Don't Sweat the Small Stuff (17 page)

He glanced down at his shirt.

“It looks very much like one my father gave me. One that Garcia took from my hand a couple of hours ago.”

“Ah, this pen.” He pulled it out and handed it to her. “Found it on the ground over there. Dog must have dropped it.”

“Yeah. This is it. Thank you so much. This means a lot to me.”

Moe smiled, charming Em from the start. “I’m glad I could help such an attractive woman. You are truly a beautiful lady.”

I know Em was blushing.

“James, we’ve got a truck to pick up, remember?”

Angie grabbed his arm and pulled him toward her trailer.

“Thanks, Moe.” I didn’t know what else to say.

“How you coming on our special project, Skip?”

“Fine. Just fine. Lots of things happening.”

“How about you and James give me a short report tomorrow morning, about eight a.m.?”

“Um, sure, we can do that.”

He smiled, stood up and walked into his plush home, the door slamming behind him.

We stood there for a moment looking at each other.

“Fine? Just fine?” Em gave me a weak smile.

“It’s better than saying we don’t have a clue.”

“Then we’d better get a clue by tomorrow morning. You just agreed to a meeting at eight.”

“All right. We’ll go back and keep reading phone messages.”

Em smiled at me. “Did you ever stop to think that whenever there’s work to be done, whenever there’s heavy lifting—”

“James is somewhere else.”

“That’s what I was going to say.”

“But, hey, we’re better off than we were ten minutes ago.”

“How’s that?” She looked puzzled.

“We’ve got the pen and I don’t have to pay for it if I return it.”

We started back to the Airstream.

“And, Skip. Just think how good things are going to be in about an hour.”

“You are talking about you and me?” I had a feeling she was alluding to an all-nighter at the trailer.

“No, no. Don’t get all excited.” She shook her pretty head. “I’m talking about you and James.”

“Me and James?”

“Hey, boy, you’re going to have another box truck.”

“Oh, yeah.” That took all the excitement out of me. “Now we’re sure to solve the case.”

Em grabbed my hand and for the first time in months we walked together, hand in hand. We walked without talking, not really paying attention to where we were going. Just walking.

“And maybe I will stay the night.” Her voice was soft and sexy. “I’ve never made love in an Airstream before.”

“You know something? Neither have I.”

Long shadows lay on the show grounds, cast by a pale half moon as it lit up the rides. In the distance I could see a light bobbing around the perimeter. A flashlight from Moe’s security patrol. Actually, the patrol was made up of two of the ride operators who split the late shift for an extra fifty bucks apiece. Cheap security.

“Skip?”

“Yeah.”

“You know you really should put together a plan.”

“I thought we had one. You know, bug Pugh’s phone. Put the pen in Pugh’s trailer. Bug Pugh’s computer.”

“But you think there might be other suspects.”

I was quiet. Duh.

“You don’t believe that Pugh is behind this, do you? Even though he does have a terrific motive?”

“No. I thought I made that clear. He’s harmless. But I’m even more puzzled by something else.”

“What’s that?”

“Why you’re involved. I thought by now you’d know better than to get into anything that James has going on.”

“Maybe I’m just looking out for you.”

“So what else do we do?”

“Find out how those rides were tampered with. Maybe go over and talk to that security guy who’s bopping around the show grounds. Maybe talk to Bo and Charlie and let them know who you are and what you want.”

“But that blows our cover and I’m not sure that Bo and Charlie—”

She let go of my hand and stopped in front of me. “If you haven’t figured it out, Skip, your cover is blown. Now you’ve got to start asking questions.”

We reached the trailer and I stepped up to open the door. Before I could get my fingers on the handle the door swung out hard, banging my head, and I stumbled off the landing, crashing into Em. As I pushed myself to my feet, a shadowy figure leapt down from the step. Whoever it was seemed as surprised as I was, and in the faint light I saw him duck his head, taking one step toward me. I felt a fist go deep in my gut, clear to my spine and when I doubled up that same fist caught my jaw. My head snapped back and I remember crumpling to the ground, the world spinning out of control.

Em was shouting my name as I blacked out.

She was shaking me, awakening me, and I struggled to open my eyes, finally staring into her face, which was highlighted by the distant moon. And maybe a couple of show lights that burned in the distance.

“Skip.”

Now her face was brilliant, hot white with a bright spotlight and I thought for just a moment she was an angel. And she was no longer looking at me, but staring up in the air. And with a great deal of pain I turned my head and saw the lights of heaven, twin lights, with a yellow blinking light.

The yellow blinking light threw me off.

Em was on her feet, jogging to the light.

“Did you see someone running?”

“Almost hit ’em.” The voice was James’s.

“Whoever it was broke into your trailer, ran out, and had a rather nasty run-in with Skip.”

“Whoa.”

I struggled to a sitting position—and realized the twin headlights and blinking yellow light were part of James’s new truck.

“Pard, you okay?”

I shook my head, and spit on the ground. It felt like my front tooth was loose. “I’ve been better.”

“Almost ran over the guy just a minute ago.”

“Did you recognize him?”

“Never got a good look.”

Em glanced around. “Where’s Angie? Did she get a look at him?”

“I doubt it. I dropped her off at her trailer.”

“James, at least you got a truck that has a turn signal.“ The blinking yellow light finally registered.

“Don’t get too excited, amigo. It never goes off. We’re perpetually turning left. But I’ll get it fixed. I’ll get it fixed.”

Em was stroking my hair, not knowing exactly what to do.

“Let’s get you inside.” James turned off the engine and it coughed and hiccuped. Not a good omen. He helped me up the steps, my legs feeling like Jello.

Pulling the door open, he caught me as I stumbled in, planting myself on the couch.

“What the heck did he want?”

“Are we sure it was a ‘he’?”

“Hit pretty hard if it was a she.” I rubbed my jaw.

Everything seemed to be in order. The computer still sat on the small table, and there wasn’t much else of value in the tiny unit.

Em walked to the small refrigerator and opened it. She pulled out two of the last four beers and handed me a cold bottle.

“Opener?”

“No. You put the bottle on your jaw. If you don’t, that’s going to swell up to where you can’t even talk.”

I put the bottle on my jaw and Em poured half of the other beer into a stained coffee mug. She handed the mug to James and took a swig from the bottle.

“This is a good thing, amigo.”

“And just how is this a good thing, James? I get smacked around, someone breaks into our trailer—”

“Skip. We’ve stirred something up. Last night, the guy from the air rifle booth wants to talk. Before you get to him, someone has killed him. Tonight, someone thinks we’re close to solving the case, and they break in trying to see what information we have. We’re making things happen.”

“And we have absolutely no idea what happened.”

“Start eliminating.”

“Like how?”

James took a slug of beer from his coffee mug. “There must be someone we can eliminate.”

Em sat down on a vinyl kitchen chair and we all thought about that for a moment.

“Well,” I knew who wasn’t our break-in artist. “It wasn’t Winston Pugh. He’s not the guy who broke in.”

“And how do you know that?” Em asked.

“Come on, Em. He hit me in the jaw.”

“Oh, yeah. Winston couldn’t reach your jaw.”

“But that doesn’t eliminate him from being the guy who sabotaged the rides. He’s still got the best motive we know of.” James made his point.

I got the point. It was just that I couldn’t picture the little guy actually killing anyone.

“He wasn’t happy when he left here.” Em knocked back another swallow.

“Reminds me of the dwarf I rear-ended with my truck last year,” James said.

“I don’t remember that.”

“Oh, yeah. He gets out of his car and he yells, ‘I’m not Happy.’ So I said, well, then which one are you?”

I didn’t bother to smile.

“We can rule out—”

“Angie Clark.” James nodded his head.

“Are you sure? What do you really know about her?” Em pried.

“It’s just that she gave us a pile of money. If she’s guilty why would she want to help us?”

“To throw us off the track,” Em said

“That’s an expensive decoy.”

“Or maybe it was to throw us off the truck,” I suggested.

“Hey, the truck is going to pay off, amigo. I promise you.”

“Yeah. I’m sure.”

“Guaranteed.”

“James, the first truck never paid off. And you didn’t have to pay anyone back for that one.”

James licked his lips. “This one’s got some built-in cabinets in the back, Skip. We can haul some of the gear.”

“You could put the gear in the trunk of a car.”

“Yeah, but this truck comes complete with an extension ladder, pally.”

“An extension ladder?”

“Yep. Big, long aluminum ladder. Probably goes up twenty, thirty feet. Rides right on top of the truck.”

“So we can raid second-story sorority houses?”

James turned away and ignored me.

“Well, we’ve got the computer and we can still track Pugh’s calls.” Em pulled the computer over to her and clicked. The screen came to life.

“Well here’s something interesting.” She frowned. “Someone read the screen with Pugh’s calls.”

“Uh-oh.” James’s eyes got big and wide.

“It appears they just scanned a few of them so I’d bet they didn’t know what they’d found.”

“Let’s hope.”

“And whoever was here typed in a message of their own.”

“They did what?”

“Keyed in their own message,” Em said. She shoved the computer to me and I glanced at the screen.

Another reason it couldn’t be Pugh. He obviously didn’t know how to operate a computer.

In big bold type it said,
PRIVATE COPS, GO HOME.

James walked out from the bedroom. “Nothing I can see. I think you guys scared them off. And my guess is that whoever it was just wanted to scare us.”

“They succeeded.” I wondered where the next attack would come from.

The three of us looked around the tiny space, all of us feeling a little paranoid.

“Let’s take a walk outside.” Em opened the door and motioned to me. I walked out, followed by James.

“Someone may have bugged the trailer.” She looked back at the silver bullet-shaped trailer. “I say we call the cops.” I expected that from Em.

James was firm. “No way. The cops get involved, we’re screwed. I’ve never known it to fail.”

“So, do we call Moe?” I already knew the answer to that one.

“Hell no.” James was adamant. “We’ll see him at the meeting and we can bring this up if we want to.”

He was right.

“I’m going to Angie’s place. Grab a couple of beers, and I’ll
be back after I talk to her. He walked out of the trailer and we were quiet for a moment. Em cracked the last two beers and made me put ice on my jaw. And I’ve got to tell you, it’s tough to drink beer when you’re pressing an ice bag on your face.

She read some more text messages from Linda and Pugh, but no one ever made a call on their phone, so around midnight we decided to pack it in. Em and I retired to the minibedroom and even though I was a little sore, we fell into a comfortable routine.

Despite what happened earlier in the Fun House, I found that you can have fun in a trailer.

She drifted off to sleep and I tossed for half an hour. I would have tossed
and
turned, but the bed was too small to do both.

Finally, I got up and went to the kitchen. The computer sat on the table where we’d left it. I opened the door and looked outside, watching that bobbing flashlight in the distance. It stopped down by the Dragon Tail and seemed to disappear. I wondered if the guard was taking a break.

James’s new used truck was parked beside my car and Em’s T-Bird, and I questioned how he was ever going to pay for it. His last vehicle had come from the money he inherited from an aunt he didn’t ever remember. I wondered if he had any other aunts or uncles in the family who were inclined to leave him a small inheritance.

There was a warm breeze blowing across the show ground, and I left the door open. I figured James was probably right. No one was coming back tonight.

Picking up the empty beer bottles, I tossed them in the trash, and thought about Em in the next room. Probably the best thing that ever happened to me, and it was all just like something floating on the breeze. It could disappear at any moment. One breath of air and it could all be gone.

In the small kitchen mirror my face looked puffy, and I saw
the angry red skin where someone’s fist had collided with my jaw. My stomach muscles were sore from the blow and I rubbed the tender section with my hand.

And then I saw the pen on the kitchen countertop. We’d forgotten all about it. I picked up the silver cylinder and smiled when I realized how concealed everything was. I’d seen it working live when Jody had it in his pocket. That was the only time I’d seen it. Live.

Now I wanted to see how it played back the recording in the computer. I unscrewed the top as if to put in a new ink cartridge, and there was the plug, as simple as that. Almost like the antenna that we’d plugged in to tap Pugh’s cell phone. I plugged it into a port and heard the chimes on my laptop.