Читать книгу Like Pizza and Beer - Elle Parker - Страница 9

Chapter 6

I was in the car and heading back north before I took out my phone and dialed Seth. He answered on the fourth ring and sounded preoccupied, which probably meant I had pulled him out from underneath a car. Tough.

“Dino, hi, what’s going on?”

“You really are an evil little shit, and now you’re gonna do me a favor and you don’t get to say no.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. We need to go pick up a truck, and you have the license for it. I’m assuming you can drive a refrigerated panel truck?”

“I can drive anything, Dino,” he said smugly.

“Great. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes, be ready. We’re in a hurry here.”

“Okay. Dino, wait. Why am I an evil shit?”

“You know the answer to that. So does everyone else who’s gotten a look at me today. Including Gigi, so I think you made your point.”

I snapped the phone shut and threw it on the seat, because I was no mood to listen to him gloat. I know a lot of people think leaving bruises like that is pretty hot, but I prefer not to advertise. Something Seth knows very well.

I turned on the causeway, and when I pulled up in front of the auto shop, Seth already had the place closed up and was standing on the curb waiting for me. I suspected his extreme willingness to cooperate was something of an apology.

He jumped over the door and slid into the passenger seat, leaning over to plant a kiss on my jaw.

I gave him a sharp look and said, “You bite me again and I will knock you flat on your ass, you got that?”

He bit his lip to suppress a smirk. I was wrong. He wasn’t sorry at all. I suppose I could have worse problems in life.

“Where are we going?” he asked as I pulled back into traffic.

“We’ve gotta’ run and get a shipment of supplies for Gigi. The saboteur struck again and cancelled their order. If they don’t get stocked up for the weekend, they’re screwed, and the warehouse doesn’t have anyone to drive the truck.”

“You have any leads yet?” he asked.

“I have one, but Gigi’s not buying it. She swears the guy is legit.”

“I bet she’s sleeping with him,” Seth said.

I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. “How in the hell can someone who sleeps around as much as you do have such a catty jealous streak? If anything, I should be the one who gets to act this way.”

“Slept around.”

“What?”

“Slept around. Past tense. You don’t think I still do that, do you?” He actually looked kind of hurt.

I sighed. “No. That’s not what I meant. I’m just sayin’, I’ve got one ex, and you have like thousands.”

“That’s not true on either count,” Seth pointed out, “and I don’t have anyone that serious in my past. You’re it, dude. You’re the one.”

“So, what, you’re making up for lost time?” Admittedly, I liked hearing that, and I was willing to put up with a fair amount of his crap. I suppose in some twisted way, you could call it romantic.

* * * *

We got to the warehouse by four-thirty to find one lone guy with a pallet jack, loading up the most pathetic, run-down truck I’ve ever seen. It didn’t look like it would make it out of the alley, let alone halfway down the coast.

I climbed out of the car and walked across the lot, Seth right behind me. “Hey!” I said to the guy. “I’m not paying you two hundred for a truck I have to push.”

“She’ll run,” he said, giving me a weary look. “She may not look like much, but she runs fine. You the guy from Salvatore’s?”

“Yeah.” I took out my wallet and showed him my both my driver’s license and my P.I. license.

He looked them over and nodded at Seth. “Who’s this?”

“Seth Donnelly. He’s gonna help, and he’s a mechanic, thank God.”

Seth pulled out his wallet as well, and the guy chuckled as he peered at it. “The truck is fine. You’re not going to have any trouble. Listen, if you guys want to help me finish loading it, you can get out of here that much faster.”

“Sure.” I draped my jacket over the tailgate of a pickup parked nearby and the three of us got to work.

It took about ten minutes to load the truck and pay the guy, and it took another hour to pick our way through St. Petersburg’s rush hour traffic. Seth bitched the entire way about teenagers, old people and crazy tourists.

The drive down through the beach towns wasn’t much better, and I was glad I didn’t have to do that every day. I made a mental note to cut truck drivers more slack in the future. In the meantime, I went over everything I’d learned so far with Seth. He agreed that Marco bore looking at more closely, and wanted to know about the other two employees with rap sheets. Two blocks from Salvatore’s, we were sitting at a long light when an idea struck me.

“Get out of the truck,” I told Seth, sliding across the seat to take his place.

“What?” He gaped at me. “What do you mean?”

“I mean get out, now, before the light changes. Hurry up.” I reached across him and popped the door open.

“Dino...”

“I don’t have time to explain right now. Just get out and wait for me right over there.” I pointed to a bus stop bench on the corner. “I’ll pick you up again after we get the truck unloaded. Go.”

“You are such an ass,” he muttered, but he jumped out of the truck and darted across the street just before traffic began to move. I looked in the side view mirror as I drove away and he flipped me off. I rolled down the window and waved.

When I got to the restaurant, I did my best to back the truck into their loading dock. It wasn’t a stellar job, but it would do. A band of cooks and busboys rushed out and started hauling food at a frantic pace.

I went inside to find Gigi. She was in the kitchen with Angelo, Marco and the senior line cook, making hasty rewrites to the menu of specials for the night, and planning out how they’d work around the late delivery.

She looked up at me and smiled. “Dino, you’re a lifesaver. I can’t thank you enough.”

Activity in the kitchen picked up as food was brought in, and I drew her out into the hallway for a few seconds of privacy.

“Listen,” I said, “I know you’ll have to work late tonight, but do you think you could swing by my apartment when you’re done? I want to talk to you about our next step here.”

She nodded. “Sure, I can do that. I’ll give you a call when I’m leaving.”

“Great. Oh, and ah, if you have any real good leftovers of anything, pack that up and bring it with you, we’re gonna need it.”

“Need it? Won’t that be kind of late for dinner?”

“Just do it,” I said, pressing up against the wall as a guy rushed through with a flat of tomatoes. “I gotta’ go, I have someone waiting for me. I’ll see you later.”

She only had a moment to look confused before the greater concerns of dinner rush grabbed her attention, and I slipped out to go pick up Seth.