“H-h-hello?” I said.
“This is Tak. I’m sorry I scared you. Your dad called. He said you were going to call me, but when you didn’t, I thought I’d come over and see if you wanted to talk in person.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said.
“I admit it might have been a bad idea to come over here tonight. How about we meet tomorrow?”
Soot’s curiosity apparently had replaced his fear. He crept back into the store, his tail fat and his walk low. He approached the front door and stood on his hind legs with his paws on the glass. Tak reappeared and dropped down to a squat. He held his hand up to the door and Soot ran his head against the glass like he wanted Tak to pet him.
My cat was a lot of things, but he wasn’t known for being particularly friendly. His behavior was downright odd. “What did you do to my cat?” I asked.
“What could I possibly do to your cat? I’m on the other side of your door.”
“He’s never this friendly unless somebody has food for him.”
“He probably smells the fish.”
“What fish?”
He stood up and looked at the bags. “The fish in your garbage. That’s what all these bags are, right?”
“Our garbage goes out back. Somebody drove up and dumped those bags in front of the store.”
“I don’t want to tell you how to run your business, but if you don’t do something with these bags soon you’re going to have a whole lot more cats by morning.”
All of a sudden it struck me as very, very silly that Tak and I were talking on the phone to each other when we stood less than ten feet apart. I got the giggles.
“What’s so funny?”
“You. Us. We’re acting like I’m in a containment unit.”
He cracked a smile. “There’s one way to change that,” he said. “You could unlock the door and invite me in.”
It wasn’t until I caught my reflection in the glass of the door—alien pajamas and fluffy green slippers—that I realized just how silly the situation was. I grabbed a men’s topcoat from a rack and shrugged into it. The itchy wool scratched my neck and the sleeves fell far past my hands.
I unlocked the dead bolt and held the door open. Tak grabbed the knot of two of the black garbage bags and carried them in. I scooted to the sidewalk and grabbed the other two. They bulged with soft contents. Tak was right; they smelled of fish.
Soot eagerly followed the bags into the store. He chewed on the bottom corner of the first one Tak had set down. I nudged him away with one of my alien-slippered feet. He jumped when he saw the fluffy green head and ran in the other direction. I looked at Tak. He tried to hide a smile. I secured the topcoat around my body.
“I’m going to run upstairs and change,” I said.
“Don’t do it on my account,” he said. “I hear the alien look is big on the Paris runways.”
I pulled a slipper off and threw it at him. He caught it and tucked it under his arm.
“Be right back,” I said. I scooped up Soot and ran upstairs, my bare foot cold against the floor. My Indian outfit was still on the bed where I’d left it, but gasoline-scented beige linen probably wasn’t the best thing to wear when going through garbage bags that smelled of fish. I pulled on a navy blue polyester tracksuit with white stripes down the arms and legs and knotted on a pair of sneakers. Within seconds, I was back in the shop.
“Okay, I’m ready,” I said.
Tak stood by one of the bags with a white envelope in his hand. “This was taped to the outside of one of the bags and it has your name on it.” He held the envelope out. I recognized the handwriting before the envelope was in my hand, and suddenly everything made sense.
Chapter 10
A SMILE BROKE across my face and I eagerly tore into the envelope.
Margo,
These came in during our last clothing drive, but I thought maybe you or Jerry could do something with them. If yes, I’ll accept a donation in exchange. Just like old times!
—Bobbie K.
P.S. Sorry about the smell.
The letterhead read: MONEY CHANGES EVERYTHING.
“I’m guessing you know the donor,” Tak said. Absorbed in Bobbie’s letter as I was, I’d forgotten that he was standing there.
“My high school best friend. She runs a nonprofit.” I said. “She must have heard I was back in town.” I set the letter on the counter and unknotted the first bag. The scent of fish grew stronger. I waved my hand back and forth in front of my nose.
Tak located a fan in the corner of the store and turned it on, and then propped the front door open and positioned the fan to blow the scent outside. I reached into the bag and pulled out a white sailor top. Underneath it was another. And another. And another. What the heck?
“Open that one,” I instructed Tak. His bag held a stack of black sailor pants. The rest of the bags held more of the same: sailor tops and pants. Either the smell faded or I was becoming immune to the scent of fish, because by the time we had all four bags unpacked, I barely noticed it.
“Do you know what we’re looking at?” Tak asked.
“Bobbie Kay volunteers at a local women’s shelter. They do a clothing drive in the fall and in the spring. It looks like someone dropped these off during the last one. I can’t imagine who would have all these sailor outfits and why they’d smell like tuna, though.” I picked up one of the tops from the pile. A tag from the sleeve read ARMY NAVY STORE. I picked up a pair of pants and found the same thing. Tak caught on and checked the stack nearest him. “These too,” he said.
“Looks like the Army Navy store donated them to the women’s shelter and your friend gave them to you,” Tak said.
“In exchange for a donation,” I clarified. Which I was happy to give. “But what’s with the fish smell?”
“They are sailor suits,” he said. “Adds a note of authenticity. I bet Candy Girls doesn’t have pre-scented costumes.”
The idea of promoting that the costumes at Disguise DeLimit came with thematic scents brought on another fit of giggles. It was late, and after the adrenaline crash of having been scared by Bobbie’s covert costume drop-off and then Tak’s subsequent arrival, I was left in a state of silly. It took longer than I would have liked to get the giggling under control. Tak stood by, patient, with a smile on his face.
“You never told me why you were here,” I said when I was able to talk again.
“Yes I did. Your dad called me. He said you were going to call me to talk about Ebony’s situation. I couldn’t sleep, so I went out for a drive. I guess I ended up here because I was already thinking about you. I didn’t expect you to be working, but when I saw the trash bags out front and the lights on inside, I thought maybe you were up too.”
“I was full of energy a couple of hours ago, but I’m starting to wind down. Can you help me carry these to the steamer in the back?”
“Sure.”
We lugged the sailor costumes past the sewing area to a small room that housed a steel steamer box, about eight feet high by ten feet deep. I turned the dial on the outside to generate pressure, and then unfolded several dryer sheets and clipped them to empty plastic pants hangers.
“What are those for?” Tak asked.
“The heat from the steamer activates the scent in the dryer sheet and neutralizes odors. I usually only use one per rolling rod, but I’m pretty sure this fish smell is unprecedented.”
After placing the dryer sheets on the rod, we hung the tops and pants between them. We had approximately fifty items, spaced an inch or so apart from one another. I opened the steamer cage and rolled the chrome rod inside. After clamping the door shut with a ka-chung, I checked the pressure gauge and then pushed the green button. It turned red, and the sound of steam filling the metal box came like a whoosh next to us. In sixty seconds, the light clicked back to green. I yanked on the ha
ndle and a cloud of steam washed over me.
“Your own private steamer. I’m impressed.”
“It’s a lot easier to keep the costumes fresh this way. Plus, dry cleaning is too harsh on most fabrics. Some of our costumes are twenty and thirty years old. A couple are older than that.” I pulled the rolling rod out of the steamer cage. Droplets of condensation speckled the metal rod between hangers. The scent of fish had been replaced with the freshness of the dryer sheets.
“These are still damp, but they’ll dry by tomorrow morning,” I said. “What time is it?”
He checked his watch. “Ten thirty,” he said. “I didn’t realize it was so late. You probably want to get to bed.”
I turned the pressure switch from the steamer to the off position and walked Tak back out to the front of the store. When I’d first moved to Vegas, I’d had to adjust to the fact that most jobs didn’t have nine-to-five hours. Working shows that closed at twelve thirty and not getting home until after one had gradually taken its toll on my internal sense of time. These days I was more of a night owl than a morning person. After falling asleep in front of the television last night and waking to find that I’d slept through the vandalism of Ebony’s car, maybe it would be good to give in to my night owl tendencies and keep watch.
“I’m still on Vegas time,” I said. “I’ll probably be up for the next couple of hours.”
“Vegas time? Is that where you live?”
I nodded.
“I lived in Las Vegas for a few years. What part?”
“No place special.”
“Everybody’s home is special,” he said.
“I live in an apartment on top of a Chinese restaurant.”
“See, now that sounds special. Do you like it?”
“Actually, yes. Some nights I get home so late I don’t have the energy to cook. I’ll get an egg roll or fried rice and eat it at two o’clock in the morning.”
We stood in the front of the store next to the counter. I watched his eyes cut to the half-empty bowl of cereal behind me, and I blushed. What must he think of me? My father called him and told him to check on me. When he showed up, I was in alien pj’s. And now he’d discovered that I ate Fruity Pebbles for dinner!
“I’d like to keep talking with you. If you’re game, I know where to get the best fried rice in Proper.”
“They’re open at ten thirty on a Sunday?”
“I have connections.”
Truth was, I wanted to keep talking with Tak too. He was at the party where Blitz was murdered, so he was connected to the whole thing. My dad’s and Ebony’s reassurances that he was a good guy from a good family helped, as did the need to talk to an impartial person about what had happened since I’d arrived back in town. I ran upstairs for my wallet and keys and then returned to the store. Tak waited out front while I locked up. I hopped into his SUV and we left.
* * *
THE Proper City streets were mostly quiet at this hour on a Sunday. Retailers and businesses that thrived in the first half of the day, like florists, coffee shops, and bakeries, had long since closed, leaving only the illumination from the occasional nightclub or restaurant. Tak drove us down Main Line Road in the same direction I’d driven earlier that day. The rotating playing card in front of Black Jack’s car dealership was lit up like a party favor. We passed that too, and then turned into the parking lot of a small Japanese-style building.
Across the front wooden roofline that curved up slightly on both sides were the words HOSHIYAMA KOBE STEAK HOUSE. The lack of cars in the lot and lights around the building confirmed my suspicion that we were past regular operating hours. Tak parked around the side of the building and turned off the engine.
“Ebony told me your parents owned a restaurant,” I said. “But I think we’re a little late for happy hour.”
“I have special privileges,” he said. “Come with me.”
I followed him to the side door. He unlocked three locks with three different keys and then looked at me. “You’re in for a treat.” Once inside, he flipped a light switch that provided a low-level glow throughout the interior.
The restaurant was made up of six individual islands. Each one had a steel cooktop built into a table. Eight chairs surrounded the islands on three of the four sides; the remaining side, I knew, was for the chef to prepare a teppanyaki feast with twirling knives, flying shrimp tails, and volcanoes built from onions. I’d long been a fan of teppanyaki. Ever since my first meal at Mori’s when I graduated from sixth grade, I was hooked.
Tak guided me to a nearby island and pulled out a chair in the middle of the long side of the table. I sat. He walked around to the back and flipped a switch. “The grill is going to get hot in a minute or two. Be careful. I’ll be right back.”
He disappeared behind a long, green curtain that hid the kitchen and returned with a pushcart. On top were two medium-sized bowls of white rice, a small bowl of minced carrots, onion, and celery, a plate with a blob of what I knew to be garlic butter, and a bottle of soy sauce. Two eggs rested next to the bottle of soy, and a boneless chicken breast sat on a separate plate.
He held his open hand over the grill to check the temperature and then squirted sesame oil onto the surface. With the flat side of a silver spatula, he spread the oil around in circles that grew wider and wider. He added the chicken and then dumped the rice bowls upside down onto the empty surface of the grill next to it.
“My father tells me you work in the Clark County district attorney’s office,” I said. “I can’t imagine this is a necessary skill.”
“No, but it keeps me popular at parties.” He moved the rice around over the surface and then added the bowl of diced vegetables. Next, the blob of garlic butter went on top. He used two large paddlelike utensils to mix everything together, and then he pushed it all to the side. He cracked both eggs into a silver mixing bowl, scrambled them with a fork, and poured them onto the grill, then set the shells inside the empty bowl, which went back on the cart.
“I feel cheated. Shouldn’t you be tossing stuff in the air and catching it in your hat?”
He looked surprised. “You know about the hat tricks?”
“This isn’t my first rodeo,” I said.
“Well, then I guess I must confess. There’s a reason I’m a city planner and not a teppanyaki chef. I never got the hang of the hat part.”
I sat back and let him finish making the fried rice in silence. He diced the chicken and blended it in with the rice and veggie mix, added soy sauce and sesame seeds, and scooped it up into two separate bowls. He held out a fork and I waved him off.
“Are you eating with chopsticks?” I asked.
“Yes, but I figured—”
“You figured wrong. I’ll take chopsticks too.”
He brought me a set of chopsticks from the hostess station and then sat next to me. Small talk became a secondary concern after tasting the first mouthful of fried rice. I’d tried to make it at home—even went so far as to find a clone recipe online—but had never quite replicated the flavor. Maybe it had something to do with the indulgence of watching someone else prepare it for me.
“How is it?” he asked.
“Mmmmmm.” I swallowed. “Best fried rice ever.”
He grinned.
I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until I was scraping the bottom of the rice bowl with my chopsticks. Tak was halfway done with his. He set the bowl and chopsticks on the table and turned to me.
“I don’t want to ruin your fried rice experience with a difficult conversation, but Jerry tells me Ebony might be in some trouble.”
I set my near-empty bowl down. “Tak, before I tell you what’s going on, I need you to understand. Ebony and my dad are the two most important people in my life, and I’d do anything for them. I came back to Proper City because of my dad’s heart attack. That scared me more than anything
in my life. Now this thing with Blitz is affecting Ebony. She’s as much a part of my family as my dad. I want to help her, but I think she’s scared too—scared that something from her past, something she doesn’t want anybody to know—is going to come out and it’s going change the way people view her. I’m afraid of what the investigation is going to do to her.”
“Hey,” Tak said. He sandwiched his hands around mine. “Family is important. I know that more than most people. But sometimes you have turn your back on what they want in order to do what you think is right.”
I couldn’t imagine a situation when I’d need to turn my back on the people I loved. From my earliest memories, of my dad tending to my skinned knee when I was five, or dressing me in a Sound of Music costume for my first recital when I was fourteen, to the pots of coffee he brewed when I had to stay up all night studying for exams when I was in community college. I remembered how Ebony used her resources at Shindig to throw me the best tenth birthday party in Proper City, how she let me borrow her first bichon frise when I dressed as Little Bo Peep when I was twelve, and how she did my hair and makeup for my senior prom because she knew that’s what my own mother would have done if she hadn’t died.
Tears welled up in my eyes and I blinked them back so Tak wouldn’t notice. The air around us hung heavy with the scent of fried rice and the weight of his words. The silence was punctured by the sound of something falling to the ground by the hostess table.
Tak dropped my hands and stood up. “Who’s there?” he asked the darkness.
There was no reply. A shadow moved along the far wall of the restaurant, distorted by the low light that emanated from paper lanterns swaying in the entranceway. I reached out for Tak’s hand.
“The lanterns,” I whispered and pointed at the entrance. “The front door must be open.”
“Wait here.” He moved through the empty interior and out the front door. Seconds later, the door slammed shut and I was alone.
A Disguise to Die For Page 9