was more important to get my father out of the salon. My fingernails could wait.
We left the day spa—me in my hearse and Spud on the back of Fran’s Vespa—and took off in opposite directions. Gathered inside the glass storefront, a group of heads watched us go.
I decided to pay Morgan a visit, for lack of anything better to do. The front doors were locked when I arrived, but his car was parked in back, next to a Gaffney Enterprises van. The door panel told me that the Gaffneys were in the safe business. I found a rear delivery door cracked open with a wedge of wood and stepped into a sparkling clean industrial kitchen.
“Hello? … Morgan?”
I followed the sound of voices to a small office. The office door was the kind with a hydraulic spring at the top, and it was held open with a chair. In jeans and a plaid shirt, a man—presumably the fellow from Gaffney Enterprises—crouched on the floor in front of a two-foot-tall metal safe.
“Morgan, hi, it’s Jersey.”
Morgan jumped at my voice. “What are you doing here?”
“Just out running errands.” I glanced at my watermelon-colored toes that stuck out of wedge sandals. “Thought I’d stop in to say hello.”
“I’m trying to get this safe opened,” Morgan said through a small laugh. “Couldn’t find the combination anywhere.”
“Well, it definitely saved me time when you e-mailed a picture,” the safe technician said. “You do the research in advance, you know exactly where to drill. This baby has a one-inch steel door and two different bolt systems.”
I don’t know a thing about safes, but the idea of breaking into one intrigued me. “Is the safe destroyed once you’ve opened it?”
He repositioned his large frame on the floor. “Naw, not if a person knows what they’re doing. Once it’s open, I’ll put a new dial ring and lock on it and repair the drill hole. Nobody will ever know I was here.”
“How long does it take?”
“I’ll have this one open in another twenty minutes or so.”
“Very cool.” I nearly went into bimbette mode to cull information on the safe’s contents but stopped myself. Morgan needed to trust me and open up, not blow me off more than he already had.
“You want something to drink?” He walked out of the office, waving me to follow.
“Water would be great, thanks.”
We sat at a booth in the dining area, only the drilling noise of metal cutting through metal coming from the kitchen disturbing the silence. Morgan’s knee bounced up and down. I asked how everything was going for him. Fine, he told me. Everything was fine. I drank my water. He fidgeted with his glass. I asked if he’d been getting out to explore Wilmington’s popular sights. He sure was, he lied. Trish had already told me otherwise. The drilling stopped, and Morgan glanced over his shoulder. He really wanted to know what was inside that safe. So did I. We heard pounding sounds and then silence. More drilling. More silence. We made small talk about Argo’s menu until the safe expert appeared.
“She’s open. You want to take a look before I install a new dial ring and lock?”
“That’s okay,” Morgan said, fast. “You’ve got my credit card info, so just leave an invoice on my desk. Don’t worry about fixing it right now.”
“Cheaper for you if I go ahead and do it while I’m here. That way you can use the safe. Otherwise, it’s a useless steel box.”
Morgan shook his head. “I’d rather you come back later. The extra charge is fine.”
“Your call.” The fellow shrugged and headed into the kitchen. “I’ll let myself out the back.”
Morgan thanked him and turned back to me. “Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but I’ve got a lot to do. And I’d like to check out the contents of the safe in private. There could be family stuff in there.”
I nodded. There could be.
“So if there’s nothing else, then…” He stood and waited for me to do the same.
Maybe I should have gone with the bimbette cover after all. Then I could have shouted something like “Finders keepers!” and raced him to the open safe. I decided
that waiting in the hearse would be the next best thing. At least I could see if he hauled anything out when he left. I stalled a bit longer to see if he’d change his mind, but he didn’t and I gave up. When Morgan walked me to the back door, we came face-to-face with a man and a gun, both aimed our way.
“Hold it! That’s far enough.” The weapon was a blued revolver, maybe a .38. Its owner was a stocky, light-skinned thug type with dirty blond hair, longish and tucked behind the ears. Well, one ear, anyway. The other one was half gone from the lobe up, as though somebody bit it off. A tattoo of a clock without hands surrounded by some sort of symbol—the kind of crude prison artwork created with a makeshift tattoo gun and ink from a ballpoint pen—decorated one forearm. His grip on the gun told me he was quite familiar with how to use it.
Hands up, I made my eyes go wide and stuck out my boobs. Morgan swayed and caught himself against a storage rack of foodstuffs. “Who are you?”
“An old friend of your father’s,” Earless said, and shrugged the gun my way. “Who’s she?”
“Nobody.” Morgan’s face paled, as much as a black man’s can. “Just a woman I know.”
Earless’s eyes roved over me and he grinned. “Like father, like son. You both go for the white meat.”
“My mother wasn’t a piece of meat.” Morgan emitted something near to a growl and charged Earless. The man backhanded Morgan across the face with the butt of the handgun. Morgan went down but kept talking. “Don’t talk about my mother that way!”
“Rosemary was a damn good salesperson, too. Your mother knew how to work the rich bitch crowd, I’ll give her that.”
Blood ran down Morgan’s chin from a cut lip. He pushed himself off the ground. “What are you talking about?”
T. Lynn Ocean - Jersey Barnes 03 - Southern Peril Page 6