“Good.” She nodded toward a covered yellow bowl in the center of the table. “Eggs are in the bowl. I hope you like scrambled.”
“Scrambled is fine.” I took four strips of bacon, slid them onto my plate and when I reached for the eggs I chose my words with care. “I’m not the person you should be worried about protecting Destiny from. In fact, I may be the only thing standing between her and a bullet.”
“What do you mean?”
“Her troubles are related to the case I’m working on for my mother. It turns out she stole something from the guy who hired us. It’s possible this guy had Nick killed too.”
“That’s worse than I thought,” she said. “Although I don’t doubt she stole something from you, and from him. She’s always liked the idea of easy money. Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
“No,” I said. “The less you know the better for you.”
She looked at me as if trying to decide whether I was serious or not. Finally, she gave in. “Gail and I argued when she took off this morning. I told her she should stick around until you got up. She refused. She swore she was going out to take care of the trouble she’d gotten herself into. She said she didn’t want to involve you anymore. I didn’t know anything about your money. Why were you carrying twenty-five hundred dollars in cash anyway?”
I shook my head and let out a sigh. “It’s a long story. I guess I should be glad all she took was the money and the gun. At least she left my wallet and credit cards.”
“I think I have a right to know what the hell’s going on between you and Gail. And I want to know why she thinks she needs a gun.”
I wasn’t quite sure what I should tell her, but if I was going to have any chance of finding Destiny, I needed her help. I decided the best way to get her on my side was to scare the hell out of her about her friend’s situation. So I laid it all out to her. I told her about the stolen diamonds, Frank Szymanski, and Bob and Willie. When I finished, I shut up and waited for her response.
Refusing to meet my gaze, she picked up her coffee cup and walked over to the window. She stood there for several minutes staring outside, then she moved back to the sink, picked up a half-empty coffee pot and asked, “You want coffee?”
I nodded and she grabbed an empty cup, filled it, and carried it over to the table. When she sat down she handed the cup over to me and spoke so softly I was forced to lean forward to hear her. “I guess nothing Gail does surprises me anymore. She’s always been involved with one wild scheme after another. To hear her talk, every one of them was going to make her rich.”
She picked up a piece of toast, tore it in half, but tossed it back onto her plate without taking a bite. “To tell you the truth, it doesn’t surprise me she got involved with gangsters. But I would have thought she was smart enough not to steal from them. She’s a member of Mensa. She even won a scholarship to Michigan State University.”
“She acts and speaks like a ditz.”
Tanya laughed. “She’s been using that shtick on men since she was fourteen.
“Still, she wasn’t smart enough to keep from being expelled for prostitution,” I said.
Tanya blew on her coffee. “It was an escort service. All she did was arrange for some of her fellow students to have a date with good-looking women. She may be a stripper, but it doesn’t make her a whore.”
“It’s a matter of semantics, isn’t it? She was charged with prostitution.”
Tanya nodded. “True. I guess I want to believe the best of her. Like I said, we grew up together.”
“Were the two of you close?”
“When we were teenagers.”
“Tell me about her.” I leaned back in my chair. “The better I understand her, the better chance I have of finding her again. I’m a little surprised she doesn’t seem concerned about a killer wandering around out there looking for her. Probably one or two others I haven’t met yet.”
“Do you think they’d hurt her?”
“Hell yes,” I said. “I’m afraid of Frankie Szymanski right now, and I didn’t steal any diamonds from him. All I did was make it a little harder for him to get them back.”
“Great.” Tanya jumped up and carried her cup over to the sink. “I’m gonna need another hit of caffeine.”
She let the water run for a minute, rinsed out the pot, and filled it before taking a bag of coffee from the cupboard. She ground the fresh beans and there was a gentle rhythm in the way she moved that made me feel at home.
Maybe it was the rich smell of the coffee. Maybe it was the sense of shared danger. Maybe it was only my imagination, but I think we both felt comfortable with the other’s presence. It was a quiet moment and neither of us spoke until she switched on the coffee maker and leaned back against the counter.
“Way before ‘Alvin’s’,” she began. “Dad was part owner in a strip club. Gail’s mother, Shelly, was a dancer at the club and Dad fell in love with her. He moved her and Gail into the house here. For the two years they lived with us, Gail and I were as close as sisters.”
“Did you keep in touch when she went away to school?”
Tanya shook her head. “No. We had a falling out after she and Shelly left and we didn’t talk much to each other afterward. I heard about what happened at Michigan State by word of mouth. Key West is still a small town and the gossip spread fast. I’ll admit I was a little surprised when I learned she was dancing.”
“Why’s that?”
“She hated the fact that her mother was a stripper. She once told me she’d rather be dead than take her clothes off in front of a bunch of drunks.”
“You guys seem buddy-buddy now,” I said. “She didn’t think twice about calling you at three in the morning when she needed a place to spend the night.”
The coffee pot made its final gurgles and Tanya rinsed her cup under the faucet, picked up the pot, and carried them to the table. She poured us both a fresh cup and settled back into her chair.
“Gail started coming into the bar about a month or so ago. She hooked up with Billy, and while he was playing we got reacquainted. I think she was lonely, and we go back a long way. What difference does it make?”
“I don’t know if it makes a difference. But I’d like you to help me understand her.”
“And why’s that Wes? You figure if you understand her you can find her? Then what? You get your money back. You get the diamonds and your ass isn’t hanging out there waiting to have someone chew on it. What about Gail? If she doesn’t get killed does she continue stripping? Do you even care?”
I closed my eyes and rubbed the bridge of my nose with my thumb. This woman sitting across the table intrigued me. One minute we seemed to be in sync, the next we were at each other’s throats. She appeared to be smart and caring, but also a little bit naive.
“I’m not going to lie to you, Tanya. I want my money back. And I don’t want to take a bullet because Gail did something stupid. If I can find her and get the diamonds into Frankie’s hands, we should be able to put this whole thing to rest. I’m pretty sure he wants those diamonds more than he wants her dead.”
“You don’t think she’s going to turn over the diamonds, do you?”
I stared across the table and let her think about things for a moment before asking, “Am I wrong?”
She shook her head. “Gail believes she’s smarter than you, or Frank Szymanski, or these other guys you’ve been telling me about. I told you, she’s always liked the idea of easy money. I’m sure it’s why she started dancing.”
“So will you help me find her?”
Tanya picked up her cup and blew on the coffee again. Not because it was hot, I suspected, but because it bought her a few seconds to think. Finally, she let out a sigh. “I’ll help if you promise to do everything you can to keep her alive.”
“I planned on that all along,” I said. “Even without your help.”
She smiled for the first time. “For some reason, I believe you. So now what?”
I reached out and touched her hand and was glad when she didn’t pull it away. I let my hand linger for a heartbeat, and then stood. “I guess I’d better go talk to Elvis.”