Don't Sweat the Small Stuff (16 page)

“Nope. That’s the computer you need, Skip. That frigging Dell laptop. Okay? Now it’s time to go.”

She grabbed my laptop and headed out the door. I didn’t touch my drink as I ran after her.

“Damn.”

“Hey, you couldn’t have known.”

“Skip. That shrimp can’t operate a computer or a cell phone. No wonder he keeps Linda around.” She was shaking with anger. “First the pen, now the cell phone. I’m screwing this whole thing up.”

“No, you’re—” I raced to keep up. She was walking straight toward the row of shops, the laptop held tightly under her arm.

“I am too. I really thought I’d be able to help you guys. You were better off by yourselves. Jeez. I thought we’d waltz in there and load the cell phone information in a few seconds. What was I thinking?”

“Hey, slow down. I can only move so fast.”

“We’re almost there.”

“Where?”

She headed for the bar halfway down the strip mall, and waited for me outside the open door to Harry’s Hideaway.

I staggered to the doorway. “You … walk … really … fast when you’re—”

“What?”

“Mad.”

“I just think we both could use another drink.”

Out of breath, all I could do was nod. A drink and some oxygen.

“You’ve got till tomorrow night,” she said. “If you have any chance of figuring out who is sabotaging the Moe Show, we have to get some information. And now—”

Walking into the dingy, dimly lit barroom I heard the din of voices and country twang coming from the old jukebox. A female duet harmonized about their exploits, the chorus lyrics resounding with, “Hey Thelma, you’re gonna need a Louise.”

I could vaguely make out some of the people at the far end of the bar. The place was hazy with smoke—one of those liquor establishments that didn’t pay any attention to the no-smoking ordinance—and raucous laughter rang from the table next to us.

“Kind of like you and James,” Em kept the laptop tight by her side as she surveyed the crowd of revelers.

“What’s like me and James?”

“That song by Molly Reed. You two are like the male Thelma and Louise.”

I ignored the comment.

“More like Laurel and Hardy. Or the two guys in
Dumb and Dumber
.” She shook her head.

Surveying the small establishment I saw open seats at the bar.

Em read my mind. “Should we sit up there?”

I watched the chubby lady behind the counter as she slammed beer bottles on the cheap vinyl counter, pouring shots of straight alcohol and an occasional mix. This was raw drinking. No fancy Florida cocktails at Harry’s. You’d get laughed out of there if you as much as ordered a Margarita.

I headed toward two open seats when she grabbed my arm.

“End of the bar. Four ladies. See them?”

“Oh, yeah.” Boilermakers in front of them, and empties off to the side, it appeared that they’d been drinking for a while. I definitely recognized one of them.

“There’s a seat right next to her. Stay here.”

I watched as Em marched up to the lady. Over the noise I heard her.

“Hey, Linda. Remember me? Emily. Skip’s girlfriend. I just wondered if this place has wi-fi.”

Looking puzzled, Pugh’s girlfriend watched as Em opened the laptop and tapped a couple of keys. Em stared at the keyboard for several seconds then back to Linda.

“Guess not.” She closed the lid. “You ladies have a nice night, and Linda,” she put her hand out and covered Linda’s, “I sure hope your dog comes back home soon. Preferably with my pen. I really need that pen.”

She got up, grabbed me by the arm and pulled me out of the bar.

With a self-satisfied smirk on her face, she waltzed across the parking lot toward our Airstream.

“Got it, Skip. We can tap into her cell phone anytime we want.”

James was sitting on the step, a big smile on his face.

“Good news, amigo. Great news, even.”

“Well then, ours can wait.” James always trumped me. It never failed. “What’s so great?”

“I found a truck. The spymobile is back in action.”

“You what?” He didn’t have a dime saved and had yet to cash his first paycheck from Moe. We had unpaid bills, and Jody Stacey had just informed me we owed him seventy-nine bucks. I knew all of this, and I knew there was no way he could afford a box truck.

“Same make and model as the old one, Skip. The one you blew up.”

I let it slide.

“Lower mileage, and the owner swears it doesn’t use as much oil.”

“James—”

“It was in the paper. Call it serendipity, call it chance.”

“What? An ad?”

“Box truck for sale. Skip, it screamed out to me.”

“Do we need—”

Interrupting me, he glanced at Em. “I already know what your girlfriend is going to say, being the judgmental type that she is, but Angie is lending us the money.”

“This is the girl who works for Moe?” A tone that maybe was just a little judgmental.

“Angie?” I couldn’t believe it. And I couldn’t believe that she was lending
us
the money. James, maybe. Definitely not us.

“I’ve been telling her how much we need the truck.”

“
We
don’t need the truck.”

He stood up, walking down to meet us. “We need it, pally. If we want this business to succeed, we need the truck. And Angie Clark is lending us the money. I told you, she believes in me. Look, we can write it off to the business.”

“James, I don’t want to be a part of this
we
. And we don’t need a write off. We don’t make enough to even qualify for—”

He put his hand up, fending my comments off. “I pick it up in an hour.”

Looking at my cheap Timex I realized that would be ten p.m.

“And where’s your banker?”

“Took off for an appointment. She’ll be back. But come on, pard, isn’t it very cool that we’re getting another truck?”

The truck had been the bane of our existence. In just the past year we’d tried to use it as a moving van and we were almost killed. We’d turned his former truck into a traveling kitchen for a salvation show and almost been killed. We’d turned the now destroyed truck into a spymobile and—

“You’re that close with this girl, after one day, that she lends you money?” Em couldn’t leave it alone.

“See what I mean, roommate?” He glared at me, then at Em. “As hard as this may be for you to fathom, the majority of women find me charming, Emily.”

“Then the majority of women are idiots, James.”

“How much did she—” I never got to finish the question.

“Twelve grand, my man.” He held up what appeared to be a check. “I figure two or three jobs and we’ll pay for it all.”

“We?”

“You’re on the P.I. license, dude. So yes, I say
we
. You and me, Tonto. We need this truck.”

I was with Em. He knew Angie Clark for a couple of days and she lends him twelve thousand dollars? Maybe this lady really did work for a bank. Or recently robbed one.

“We need to talk about this, James.”

“Let me repeat myself. We need a truck, Skip.” He gave me a very hard look and that was that. “Now, tell me your good news.” He folded his arms and waited for our story.

It wasn’t over. I hadn’t signed on to James’s latest scheme, but I decided to let it rest for the moment.

“Em hacked the cell phone, James. She hacked Pugh’s and Linda’s cell. It was slick. As long as Linda and Pugh stay in the area, we’ll have access to all their communication.”

“No kidding?”

“No kidding. You should have seen her.”

“Well, my hat’s off to you.”

“And,” I took my laptop from Em, “Pugh has a computer.”

“They’re wide open to our intrusions, right? So all your purchases from Jody are paying off except—”

“No one has found the dog.”

“Or the expensive pen. Well,” James nodded to Em, “let’s go in and have a celebratory drink.”

“As long as it’s not your coffee.” Em stepped up and entered our humble abode.

She had the computer up and running in seconds.

“Text messages to her girlfriends. Ruth, Margie, Kathy. About meeting at Harry’s tonight.”

“Pretty incriminating evidence.” I couldn’t help but lend sarcasm to the text.

She didn’t respond. “Here’s a message to her mother in New Hampshire.”

“How do you know?” James sipped his beer, sprawled on the couch.

“Know what?”

“She’s in New Hampshire.”

“It says ‘How are things in New Hampshire?’”

“Ah.”

“I thought we weren’t going to read the personal stuff.” The two of them had made a big deal of telling me there would be no screening of personal messages.

“Skip,” Em looked up from the computer screen, “how are we going to find the ones that are relevant if we don’t read the rest of them?”

I glanced over her shoulder. “Oh, there’s a damning message. A note to their veterinarian.” I studied it for a second. “About changing the formula for the deer’s medicine.” I stepped away. “Well, now I know that they’re guilty.”

“Skip—”

“I just don’t know what you two thought we’d find.”

“Hey, we’ve got tonight and tomorrow, pardner. That’s it. We’ve got to pull out all the stops or Ken Clemens and the team of Schiller and Crouse will stop us. Cold.”

“This could take a while.” Em was scrolling slowly, scanning each text message for clues. And I was sure there were none.

“If they make a call, or take a call, then what?”

James picked up the instruction manual. “According to this, we can intercept them all on the receiver. We’re covered.”

“So,” I quit spying on Pugh’s messages, “these tools are sort of our weapons?”

“That’s probably a good way to look at it.” Em kept scrolling.

“You remember the quote, ‘A weapon unused is a useless weapon?’ ” James asked.

I did. “
Spies Like Us
.”

“Dan Akroyd, Chevy Chase.”

“A terrible film.”

“Most of theirs were. But, the line works. A weapon unused is a useless weapon.”

“Hey, here’s a message. Linda did send a text to Kevin Cross. She asked him if he’d be home last night. She says, “Winston can come over and talk to you.” She got that smug look on her face.

“Means nothing.”

“Means that she set up a meeting with Cross and her boyfriend.”

A knock at the door startled us, and Em slammed the laptop screen down. It’s funny how paranoid you get when you’re breaking and entering.

“Yeah?” James and I called out in unison.

The screen door creaked open and Pugh shoved his little head through the opening.

“Hey, Winston. What’s up?” My eyes went from the little guy to the computer sitting on the table.

Em’s eyes shifted to the little man, probably wondering the same thing I did. Had he heard us discussing his cell phone?

“Garcia’s home.”

“And?”

“No pen. Sorry.”

I wished that I’d gotten the price on that pen.

“Any idea where he was?” Em was thinking about the pen too.

“Yeah. The boss brought him home.”

“Boss?”

“Moe. Seems the dog was over there most of the time. Moe always gives him a treat, these cheese crackers he keeps, so—”

“Well, thanks.” I was trying to figure out how I was going to pay for the pen video camera.

“Hey, is that your computer there?” He walked in, and Em froze. Pugh walked to the table and touched the case.

“It’s on the blink, Winston. Not working. That’s one of the reasons that we asked you—”

“Here. Let me see. On the blink, I’ll go get Linda. She can probably fix it.”

The short man made a grab for the laptop and flipped it open. “I’ll just take it over to—”

“No.” Em shrieked.

James and I froze, waiting to see Pugh’s reaction.

“Seems to be on.” He glanced at us with a frown then stared at the screen. “Course, Linda could tell you for sure.”

“It’s just in the sleep mode. See? It’s not on the blink at all.” Em reached out and yanked it from his grasp. As I told her, she’s really fast when she gets mad.

Stepping back, Winston stared up at her with his mouth wide open.

“Missy—”

“Look here, Mr. Pugh. I’ve got some personal information on this screen, and I can’t let a stranger just see everything that I—”

He studied her for a moment, a look of puzzlement on his face. His personal cell phone messages were two inches from his fingertips. Linda’s text to Kevin Cross was within reach.

“Okay. Okay. Just wanted to be of some help.” He frowned and turned toward the door. Looking back at us he said, “Remember, you came to me. You wanted help. So next time don’t come lookin’ for any of my expertise. ’Cause you won’t get
it. You just figure it out for yourself.” He stomped out of the trailer, letting the door bang behind him. The last time he’d left this trailer, I was with him and we were on our way to find a dead body.

Em set the computer back on the table and took a deep, ragged breath. “Well that would have been interesting.”

We were all quiet for a moment.

“Never saw it coming,” James said.

“There’s a lot of things we don’t see coming.” I shifted my eyes to Em and she avoided them.

“Hey, pard. He doesn’t suspect a thing. Okay? I think we handled that situation very well.”

Em had handled it very well.

“Got to grab Angie and go get the truck, amigo.” We walked outside and heard Angie shouting to James from Moe’s trailer.

“Come with me. Em, you can meet Angie and Moe.”

We walked across the lot, making out the luxury trailer in the dusk.

Moe and Angie sat on the porch and she jumped up and hugged James.

“Angie, I want you to meet Em, Skip’s off-again, on-again girlfriend.”

Em smiled a smile she didn’t really mean and shook Angie’s hand.

“And Em, this is Moe. Moe is our employer.”

“Glad to meet you, young lady.”

“So Garcia was hanging out with you this evening?”

He laughed. “He was. He likes my cheese crackers. Never knew a dog to eat cheese crackers, but he does.”

“Moe,” Em was staring at him, “is there any chance Garcia had a pen in his mouth when you found him?”

“A pen? Nope.”

“That pen in your pocket—”