“Jesus Christ,” he said. “I hire the guys, I don’t follow them home after they do their sets,” Cecil feigned exasperation. He looked at Mary, let his eyes run up and down her body. “Maybe I could come up with something…you know…if you want to have a drink with me.” He smiled at her. Mary shuddered.
“Well, that’s really tempting, Cecil, really tempting,” she said. She felt the bile rise in her throat, but she forced it back down. “I bet you could put that little ‘stache of yours to good use, couldn’t you?”
Cecil grinned like he’d hit the MegaBall jackpot.
“We have a few drinks, I show you around the upstairs, where I’ve got this cool suite…” he started to say.
Mary paused for just a moment. She could let him buy her a drink, finesse a few more stories about Brent out of him. Maybe even let him take her up to his suite if she felt he had more information. She thought about that for just a moment and then pulled her stainless steel Para Ordnance.45 from her shoulder holster. She took out a handkerchief from her front pocket and wiped down the body of the gun, casually, as if she were cleaning her eyeglasses.
“I hate dust,” she said. “I really ought to do more than just a surface cleaning, though. I really ought to fire a few rounds, then give it a good cleaning.”
She looked up at Cecil. “You got anything around here I could shoot?”
“This isn’t necessary…” he started to say.
“Let me ask you something, Cecil,” Mary said. “Do you think if I shot you in the head, and then looked inside your skull through the bullet hole that I would see the name of this comedian? The name you’re keeping from me?”
Mary could practically see the little moustache fibers on Cecil’s face twitching in fear.
Cecil backed away from her. “Okay, okay! Talk to Jimmy! Jimmy knows that kind of stuff,” he said, his voice high and whiny. “I swear to God I don’t know any names or locations or anything. I just pay the guys. Jimmy will be on tomorrow at four. I promise. Tomorrow at four he’ll be here. He’ll be able to tell you.”
Mary slid the.45 into her shoulder holster.
“You sure know how to get a man excited,” Cecil said, massaging his moustache.
Mary let her eyes run up and down his body, just like he’d done to her.
“Hotties like you just bring it out in me,” she said.
Chapter Eight
Mary stepped outside and breathed deeply, even though it was L.A. She made a mental note to buy a nasal inhaler for use after visiting places like Cecil’s office. Rinse the smell out of the nostrils.
She tried to mentally cleanse herself of Cecil Fogerty. At this point, she wanted to go back to her apartment and maybe take a long shower. Watch a movie. Forget about places like this for a little while.
But when she got to the Buick, she stopped, her breath momentarily caught in her throat. Her hand on its own volition traveled to the butt of her.45.
And then she counted the bullet holes in the Buick’s windshield. There were six.
She turned and did a 360-degree turn. There was no one anywhere near the car. She reflexively checked rooftops or open windows for the barrel of a rifle. But she saw nothing.
Mary felt the anger rise again. She gritted her teeth. And then she walked closer to the car and read the note tucked underneath a piece of the windshield.
Stop — or the next joke is on you.
Chapter Nine
As she gathered her thoughts, Mary saw a patrol car pull a U-turn three blocks down.
She took out her cell phone and called Jake.
“Someone shot up my car,” she said.
“Who’d you piss off now?”
“Hey, your buddies in blue are here,” she said as the patrol car pulled up next to the Buick. “You might want to pull up your pants and let them know this probably relates to a certain ongoing murder investigation.”
She hung up before Jake could answer and volunteered herself to the patrol officers. Once she finished answering their questions, she did her best to see if anyone had witnessed the shooting. Eventually, someone pointed out a young guy with greasy hair and thick glasses. She walked over to him.
“I’ve never seen a car assassinated before,” Mary said.
“I saw you talking to the cops,” he said. “Is it yours?”
“A Buick? What, do I look like I’m 90 years old?” she said. “I’m just curious. Like you.”
They walked as close to the car as they could get, without getting in the way of the cops. He took a closer look at the windshield. “Probably just some kids,” he said. “Vandals, don’t you think?”
Mary considered it for a moment. “Yeah, vandals,” she said. “Old ones.”
“Old ones?”
“Old people think Buicks are for them,” she said. “So they hate seeing a young hardbody like me driving one. This happens to me quite a lot, actually.”
The guy adjusted his glasses and looked at Mary, his eyes slightly wide with fear.
“Why do you still drive it then?” he said.
“I’m not gonna let those old bastards win, man.”
He seemed to think about it for a moment, then said, “You know, now that you mention old people, I may have seen a little something. It was probably nothing, but now it makes a little more sense, maybe.”
Mary felt her heart beat a little faster. She needed a break.
“What’d you see?” she said, keeping her voice bored and disinterested.
“Well, I thought I heard something weird, little pops and breaking glass. I live up on the fourth floor,” he said, pointing to a building about a half a block away.
“So then what did you do?”
“Well, I walked over and saw the car, then I saw a guy a few blocks down, walking kind of fast, but trying not to look like he was walking fast, know what I mean?”
“What’d he look like?”
“I never got a good look at him.” He tapped his glasses. “It was just that he had a windbreaker on. And it was a weird color. It was kind of hard to tell, but it sort of looked like a turquoise blue. But like I said, I can’t see very well. And I am partially color blind.”
“What’s your name?” she asked him.
“Tim.”
Mary nodded.
“All right, take off Tim, unless you want the cops to take you downtown and question you for half the night.”
Tim virtually trembled at the thought. He turned to go, but then had a second thought.
“You know, you were bullshitting me with that old people thing, weren’t you?” He squinted at her through his thick glasses.
Mary shook her head, then held up two fingers in the peace sign and hooked them into sharp claws.
“As we used to say in the Girl Scouts: Honor bright — Snake bite!”
Chapter Ten
Jake and Mary watched the Buick’s front end slide up onto the LAPD tow truck. Even though the crime scene unit had done some preliminary work, the vehicle would need to be taken back to the lab to dig out the bullets and perform more intricate examinations. Because it was possibly tied to an ongoing murder investigation, Jake had arranged for a forensic full-court press.
“So you’re going to need a ride, huh?” Jake said, a little smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“Sure will,” Mary said. “Want to wait with me for the cab?”
He took that one in stride, she saw.
“Now, Mary, there’s no need for a cab,” he said. “The good citizens of Los Angeles would be happy to know their tax dollars were being used to give a lady in distress much needed transportation.”