Nickel City Crossfire by Gary Ross (popular romance novels .txt) 📗

my own as she opened her purse. “Now go to your app store and look for a locator program that will let me find your phone.” She did so, and moments later we were linked by a friend finder application. “Here’s a new two-letter code to tell me you’re with Keisha or following her. Easy to remember. BB.”

“BB? Like a BB gun?”

“Like Bronco Buster,” I said, remembering the story she had told me in her office. “Ride her, cowboy.” As she laughed, I was glad to see the tension in her face lessen. “Text that to me and my phone’s GPS will lead me right to you.”

Two minutes later, when she left, Spider made no move to follow her. He just sat there and continued to stare at me with his cold, flat eyes.

17

Leaving Mia’s tip on the placemat, I carried my second iced tea over to Lester Tolliver’s table and sat across from him.

“Hello, Lester,” I said. “How’s the dry-cleaning business these days?”

Face blank, he said nothing.

“Or do you prefer Spider?”

“I have no objection to a nickname given to me by my mother.” His unblinking eyes remained unreadable but his soft baritone held a trace of menace softened by amusement.

“All right, Spider. I’m not in the mood for a swim today. You forgot to bring Mickey, Donald, and Goofy, so it won’t be easy to change my mind.” Lorenzo Quick was so paranoid about being bugged, he held meetings with people he didn’t know in his indoor pool only after they had undergone a latex-gloved full body search and entered the water naked. In our October encounter, Spider had brought three large men, all presumably armed, to discourage my resistance to getting into their car and to reinforce my appreciation of a midday swim. “So Mr. Quick will have to call my office for an appointment.”

“He doesn’t wish to see you, sir.” As he had been in our previous meeting, Spider was unfailingly polite. “At least not today.”

“Then why are you here?”

He held up his coffee cup. “For a detective, Mr. Rimes, you are regrettably deficient in your observational skills.” His lips twitched for a second. The son of a bitch was enjoying himself, fighting back a smile.

“This blend is so good, I may have a second cup.”

I drank some of my iced tea, maybe to dampen the annoyance I was beginning to feel.

Spider set down his cup and leaned toward me half an inch or so. “Lunch with three attractive young women, none of them your regular lover. You must be on the mend.”

I said nothing but felt my jaw tighten as annoyance began the climb toward anger.

“How is your shoulder, sir?”

“Who’s asking?”

“I am, but I’m certain my employer would want me to. When he learned you had been shot, he told me more than once how much he enjoyed meeting you.”

“Because he enjoys scaring naked people in his pool, with those gold-capped vampire fangs and the knife he keeps in the pocket of his swim trunks?”

“Because he enjoys testing them.”

I leveled my eyes at Spider. “How’d I do?”

“Most people in such a situation feel afraid, or at least vulnerable and intimidated. That you didn’t impressed him so much he has wondered aloud more than once what it would take to get you to work for him. I trust you understand how rare such a sentiment is when it comes to my employer.”

“I believe I do.” I took another sip of tea. “So, you’re here to recruit me?”

“Far from it.” The salt-and-pepper mustache still threatened to spread into a smile. “Even as he considered it, he remembered how tense you were even in warm water, always ready, calculating your odds. We both reached the same conclusion. It would never work.”

“Why not?”

“Ours is a family business—not blood family but chosen family, which means the bonds are stronger. The rugged individual has a hard time finding faith or footing in such a group.” He began to raise his cup.

“So I would be a bad fit.”

“The worst.” Lips pressed tight and cup hovering below his chin, he exhaled through his nostrils. “My employer has known many men like you.”

“Rugged individuals?”

“Cynics in search of redemption.” His flicker of a smile vanished. “The permanent outsider is the hardest man to divert from his chosen path. He is just too stubborn.” He shook his head and downed the last of his coffee. “Stubbornness, I’m afraid, is your fatal flaw.”

There it was, the tail end of the warning that had begun with his allusion to Phoenix. Looking into Quick’s affairs could get me killed, maybe Phoenix too. Spider would be the one to drop the hammer. Was I being warned because of Keisha? No, I decided. That didn’t feel quite right. We regarded each other for several seconds before he spoke again.

“So, how is your shoulder?”

“Fine.”

“You traded your nylon rig for a belt-clip. Even under your sweater, it’s easy to see your grip is pointed outward, so you can pull with your left hand. Plus, your posture is off. You’re sitting in a manner that eases pressure. So I doubt your shoulder is fine.”

“Nothing deficient in your observational skills,” I said. “You ought to be a detective.”

He gave a small shake of his head. “Shitty pay.”

“But good enough, especially if you’re ambidextrous.”

“Ah, you’re no slouch with your left hand.” Finally, he let himself smile—a small one but a smile just the same. “Glad to know that.”

“But dancing too long does bother my shoulder, so just tell me why you’re interested in my current work.” I leaned toward him, lowered my voice. “I doubt you or your people had anything to do with the young woman you know I’m trying to find. So what’s up?”

He looked down at his empty cup for a moment, as if contemplating whether to ask for more coffee. Then he took a deep breath and looked up, the flinty look slipping from his eyes. “Do you have any idea why my mother started calling me Spider?”

“No.”

“When I was small, I