Doghouse (21 page)

“Taxes, maybe,” Ginny said. “I bet the dogs are all bought for cash. And . . . they might be selling some of them to the dogfighters?”

“Maybe. Probably. Christ, what a mess.”

“The guy you let go, he's not going to tell whoever hired him what happened?”

“No. If he gets asked at all he's going to say it all went according to plan. He doesn't want trouble, and he sure as hell doesn't want to risk the money being taken back. So we've got some breathing room.”

“Hang on, I'm confused,” Seth said, breaking into their conversation. “He came here for the dog? They're willing to do all this for a
dog
?
For
that
dog
?”
Seth's face wrinkled in worry, making him bear a disturbing resemblance to Georgie. “What about Deke, if these people are that crazy, is Deke gonna be okay?”

“He should be,” Ginny said, which probably wasn't entirely comforting. “But let's just leave him where he is for now, out of sight and safe, okay?”

“You might want to check up and make sure everything's good on that end, though,” Teddy suggested.

Ginny considered that. “Yeah, when she finishes up for the day—she turns off her phone when she's painting. You think I should tell them? About all this?”

He shrugged, then nodded. “She's your friend, you know her better, but it sounds like she's got a solid head on. But we should probably keep Deke out of the loop.”

“Ya think?” she muttered in a nearly perfect imitation of Seth, and it made the man in question snort in amusement.

“So, we re-hired?” she asked him.

“Idiots,” Seth muttered, and stalked back into the kitchen.

“Not that I should be asking this, after the crap I've seen
already, but what are you guys into?” Stacy asked when she came back, ducking under the bar to start filling orders. “Is it dangerous? I mean—obviously. But should we call the cops?” Her earlier bravado had muted.

Ginny picked Parsifal up and cradled the puppy in her arms, resting her chin on the top of his head, and didn't answer. Teddy looked down and saw Georgie was leaning against Ginny's legs, while Penny had reclaimed her position on the top shelf of the bar, staring down at him with wide green eyes. He wondered if all of this made any more sense from up there.

“Something we're going to get out of,” he said, answering her first question first. “As soon as we make sure Deke's in the clear. If you want to take the rest of the night off . . . and why the hell are you here, anyway? Jon was on schedule.”

She drew herself up and glared at him. “He called in sick, so Seth called me because you were, and I quote, ‘off doin' damn fool things.' And tell me you did not just suggest I should run home and hide under the sofa.”

“I did not just suggest that you run home and hide under the sofa,” he said obediently. “But I am going to ask that you stay behind the bar the rest of the night, okay? Anyone else comes in, let me handle it.”

She chewed on her lip, then nodded. “Yeah, you can get the next one, that's fair.”

13

T
he black sedan pulled to
the curb a few feet away from Mary's entrance, the driver putting the car in neutral while his passenger got out, removing his suit jacket and placing it carefully back in the car.

“It's all right, Stephen,” the man said, not looking back. “I'll call you when I wish to return.”

The driver was clearly unhappy, but nodded and rolled up his window, driving away. His former passenger studied the renovated storefront for a moment, taking in the relative quiet of the side street. Most of the stores were closed for the evening now, another establishment down the street emitting a welcoming glow to match that from the bar in front of him, with patrons occasionally coming in and out, singly or in small groups.

“Excellent location. Nicely peaceful atmosphere, removed enough from the hustle and bustle that you can relax without feeling isolated or off the grid, upscale but not ritzy or overtly trendy. Good demographics.” He turned and studied the rest of the street, taking in the mature trees along the curb, the quiet sounds of traffic from the main avenue, the lights coming on in the apartments
above some of the storefronts. “I really should come down here more often.”

But first, there was business to conduct.

“I'm looking
for Theodore Tonica?”

The bartender, a young woman who looked too skinny to be healthy, gave him a deadpan stare and hooked her head downward, as though to say she'd never heard the name, but her eyes flicked to the left and downward, a sure giveaway. He smiled and accepted his seltzer and lime, leaving a tip that was too large for the charge, but not so much as to be offensive, and then turned in the direction she had unwittingly indicated.

The bar was reasonably busy for early on a Monday evening, confirming his original valuation, but the prime table by the window held only two people, despite there being room for more. A shift of shadows at their feet drew his attention, and he saw the dog lying at the woman's feet, apparently sound asleep.

The same dog that had been described to him as entering the vet's office, with the purloined puppy.

That confirmed his suspicion, and he walked toward them with a conscious grace, pausing when he reached a polite distance from the table. “Mr. Tonica. And Ms. Mallard, I presume?”

They both gave him a once-over. They didn't speak, but he could practically feel the exchange flash between them before the man turned his body so that he faced
him—giving the woman room to pull back, out of the conversational spotlight.

“And you are?”

“My name is Lewis Hollins.” He was gratified to see a reaction. He so disliked dealing with people who did not do their homework. “I would like to discuss a matter of interest to all three of us, if I may join you?”

Ginny made
it a matter of pride that she wasn't often creeped out. She could be disturbed by something, or upset, and she was often angered, but there wasn't much in her daily life that creeped her. But this guy? Was way up on the creep-o-meter.

On the surface, he looked perfectly respectable. He was wearing a white dress shirt, properly buttoned and unstained, with a solid blue tie that was loosened at the neck but still showing a properly tied knot, plus he had a steady gaze that kept to their faces, never dropping below her neckline. There was nothing to set off a warning note, no reason she felt creeper vibes crawling up the back of her neck.

Except that his gaze was cold, assessing, and matched too perfectly a description she'd heard only a few hours before. And oh, yeah, she thought, he was in the puppy mill business.

“Please.” She forced her tone into equal civility. “Do sit down.”

Across the table from her, Tonica let a startled glance
reach her before he looked down again, getting control of his features. She tried to reassure him that she knew what she was doing, but the truth was that she was winging it, utterly. Still, if the guy who might be behind their current problems came down here to talk to them, who were they to refuse? Better on their own turf than somewhere else, especially with Stacy—and the baseball bat—behind the bar. There was also a gun in a lockbox, but she didn't think that would be needed. She hoped to hell it wouldn't be needed.

“I believe that we have a mutual interest in a situation that should be resolved before things, well, devolve.”

Hollins smiled, and Ginny recognized a predator when she saw one. She let her mouth curve up in what she hoped was an answering, equally predatory smile. Tonica might be good at talking to people, but she spent most of her time negotiating, one way or the other. She had this.

“If by
situation
you mean where a friend of ours has been taken advantage of, and entangled in something he should not have been—and suffered for it? Then I'm afraid that your definition of
devolve
is rather different than mine. Because it's already well past that point.”

She let the smile drop, but kept her gaze locked with his, refusing to look away.

Hollins's eyes tightened slightly, but his pleasant expression did not otherwise change. Challenge accepted. “Yes, I heard about the fire. Regrettable. I was relieved to hear that no one had been harmed.”

Ginny tilted her head, as though she wasn't sure that she
had heard him correctly. “Homeless, and losing all his possessions, you don't consider that harm?”

“Homes and possessions may be replaced, Ms. Mallard.”

And there was the real opening salvo. Ginny leaned in slightly, keeping her weight off her elbows, and shook her head. “And what about a man's reputation? Can that be replaced, too?”

She risked a glance at Tonica, whose eyes had gotten a little wide, but who otherwise seemed content to sit there and let them bat the verbal volleys back and forth. A familiar tension filled her gut, but it was a more useful one than the directionless unease they'd been dealing with before.

Hollins did not smile, which might have been showmanship, but she respected his effort to not try to patronize or downplay her comment. “It is . . . regrettable that his landlord jumped to certain assumptions, when he became aware of the source of your client's revenue stream. The houses we use were selected with an eye toward their owners' . . . benign negligence. We did not anticipate his becoming a proactive landlord. That was our mistake.”

Ginny didn't do anything as inelegant as snort, but it floated, unvoiced, between them.

“Sadly,” Hollins went on, “the damage has been done. I am prepared to offer suitable compensation for the inconvenience. And, perhaps, do you a good turn, as well.”

“You're trying to buy us off?” Tonica sounded less outraged and more amused. She remembered again that he'd come from money—come from it, and walked away. Yeah, probably not going to be enough money to buy his silence,
not unless he'd already decided to be silent and then he was too much a Boy Scout to accept the money.

Was she? Ginny honestly didn't know. Probably. If only because it would be hard to look Tonica in the eye after. Or Georgie. Dogs believed that their humans were perfect. . . .

“I find that money is a preferable solution to most problems,” Hollins said calmly. “It gives people what they want and what they need, all in one simple package, without need for violence.” He looked at them both carefully. “I am a businessman. I invest in opportunities that profit me, and my associates. Particularly opportunities that may not be particularly lucrative in and of themselves, but where the large-scale franchise possibilities intrigue me.”

Hollins's words were matter-of-fact, not creepy at all, but
what
he was talking about made it downright ick. He didn't seem to notice Ginny's shiver of distaste. She was a businesswoman, sure, but there were
limits.

“And when I see something that is being done well, with room for expansion or franchise,” he continued, “I follow up on it. Like breeding dogs. Or providing social outlets.”

“And you think, what, Mary's should be a franchise?” Ginny's gaze narrowed, and then she smiled. “Too late for that, the owner's already doing things his way.”

“It had been my intention, originally, to offer to invest in this bar, yes, or perhaps to fund Mr. Tonica's own venture, if he were so inclined. Also, to invest in your business, which I have determined will stagnate if it remains a one-person operation.”

Ginny opened her mouth to tell him thanks but no thanks, when he continued. “But, in observing and speaking with the two of you, another option has occurred to me. Your little sideline of untangling knots, or cutting them. ‘Private Research and Investigations,' your website calls it? The service is hardly unique, but you bring a nice frisson of ingenuity and outside-the-box thinking. I appreciate that, even when it is interfering in my own work. I could see supporting an expansion of that.”

“So long as we butt out of your business interests?” The smoother he got, the blunter Ginny felt.

He smiled, and calling it a shark's smile would be an insult to fish everywhere. “There are two sides to every agreement, yes. Each party puts something on the table.”

Teddy hadn't
been enjoying the back-and-forth going on in front of him, even though he knew Ginny had it reasonably well in hand. This sort of high-stakes negotiation, with hidden meanings in almost every word, was the kind of thing he'd grown up with, the kind of thing he'd intentionally left, and the pit-of-his-stomach ache was too familiar. He would stay and listen, be his partner's backup and witness, but he couldn't help but wish for a distraction, something he needed to go and deal with directly, to get away from the table.

Guilt for wanting to run away made him pay closer attention to the back-and-forth, especially when he heard Ginny mention Mary's. He almost laughed at the idea of him
opening his own place—he never wanted to work that hard
ever
—but Hollins was probably right about Ginny's business needing to hire someone, at least a part-time assistant.

And money
would
solve Deke's housing problem, in the short run, at least. But the old man would still be on the hook for arson, especially if it
was
just a craptastically timed coincidence, and the landlord had set it himself and was looking for a stooge. Hush money could buy a lot, but Ginny was right—not a reputation. And that was assuming Deke would be willing to accept the money in the first place. Teddy had gotten a firsthand taste of how stubborn the old man could be. . . .

He felt something warm and heavy bump against his leg, and he reached down automatically, to reassure Georgie. But the dog didn't settle down again, and when he glanced under the table to see what was going on, her attention was focused on something at the other end of the bar. No, Teddy realized, following her line of sight: not some
thing,
some
one
.

“Excuse me,” he said, when there was a pause in the conversation. “I need to take care of something at the bar.”

When he got up, Georgie hesitated, whining, as though unsure if she should go with him, or stay with her mistress.

“Georgie, stay,” he said, hoping that she'd accept the command from him. She sighed heavily but settled back under the table, her gaze still on the bar.

He got halfway there before everything went to hell.

He saw
it happen in that weird slow-motion-but-speeded-up sensation that came every time he was in a fight, where he could almost predict each move before it happened, although he knew there was no way he could get there in time to do anything.

The woman—Teddy recognized her even from the side view: it was the quiet woman from the gym, the one who'd asked all the right questions—reached across the bar and grabbed Stacy by the hair at the back of her head, yanking her forward just enough that Stacy looked like she was leaning in over the bar to hear better.

Her companion, the same guy who'd been with her at the gym, was a few paces away, watching his partner while still keeping an eye on the rest of the bar's patrons. There was a kind of coiled stillness in the guy that Teddy's years of bartending told him to keep an eye on. The odds were depressingly good the guy was carrying. But he wasn't waving a weapon around, which meant that whatever they were here about, they didn't want to cause a panic.

Stacy was in trouble, but not immediate danger.

Teddy's gaze flicked up to where Penny usually rested, but he didn't see ears or tail dangling over the side of the top shelf. He didn't see Parsifal, either. Good. The last thing they needed right now was a puppy suddenly underfoot.

In the corner of his eye, he saw Seth moving, his shoulders forward, chin down, ready for a fight. Teddy moved a hand back at hip level, warning the older man away. Seth's face shifted in a grimace, but he paused.

They'd already been assaulted by low-end hoods, and propositioned by a high-end corporate criminal—he hoped things were only coming in threes today, not fours.

“Excuse me,” Teddy said, projecting just enough to be heard by the woman, without breaking into the overall crowd noise and drawing more attention.

“There you are,” the woman said, letting go of Stacy's hair. Stacy fell back a little, her eyes wide against tears, and he saw her reach for the baseball bat she'd replaced below the counter. He shook his head at her, too, and then tilted his head to the left. She nodded, about as happy as Seth to be told to hold on and stay calm.

If things got ugly, she was within reach of the panic button, but he really hoped they didn't have to use that, either.

“Here I am,” Teddy said to the woman. “You had my contact info, you could have called.”

“We felt that a personal visit would be more conducive to resolution.”

“MBA talk. So not just a goon, then.” Okay, so he warned the others off escalating things and then he went and taunted the bear. They could bitch at him later: right now he wanted her focused on him.