“You can get by security? What? You’ve got a gun?”
Styles looked at me and gave me a sorrowful glance. “Skipper — ”
“Don’t call me Skipper. It’s Skip.”
“Skipper, I don’t need a gun. I can find the information you’re looking for. Actually it’s quite simple.”
What a horse’s ass. “You can break into the office?”
“I can. You can be as sarcastic as you want, but I know something that you don’t. I know something that very few people know.”
That scared me. The fact that James had involved Styles scared me.
“Thomas LeRoy keeps an organizer.”
“Yeah. I’ve watched him punch in the numbers. Stan the pizza man has one too.” James had a smug look on his face. “So what does that prove?”
“They both keep all their notes on those organizers.”
“Notes. Financial transactions.” I was trying to hurry him along.
“Not just that. I told you. LeRoy also keeps track of every full-timer and the staff on that thing. He makes notes on people who work on the weekend revivals. You’re in there I’m sure.”
“So what’s your point?”
“Both LeRoy and Stan download their organizers every night into a master computer.”
“And?”
“That master computer is in the office.”
“How is that supposed to help us?”
“I’m telling you, LeRoy probably wrote down the story about the tires, and if he did, he knows who shot them out. If he paid for the new ones,” Styles pointed to the black beauties, “then he’s got the info on who shot the other ones. My guess is, that person’s going to have to pay Mr. LeRoy and Mr. Cashdollar back.”
James’s eyes rolled. It was obvious he was getting a little tired of his friend’s arrogance and crazy stories.
I couldn’t stand the arrogance either and verbally demonstrated it. “How do you know this? You were a one-weekend wonder. They asked you to leave the park. And now you claim to know more than almost anyone here?”
Styles hesitated, staring at his fingers. “I’m in that organizer.”
James shook his head, obviously tired or bored with this conversation. “Let’s move on.”
“James, I can’t tell you how I know, but I know. You get into that computer and you’ll find out why they’re after you.”
We had one more day. Sunday. One more day and we could walk away with the kind of money James said we would make. The new tires were a gift. They more than made up for the old ones that were shot out. James made back the money that was stolen from us by playing poker. We weren’t out anything, and by next year, I was hoping we wouldn’t need to do this carney game again. So why didn’t I just pack it in? Why didn’t I just tell them I was out? Two reasons.
First of all, James is my best friend, and he wanted more information. He’d leveled with me. I knew up front he wanted information on how Cashdollar succeeded, he wanted the blueprint of success and neither James nor I had ever been this close to success before. He wanted to take advantage of that. James wanted information on who these characters were, and why someone had taken our money and shot out the tires. And, he wanted to know if anyone in this organization had the balls to commit murder. Multiple murders. And finally, I think James wanted revenge. Revenge on whoever had messed around with us.
Second of all, Em drove in at that exact moment, and I’d promised her I’d show her around. I should have jumped in her red T-bird, told her to head northwest, and said adios to Cashdollar and company. But I didn’t. The world is full of should-haves.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
S he looked great, in a pair of red shorts and white halter top, her blond hair looking just a little wind-blown. Styles couldn’t stop staring as she stepped from the car.
“Jesus. She looks better now than she did in school, and in school she was — ”
“She was what?” I glared at him.
“Smokin’.”
She saw the three of us watching her and smiled. Maybe for effect, maybe for our afternoon delight, maybe because she’d really missed me for three months, Em walked over and planted a really juicy kiss on my lips.
“Em.” James nodded.
“James.” Frosty. I think if I left the two of them alone for a couple of hours, the freeze would thaw, would turn hot. I didn’t plan on letting it happen.
“So,” she smiled at me, her eyes shining, “what are the plans?”
The fading daylight caught her silhouette and I knew what plans I’d like to make. But there was James, and I had to help my partner. “You and I need to talk.”
I took her hand and we walked up by the tent. She gazed at the yellow monster. “So this is where the magic takes place?”
“Isn’t that usually a line from a rapper on TV when they take a tour of his house and they enter the bedroom? The rapper will say, ‘and this is where the magic happens.’ ”
“I know. I’ve seen the shows.” She looked into my eyes and I thought I might have a heart attack. “Well?” She squeezed my hand. “From what I hear, you get screwed in this tent too.”
“Cute.” The response and the girl. “There’s some truth to the magic.” I told her about the Meet And Greet boys, and I could see she was impressed. “And you should have seen James when Cashdollar dropped by and suggested that we could be the next billionaires.”
“He really said that?”
“He did. However, he also asked us to leave and not come back.”
“He told you to vacate the premise? I can’t believe that. Come on, Skip. He really asked you to leave?”
“No.” I was overly negative. And, I thought, for good reason. “He said ‘obviously this business isn’t for everybody.’ ”
She gave me a hard look. “Well, it’s not.”
She was right. It wasn’t.
“It’s just been a rough couple of days.”
“And James wants to settle some scores?” Now a quizzical expression. She had a face that could change in a split second. And she could see right through me.
“Well, I think he wants to know who’s threatening us.”
“Skip, you’re twenty-five-year-old guys. You’ve never been in a fight in your life to my knowledge.” She paused. “Well, you got your asses kicked in that Cuban thing, but other than that — ” She trailed off.
Asses kicked? We’d about got our lives snuffed out. The first of James’s truck episodes. But that’s another story.
Looking down the path that led to the nightly poker game she said, “You’re new to the real world, and here you are playing with con men, felons, billionaires. A little scary isn’t it? Don’t you think you might be out of your league?”
“Maybe.”
“There’s no maybe about it. I’m just guessing here, but it seems to me these guys wouldn’t even think twice about chewing you up and spitting you out if they thought you were in their way.”
“Apparently they do.”
“They do what?”
“Think we’re in their way.”
“Then leave. Right now. Pack up the truck, save yourself the five hundred dollars for tomorrow and go home. Or, better yet, stay tonight with me.”
Now that was an offer worth considering. “I can still stay with you.” God in heaven, she just made the offer. It’s amazing how sex overpowers any other emotion. “But hold that thought. I sort of promised James that I’d hang around and see if I could find anything out.”
Now she had the wild-eyed expression, that ‘Skip, you dumb-ass’ expression. I’d seen it before.
“What the hell do you expect to find out?”
And I realized, I didn’t really have an answer.
“Come on. What do you think you’re going to find.”
“Well, if James has any balls, he’s going to ask questions during the poker game. He’s going to ask them if they know anything about the truck tires, about the money being stolen, and about the threatening letter.”
“He won’t. He doesn’t have the balls, does he?”
“No.”
“Then leave, Skip. We can go right now.”
“I can’t, Em.”
“I should be pissed. I come back after three months, and it’s the same old crap. You refuse to grow up.”