Читать книгу Like Pizza and Beer - Elle Parker - Страница 10

Chapter 7

In order to stall Seth’s curiosity, I dropped him off at the shop to finish the car he was working on and drove the truck back myself. With the pressure off, I could take my time and the traffic didn’t pose as much of a problem.

The guy was pleased to see me return with it in one piece, and before I left I gave him some bull about Salvatore’s having a disgruntled employee and got him to agree to call back and check any unusual instructions directly with Gigi until further notice.

Matilda was no worse for wear, and all’s well that ends well, I guess. Since I was already in that part of town, I thought I’d make a run past the construction company where Frank worked. I checked my notes against a city map and headed north. JH Construction was owned and run by John Holcomb. Hence the clever name. What little information I’d dug up on them was pretty run-of-the-mill. Small time operation, a few complaints and disputes from unhappy customers, and a pretty steady rate of turnover in employees. I was willing to bet the books were a testament to creative financing.

I pulled into the parking lot of a florist across the street and parked facing JH. From the outside, it looked pretty shoddy, but most of these places do. A painted sign propped up on the roof advertised: Kitchen Remodel; Bathroom Remodel; Interior Construction; Concrete, Fence & Yard Construction. Behind the main office stood a larger building for tools and supplies, the garage door open. In the parking lot there was a motley assortment of vans and trucks.

I didn’t see anything matching the description of Frank’s truck, so I got out of my car and trotted across the street. I wasn’t exactly sure what I planned to do, but sometimes you just have to dive in and get a feel for a situation.

Inside, the place was a little nicer. The walls were all brown paneling with carpet to match, and the furniture had obviously been around a long time. None of it matched anything, but it was clean. A window air conditioning unit cranked away feebly next to the desk of a woman in her late fifties, who appeared to be serving as both bookkeeper and receptionist.

“Can I help you?” she asked. Polite, but not what I would call friendly.

“Ah, yeah.” I stalled for a minute to assemble a game plan. More often than not, the truth works just fine. “I’m in the middle of remodeling my office, and I’m not getting very far with it. I’m thinking it’s time to throw in the towel and see about having it done. You guys handle something like that?”

“We could probably help you.” The voice was not the lady at the desk, but a large, bear-shaped man who’d appeared from out of the tiny hallway. The offices must have been close enough for him to keep tabs on anything going on. “How big a job is it?”

“Not too big. Just a few walls, really. I’m creating an office out of an old store front. Two rooms and an entryway, nothing fancy.”

“Yeah, that sounds fine. We’ll need to have someone come over and take a look to give you a proper quote.” He held a hand out to me. “I’m John Holcomb.”

I shook it and said, “That’ll be great.”

“What’s your schedule look like?” He moved over near the desk and waved hastily to the receptionist, who turned and flipped open a large calendar book.

“I’m pretty flexible. Say, I know a guy who works here, Frank Novak.”

He glanced up at me. “You’re friends with Frank?”

“More like friend of a friend. I like to try and help out people I know.”

John scoffed. “He needs all the help he can get.”

“Ah. Like that, huh? Can’t say I’m all that surprised.”

“I do most of the quotes myself, but if you want Frank, I’ll see to it he’s assigned to the job. How big a hurry are you in?”

“I suppose sooner rather than later,” I told him, “but I don’t have any particular deadline.”

“That’s good,” John said flatly. He didn’t elaborate.

We scheduled an appointment for the following week and I left, not much more enlightened than I was before. It didn’t take any leaps of imagination to guess that Frank had a pretty spotty record on the job, or that he wasn’t especially well liked by his boss. The prospect of Frank working on my office didn’t bother me. Honestly, I didn’t think it was going to happen, but if it did, I couldn’t see a problem there. He already knew who I was, so it made sense that I would choose his company for a remodeling job, and it might offer me another angle to work on Seth’s case.

I drove home and put in a little time on a standard info search I was doing for a law office, and then stretched out on the couch for a while, just to rest. Seth showed up at ten and joined me, flopping onto my chest and falling into a light snooze.

At eleven o’clock, Gigi called to say she was on her way. I woke Seth and we both started moving so we’d be alert when she got there. I put a pot of coffee on, and was pouring it when she knocked on the door. I let her in, and she set two plastic bags full of takeout containers on the counter. Seth raised an eyebrow and took an immediate interest.

“You want a cup of coffee?” I asked her. I unpacked the food and took out some plates.

“Yes, please,” she said, watching me quizzically. “This was all about bringing you a free dinner?”

“No, this is about your case. I just asked you to bring the food because Seth did most of the driving today and had to work late because of it.”

“Oh,” she said. “Well, thank you, Seth.”

“Sure, no problem.” He loaded a plate with a slab of lasagna, three kinds of pasta, a piece of fish, and two hunks of garlic bread, which he took to the table. “I would have helped unload it too, but Dino wouldn’t let me.”

“There’s a reason for that,” I said. I picked up a carton with the remains of some glorious smelling puttanesca and grabbed a fork. I pulled out a chair for Gigi and we joined Seth.

“Dino, what is going on?” she asked. “You’re being very cagey.”

I took a deep breath, because I had a great plan, but I knew it wasn’t going to be well received by at least one, if not both of them.

“All right,” I said, “today’s little incident makes it pretty clear that whatever’s going on, they have someone on the inside.”

“They?” Gigi asked, eyes wide.

“Well, it still could be one person, but if so, he’s still there, because that’s where the call came from to cancel the shipment. And it had to be someone who knew there was going to be a shipment in the first place.”

Gigi said, “Maybe the guy at the warehouse was lying to us. Maybe he’s the one.”

I shook my head. “When I went back, he showed me the caller ID memory. The call really did come from Salvatore’s. I don’t think he would have gone to that much trouble to fake it, and I don’t see much of a motive there, anyway.”

“You’re just convinced it’s Marco,” she said, crossing her arms.

“Oh, don’t start with that. I have very good reason to suspect him, but I haven’t made up my mind about anything. We’re just getting started here.”

“But you’re not willing to consider any other options.”

“The hell I’m not,” I said. “I’ve spent the last two days considering all kinds of options, but the one that has someone working on the inside covers all the events better than anything else.”

Seth sighed and pushed noodles around on his plate. “I hate it when mom and dad fight.”

Gigi started to say something, but snapped her mouth shut.

“Look, I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not just targeting Marco here. At the moment, I suspect everyone there but you. That’s why I want us to have someone on the inside too. That way we stand a better chance of figuring out what’s going on.”

“What are you talking about, Dino?” Gigi sat up straight.

Seth froze with his fork halfway to his plate. He spoke through a mouthful of pasta. “This is bribery food, isn’t it?”

“Yes it is, busboy, eat up.”

Understanding dawned on Gigi’s face. “You want me to hire Seth at the restaurant to spy on the staff.”

“That’s why you didn’t want me in the truck,” Seth said, leaning back in his chair. “You didn’t want anyone there to know I was with you.”

“Yes, and yes. We get Seth in there to find out who’s the one pullin’ strings from the inside and then we can find out what the story is.”

Gigi nodded slowly. “Okay. Yes, I think that would work. I’m willing to do it.”

Seth didn’t look so certain. “I’d love to help, but come on, Dino, I already have a pretty full workload at the shop.”

“Yeah, I thought about that,” I told him. “I can come over in the mornings and give you a hand, so you’re free to go to the restaurant.”

“I would put you on the payroll, of course,” Gigi said.

Seth made a few faces, and I said, “It’s not gonna be more than about a week, I don’t think.”

“You know, I’m not very good with authority,” he said, working hard to come up with excuses.

Gigi is a shrewd woman, however, and she leaned forward, resting her chin in her hand and grinning at him. “I’ll feed you. Every night. All you want.”

He smirked and said, “Yeah, yeah, all right. I’ll do it.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I know it’s asking a lot.”

Seth scooped more spaghetti into his mouth and gulped it down. “I’m really not good with a boss, though. I’ll try, but I can’t make any promises.”

“Actually,” I said, “that’s not gonna be a problem. We don’t want you to come across like Gigi’s pet project or no one will talk to you. Without causing any actual trouble, the bigger a jerk you are, the more likely it is you’re gonna get along with whoever doesn’t have Gigi’s best interests at heart.”

Seth considered that, and Gigi said, “Hmm. This might be kind of fun. Well, if the stakes weren’t so high.”

I felt bad for her, with that cloud hanging over her head. I hoped we’d solve the case quickly, and I hoped for her sake it really wasn’t Marco. Whatever her relationship with him, it was clear she’d be devastated if he turned out to be the one screwing with her.

“Gigi,” I said, “do you think you can get Seth in there tomorrow night without causing a lot of suspicion?”

“Sure. I have people putting in for vacation all the time, and one of our servers just told me she’s pregnant. We can always use people. I can also say that I hired him as a favor to someone, which really isn’t even a lie. We do that a lot anyway, since bussing doesn’t require much training.” She turned to Seth. “When you come in tomorrow, just act like we’ve already had an interview, and I called you up to hire you. Everyone will think you were around on their day off. As far as most of the staff is concerned, new people just show up all the time.”

“Yeah, okay. What time should I be there?”

“Four or five is fine. If you want to really hear anything interesting, you should probably plan to work until close.”

“Deal.”

“You’re a good man, Seth,” I said.

“Don’t you forget it, either.”

“I don’t plan to,” I told him. There was another subject I wanted to touch base with Gigi on, and I asked her, “Have you noticed that car following you in the past couple of days?”

She shook her head. “No, not lately. I still get that feeling like I’m being watched, but maybe that’s coming from someone at the restaurant.”

“Maybe,” I said. “I just want you to watch your back. Are you safe when you’re at home?”

“I think so. I live in a secure building, and I’m on the second floor.”

“All right,” I said, “but make sure you have my number and you give me a call if anything strange happens. I mean anything. And don’t get real nervous if you see me hanging around. I’m gonna be keeping an eye on you, and want to try to catch that guy in the act.”

She nodded and stood up. “I’ll be careful.”

After she left, Seth and I ate a little more and cleaned up the mess. Then I took him to bed and thanked him properly for putting his neck on the line.