“He brought a woman in here once,” he went on, casually. “Pretty, younger than him by maybe a decade. Might’ve been a date, although he’s married. Might just have been a closing a deal. He ordered her drinks for her.”
“Oh, nice.” Her voice dripped with the fact that she thought that was anything but nice.
“Yeah, she didn’t seem real thrilled with it, either. When she changed his order to something else, he laughed, but . . . well, he didn’t bring her here again, far as I know. Sure not on my shift.”
Ginny knew guys like that; control freaks, especially around women. Not surprising if the guy was a salesman, and owned—okay, co-owned—his own company. “So if I don’t bring the guy home by Monday?”
Tonica didn’t even have to think about it. “He’ll probably sue you to get the first payment back for failure to put out, I mean, perform.”
“Nice,” she said again.
“Yeah. I don’t think he’d bad-mouth you, after the fact, but . . .” He rotated his hand back and forth to indicate that he couldn’t be certain.
“Shit. Four days.” The unease came back, with a wallop. Now it wasn’t just a matter of getting the job done, but protecting her own company, too. Mallard Services had built up a decent reputation over the past two years, but all it took was one person with a grudge—and access to online review sites—to take it down.
She turned a speculative glance on him, and hrmmmed thoughtfully out loud. “You’re a smart boy, and you know more about DubJay than I do. How’d you like to help a girl out?”
He held up both hands in front of him in denial. “Hell no. You got yourself into this, Ms. Mallard. You get to handle it yourself.”
She watched his face, sorting and discarding ways to talk him into joining her in the insanity. Money? No. Appeal to his better nature? Definitely not. Sweet-talking? She wouldn’t know where to begin.
She smiled then, and it wasn’t a sweet smile. “What’s the matter, Tonica? Afraid this sort of work’s too much for you? Maybe you can’t handle it? Think I’ll show you up, or something?”
He swore under his breath, slapping the cloth down on the counter and making a few of the new patrons—those not used to their sparring—look up in confusion. Ginny didn’t let her smile turn into a grin, as she practically watched the gears in his head grind around and around. She didn’t know much about people, but she knew his number, for sure.
Finally, he gave in. “You’re on.”
Georgie lay on the sidewalk, and sighed. She did that regularly, not because she was depressed or sad, but because she liked the noise it made, whistling out her throat.
“You sound like an old man when you do that.”
The scolding was accompanied by a gentle swat on the side of Georgie’s head. The faint prick of claws might have caused another dog to shift, or growl in protest, but Georgie was getting used to it, and the folds of her skin protected her from such a glancing blow, anyway. The cat’s restless kneading of her skin was oddly comforting, like the feel of a human hand petting her head, only smaller and sharper and more prone to swatting for no reason whatsoever.
But right now, all she could think about was how bored she was. Even the damp air, which usually carried a hundred and ten different smells, was boring her.
“How much longer is she going to be in there?” There was only one she, to Georgie.
“It hasn’t been that long. You want to go home already?”
“No.”
She did, kind of.
Penny backed away, then jumped up on the sill of the big window, and looked inside. “They’re talking,” she reported back.
“They” meant Ginny and the man with the warm hands, called Teddy. He had come out a few times and petted her and given her water. That was all it took for Georgie to decide that she liked him. She wasn’t sure Ginny did, though. It was so hard to tell. Humans didn’t sniff or bark or show submission, or if they did, it was in ways a dog couldn’t tell.
Penny might. But she might not, and make something up if Georgie asked. Cats were like that. Penny was a good friend, but she could be mean sometimes, too.
Georgie sighed again, resting her square head on her paws. “They’ll be there foreeeeever.”
Penny swatted her again. “Yeah, at least another half an hour. Calm down, you drama hound. She always has you home in time for supper. And what, you’d rather be home on your cushion, with nothing to look at except the same old, same old?”
“Yes.” Georgie reconsidered. “Oh all right, no. It’s nice to have the change, and to get the chance to talk to you. But I miss her.”
“Dogs. Sheesh.”
Georgie raised her head at that, just enough to look Penny in the eye. “Oh yeah, cause you weren’t worried when he was home sick those days and you didn’t know where he lived to check on him.”
“Humans are humans. I don’t need any of them. Do I look like the collared type?” Penny flicked her long tail back and forth, and looked insulted.
Georgie snorted, a heavier, less elegant sound than her sigh. “You just keep telling yourself that, Mistress Penny-Drops.”
Cats might be smarter, but there were some things even dogs knew.
2
Five days a week, Ginny’s alarm was set to go off at 6:00 a.m. At 5:58 Friday morning, a low whine reached her brain, and she threw an arm out, as though to slap the clock. Instead, she reached a flat, warm shape, shoved up next to her bed. A flat, warm, slightly fuzzy shape that came with a long, wet tongue.
“Right.” It took her brain a moment to process the information. “I’m up, Georgie, I’m up.”
They both knew that was a lie. But when the alarm did go off, two minutes later, Ginny rolled out of bed with a groan, shutting the beep-beep-beep noise off with one hand while she pushed sweat-dampened strands of hair off her neck with the other. She needed a haircut; her curls got out of control if she let them grow too long.
“I suppose you want to be walked,” she said to her companion.
Georgie’s pig-curl of a tail was too short to thump but her butt wiggled, and her wrinkled face scrunched up more in anticipation. Shar-peis weren’t the prettiest dogs in the world, God knew, but Georgie’s expressive brown eyes always made Ginny feel better, somehow. Like the Grinch, when his heart grew.
Not that Ginny thought of herself as particularly Grinch-like, but she admitted to being a bit . . . reserved. Certainly, acquiring a half-grown dog had not been on her to-do list when she had wandered into downtown Ballard that fateful day last summer. All she’d wanted to do was pick up some coffee, and maybe look at a new pair of shoes.
The local shelter had set their cages up along the sidewalk in front of the storefronts, parading the larger dogs, encouraging people to come in and pet the smaller ones, and Ginny had come to a full stop at the first sight of that ridiculous body, the skin folded over neatly as though waiting for the dog inside to grow into it. And then Georgie had looked up at her, massive brown eyes and one ear that didn’t flop right, and Ginny was lost.
She reached out now and scrubbed those ears with her hand, making Georgie’s eyes squint shut in delight, and her backside waggled harder, making it a full-body squirm.
Breathe, she reminded herself. Breathe, and let the bad things go.
The past few years had been such a stress-fest, between the company she worked for being bought out, and everyone being canned that same week, and a relationship she’d thought was long term turning out to be not so much. And then her parents trying to get her to do something “more practical” instead of pouring everything she had into starting this new business? Yeah. Bad stress, the kind martinis and massages and gym workouts didn’t touch.
And then, Georgie.
Ginny had not been expecting that having someone look at you with such expectant adoration would be a feel-better tonic better than anything late-night TV or magazines could hawk, and with a hell of a lot fewer calories than a hot-fudge sundae. But it was, it absolutely was.<
br />
But there were obligations, too.
“Right. Go get your leash. Leash, Georgie.”
The dog dashed off, nails clicking on the hardwood floor of the condo. Ginny got out of bed and shucked off her pajama bottoms—white cotton with bright yellow ducks, a present from her friend Max—dropped them on the bed to deal with later, and pulled on a pair of gray sweatpants. For a quick pee-walk, she didn’t need underwear or a bra—her yellow tank top and a hoodie was decent enough for 6:00-a.m. standards, so long as she didn’t try to jog.
She was pulling on her Keds when Georgie came back, the tattered pink leash in her mouth.
“Good girl. Let’s go.”
She hadn’t thought to look out the window before they left the apartment, and water was coming down almost hard enough to actually qualify as rain. Ginny looked up at the sky from the front steps of her building, and sighed. “Really? In September?”
She thought the cloud cover lightened a little bit as they stepped outside, but it could have been her imagination. Georgie looked annoyed at getting wet, but her need to go outweighed her dislike of the weather, and they proceeded down the block, looking for exactly the right place.
Their neighborhood—only a few blocks away from the downtown area proper—was moderately upscale, but with the feel of a place that had gentrified slowly, rather than having developers come in and force-feed the change. Old warehouses still lined the bay, and the little breakfast place that had been there since the 1920s was still in business, but there was a fancy bike shop on the corner, and a bunch of high-end restaurants and boutiques that had come in over the past ten years, despite the crap economy. Even the old buildings like hers had been renovated to compete with the newer condos uphill, although she didn’t have the water view they did.
“You couldn’t afford it if you did,” she muttered. She’d looked at one of those condos, when she first moved here. Fancy kitchens, and with great views, but she loved her old building, with its occasionally cranky personality and prewar curves, more.
And, as a bonus, the city had left all the old trees lining the streets down here intact during the gentrification, so in the spring there was green, and in the autumn, for a very brief time, there was a splash of red, and Georgie had a wealth of topics to sniff around during her walks.
“Georgie, leave it,” she said, looking down in time to see the shar-pei sniffing at a cigarette butt. “Smoking’s bad for you.”
It wasn’t a particularly exciting neighborhood—her friends who lived in trendier hotspots or more luxurious suburbs had laughed when she moved here—but it had a distinct, slightly quirky personality, and Ginny liked the feel of it. Plus, her mother and stepfather were happily settled in their little suburban split-level just on the other side of Seattle proper, which meant that they were close enough to visit regularly, but not so close that she was expected to see them every week.
That was another headache lurking that even Georgie’s puppy-love couldn’t defeat. Her parents, who still didn’t understand why she’d want to work for herself, rather than get another “stable” job, who wanted to know when she was going to start dating again, who never actually came out and asked if she was unhappy but acted like they knew she was . . .
She wasn’t unhappy. She wasn’t particularly happy, either—no, that wasn’t true. She just defined happiness differently than her parents did. And she loved her work.
Georgie finally moved to the curb and did her thing. Ginny waited, then pulled a biodegradable baggie from her hoodie’s pocket and bent down to clear it away. “You know, owning dogs was probably a lot easier before pooper-scooper laws.”
Georgie looked up at her, blue-black tongue hanging out of the corner of her mouth, and then turned back to sniff at where she’d just pooped.
“Oh, ew.” She tugged at the leash, and Georgie, obliging, abandoned that smell for the next one. “I bet it’s good to be a dog. Smell this, smell that, mark something else, chase a stick. Nobody giving you grief about what you’re going to do next.”
Happiness was relative. She had friends, she dated, she wasn’t lacking for work, even if lately it wasn’t exactly a mental challenge. Even the panic and glee of running a small business was starting to get stale. This new job, though—that had possibilities, she thought. It might not be particularly exciting, but it would be different. And different meant adding to your résumé, which meant the possibility of new jobs even more interesting down the line.
That was what Ginny told herself, anyway, tossing the used doggie bag into the trash. And the time limit . . . she was used to working with those, too. Concierge services didn’t usually work on long-term projects. Get in, get it done, get out, move on.
“Just usually not so much money riding on a deadline.”
Georgie, alerted to something in her voice, looked up inquisitively, as though to ask what was wrong.
“Nothing, baby. Just Mom talking to herself. Go on with what you were doing.”
Georgie did her business a second time, sniffed backsides with the poodle who lived down the street, and let herself be brought back home and given fresh water and a chew-bone. The shar-pei settled on the kitchen floor, gnawing contentedly.
Ginny stood there and watched her for a moment, soaking in the contented doggie vibes, then shook her head. “Definitely easier to be a dog. Good girl, Georgie. Don’t get into trouble while I’m gone.”
Ginny hit START on the coffee machine and disappeared into the bathroom, where she threw herself under the shower, letting the hot water and promise of caffeine bring her all the way to wakefulness.
The problem with this new job, she thought as she rinsed her hair, was that she had no idea where to begin. Normally, there was an end goal: get the party arranged, find the best movers within budget, bring things in for repairs and take them back home again. Even the trickier projects had a definite goal, a series of checklists she could make and follow, to reach the final solution.
This? Not so much. Was there a checklist for tracking down an AWOL real-estate broker?
“If there is, it’s on the Internet. Everything’s on the Internet. But I have no idea what keywords I’d use . . . ‘Where in the world is Joseph Jacobs?’”
It was silly, but talking it out served the purpose in getting her brain back on track. Every job had steps. The fact that she didn’t know the exact, precise steps for this didn’t mean she couldn’t figure them out. Finding a missing person wasn’t exactly on her list of services, no, but it was just a matter of narrowing options until you saw the obvious, right? If she could figure out the perfect vacation for someone’s fiftieth wedding anniversary when the participants couldn’t decide—and get a thank-you postcard from them both—then this should be a piece of cake.
“Ignoring the fact that you’ve never baked a successful cake in your life?”
She stared at herself in the mirror, her normally unruly curls slick against her scalp, and turned her head from side to side, to better check the lines that were starting to form around her eyes. She looked tired, she thought. Or maybe it was just the difference between being thirty-three and turning thirty-four?
“Oh yeah, because thirty-four is ancient. You don’t get paid for your looks, Mallard, and that’s a damn good thing. Coffee. Work. And no more talking to yourself allowed. That’s what you have a dog for.”
From outside the bathroom, as though she heard that, Georgie let out a low woof.
“Yeah, yeah, give me a minute, will you? Sheesh. Some dogs, so demanding . . .”
She toweled off and, wrapped in the towel, went outside, pausing long enough to give Georgie a loving head-noogie before going into her bedroom to dig out a pair of jeans that had seen better days and a silk blouse from her old office wardrobe. She’d found, early on, that she worked better if she dressed like she was dealing with people in person, rather than through the phone and computer. Sweats were for off-hours only.
Dressed, but not quite ready for the workday, Ginny h
eaded to the kitchen, with Georgie padding along behind her. Her bare feet were silent, but the dog’s claws clicked against the hardwood, a sound that had quickly become comforting rather than odd.
“You want to go to the park later today, doll? If I can get things cooking along by lunchtime, and the rain goes away, maybe we’ll do that, you think?”
Georgie’s butt wriggled again, hearing the word “park.” Or maybe it was “lunchtime.”
The kitchen was small, compared to the rest of the apartment, but it had been well designed for the basics: two steps from the fridge to the counter, and another two steps to the sink. The only problem was that it hadn’t been designed with a place to put a dog’s water bowl that wasn’t underfoot.
Ginny looked at the puddle of water where she’d once again knocked the dish with her foot, and sighed. “Coffee.”
Once the spill was cleaned up and the dish was refilled, she poured her coffee into an oversized mug and carried it with her into the office, Georgie again following behind, the same parade as every workday.
The larger of the two small bedrooms in her apartment, it was arranged for maximum efficiency, with an L-shaped desk in the center, a twenty-four-inch monitor taking up one side, and paperwork in varying piles on the other. She ignored the paperwork, sliding into her chair and waking up the computer, while Georgie took her position on the floor underneath the desk, her head resting on her paws.
A plan of attack was starting to form in Ginny’s mind, but first things first. She clicked over to her bank, and confirmed that part of the check she had digitally deposited the evening before was already being processed.
“All right then,” she said in satisfaction. “We’re in business, Georgie-girl.”
Not that she had actually believed the check would bounce, but everyone knew that you didn’t start work without confirmation, not even when you were on a deadline. Maybe especially not then.
Despite what her mother and stepfather seemed to think, the squalid glamour of the hand-to-mouth freelancer had not been her plan when she went freelance three years ago. She was in this to make a living. A good living, thank you very much.
Collared: A Gin & Tonic Mystery Page 3