“Why are we doing this again?” Dinah asked. I kept glancing around, noticing that the street seemed very parked up. Everyone around here had a garage and a driveway; there were usually almost no cars on the street at night.
“If I can get a look at the crochet piece that Matt Wells talked about, then I can cancel dance night at the bookstore—even though it does sound like a good idea. But it’s so last-minute, and Mrs. Shedd particularly mentioned that we shouldn’t schedule anything before the bookstore’s TV debut.”
Figuring the cleaning crew would come in through the back entrance, we went up the stairs from the parking lot side. There, a glass door opened into a hallway that ran between the corporate offices and the dance studio. I pushed on the door, and my heart rate sped up a few notches when it opened. Dinah clutched my arm with her free hand while hanging onto the mop and pail with her other.
Just as I was about to walk in, a man stepped out of the corner, blocking us. He was about thirty, built like a fireplug and wore an ill-fitting dark suit. He finished off the look with buzz-cut hair and a sour expression.
“What do you want?” he demanded.
The shock of seeing someone so menacing made my voice disappear into my throat. I choked out, “Cleaning crew,” and feebly held up my pail.
“Nobody told me anything about a cleaning crew,” he said in a deep gruff voice. He looked us over a few times. I was just waiting for him to toss us out, which he looked like he could do with ease. When he shook his head with something that looked like regret, I prepared for the worst.
“It must be tough times for you, huh?” he said as he checked us out again. “A couple of old babes like you working two jobs.”
At first I didn’t know what he was talking about, but then I looked down at my outfit and over at Dinah’s. Our clothes weren’t exactly cleaning-crew wear. All I’d thought about were some props, not wardrobe. I had on my usual khaki pants and a black sweater over a white shirt. Dinah wore black slacks, a turtleneck and a corduroy blazer with a burnt orange scarf swirled around her neck. Her earrings almost brushed her shoulders.
Since he seemed sympathetic, I nodded with a wistful touch of sadness. “I just left my other job. And now this. It’s been a long day. . . .” All of which was actually true. I had a hard time with outright lies, but I could live with omissions.
He glanced down the hall as if considering whether he should confer with someone else. “If you have to ask somebody to get an okay, could you do it?” I said, trying to sound like I meant it. “We really need to get going on this so we can get in a little sleep before we have to go to our day jobs.” Dinah poked me sharply. Yeah, I was taking a chance, but I was betting that offering him the option would make him not take it. And I was right.
A moment later, he shrugged and gestured for us to go on in. “You two remind me of my aunts. Just stick to the offices, okay?”
“That works for me,” I said as we started down the hall. I could feel his eyes on my back as I reached for a door handle and prayed it didn’t lead to a closet.
“Whew.” I sighed when I saw the inside of an office. Dinah came in and shut the door behind us.
“We better move quickly before he changes his mind,” I said. The walls were lined with photos. Some were of Lance Wells Sr. in various movie roles. There was one of him cutting the ribbon on the Lance Wells Dance Studio we were standing in. Then there were photos of other dance studios with captions indicating their location: Dallas, Chicago, Buffalo, among others.
A large desk dominated the room, but there was an emptiness about it. The desktop was too neat, the chair pushed in with finality. There were photos on the front, including a wedding photo of Mary Beth and Lance Jr. She looked as though she’d just won a prize; he looked a little drunk. Another photo showed Mary Beth and Matt laughing and poised to dance on the round porch at the house in Catalina. Obviously, this was Mary Beth’s desk, and probably Lance Jr.’s before that and Lance Sr. before that.
Recalling the need for speed, I quickly began opening drawers. In a bottom drawer I found several balls of number 10 thread in white and ecru, along with some size 7 steel hooks. There was a partially completed chart on a piece of graph paper. Attached to it was the cutout of a photocopy of a photograph.
“That’s how she did it all,” I said, reminding Dinah of all the filet pictures on the wall in the Catalina house. “She took a photo and blew up the size on a copy machine, then drew around it on the graph paper, and then she had a chart of meshes and open spaces to do the filet crochet.” I looked at the black-and-white image in the copy. It was a little girl with pigtails. “I wonder who she is.” I held it out so Dinah could see.
We were so intent on examining the copy, we didn’t hear a door open.
“What are you doing here?” an angry male voice demanded.
When I turned I was looking directly into Hal Klinger’s face. Gone was the benignly dull demeanor he’d had at our first meeting. He stood taller now and had a much more domineering expression.
I hadn’t noticed the other door before. It was ajar behind him and led directly to the studio. Something was going on in there, but he was blocking my view. I could hear the hum of conversation and a whirring noise and then silence, followed by a clank. Whatever it was, it didn’t sound like dancing.
At that moment the security guard, still looking like a fireplug in a suit, pushed the door open wider as he came in behind Hal—and I finally saw what was going on. The whirring was the sound of cards being shuffled, and the clank came from poker chips being anted up. I couldn’t see how many tables there were, but they all seemed full. A row of people lined the wall. Were they all waiting for their turn to play?
“You have a poker room here?” I said, noticing a snack bar as well.
“None of your business,” Hal said, snapping the door shut. He looked at the open drawer with the contents on the desk. “I should call the cops and report a robbery in progress.”
I heard Dinah gasp, and I grabbed her hand, squeezing it in reassurance. The fireplug started explaining our cleaning-crew story until Hal told him to zip it.
I looked Hal right in his beady eyes and said, “I don’t think you want to call the cops.” I pointed over his shoulder. “Which do you think they would be more interested in—two women with small balls of crochet thread or an illegal card room?”
Dinah was leaning against the desk, no doubt recovering from the adrenaline rush all this had caused, and I felt her nudge me. When I looked she was giving me a thumbs-up.
Hal snorted, clearly not happy with the situation. “Okay, suppose we call it even. I let you go and you keep your mouths shut or my friend in the suit, Grant, will pay you a visit.”
It sounded like a good deal to me.
Grant put a beefy hand around my arm and Dinah’s. He almost lifted us off the ground as he dragged us down the hall. With a shove we were out the door, and I heard the click of a lock. The cool darkness of the parking lot was a relief. Despite my bravado, I’d been barely breathing; I took a deep swallow of air.
“Hey, we forgot the pails and mops,” Dinah said, finally regaining her voice. We looked at each other and shook our heads. We weren’t going back. Instead, we walked the distance to Dinah’s house in record time and collapsed on her couch.
“What was that?” Dinah said.
“Good question.” I leaned back and tried to sort things out. Pieces began to come together and I sat upright. “What if Mary Beth didn’t mean the building on Catalina, but the word casino. Maybe she found out about Hal’s side operation. I bet Roseanne doesn’t know, or Matt. It’s Hal’s own little cash cow.” I had taken out my little notebook and wrote down casino = card room?