by Lynn, JB
“Oh sure, feed yourselves. Let me starve,” God groused. “Feed the mammals, starve the reptile.”
I let out a long sigh.
“He’s a talkative little thing.” Gino nodded at the ranting lizard.
I didn’t reply.
“Look,” Gino said, “I’m sorry I’m dragging you out right now. I know you’ve had a long day between your clandestine meeting and getting your new look.”
It was my turn to give him a sidelong look. I assumed by “clandestine” he meant the conversation with Patrick and Griswald. “How long have you been following me?”
“I needed to get you alone,” he replied, pulling into a fast food place. “This place actually has decent coffee.”
My stomach growled at the scent of hot grease. I was starving.
Gino didn’t appear to notice. “First, you had the Marshal and cop with you and then you were with your aunt. It didn’t seem like a convenient time to ask you to steal away with me.”
He winked at me, but I couldn’t tell if he was flirting or teasing…or maybe he just had something in his eye.
“I would have liked the excuse to leave The Corset,” I admitted. “You could have called or texted.”
Gino shook his head as he pulled into the drive through lane. “Gotta say, I didn’t expect you to come out looking like that.”
“It’s just a bra,” I grumbled. “Behold the power of an industrial strength underwire.”
Gino chuckled. “Burger and fries okay?”
“Double-cheeseburger and a large fries,” I specified spitefully, crossing my arms over my chest. It was an unnatural position, considering their level of elevation. I had a new understanding of Loretta’s preferred stance.
“Oh sure,” God railed from the dashboard. “Go on and gorge yourself, you unrepentant glutton. Meanwhile, I’m wasting away to nothing.”
I ignored him.
Gino placed our order and pulled up to pay for it while I sat and silently fumed. I was annoyed with him, but I was angrier at Loretta for forcing me to wear the bra by destroying my day-to-day one.
As the cashier handed my dinner-mate our feast in greasy paper bags, the boy’s mouth dropped open before he excitedly yelled. “Dude!”
I turned to look to see what was behind me since it looked like he was staring at me. Nothing in the parking lot appeared to be worthy of attention.
“Dude!” he repeated enthusiastically. “How’d you pull that off?”
“He’s talking to you,” Gino offered helpfully while handing me the greasy sacks.
I looked at him in surprise. “Me?”
“You look like the Tin Man,” God sniped. “Did you know that the first actor that was cast to play the role almost died of an allergic reaction to the makeup? That means this may be your last meal, so make sure you enjoy it.”
Horrified at the picture God had painted, I asked Gino, “What color am I?”
Instead of answering, Gino placed two cups in the cup holder, waved his thanks to the gaping cashier, and drove off.
“What color?” I asked.
I knew it was bad when he didn’t look at me.
“Ummm…metallic?”
I groaned. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought you knew. I thought this was your new look.”
I rolled down my window and stuck my head out, trying to get a look at my reflection in the side mirror. God’s description had been generous. I looked like a glitter mutant. The shiny little particles covered half of my face, my neck, and shoulders. “Why didn’t you say something?” I wailed, digging into the bag, trying to find some napkins. “I look hideous.”
“I kind of like it,” Gino said, pulling into the parking lot of a medical office that was closed for the night. “You’re rocking a whole mermaid vibe.”
“It’s supposed to be unicorn,” I snapped at him.
“I thought unicorns are white.”
“Not in the current state of makeup marketing.” I frowned at him. “There are no napkins in these bags. How could he not put napkins in? Why didn’t you ask for extras?”
Reaching past me, Gino opened the glove box and pointed to a pile of paper napkins. I was so distracted that I barely noticed the back of his arm grazing my uplifted breasts. I grabbed a handful of napkins and began to rub them against my mermaid/unicorn skin.
Gino leaned back in his seat and opened a bag of food. “Mind if I eat while you try to scrape your face off?”
The smell of fresh French fries filled the car. My stomach growled again.
This time, he heard it. Grabbing my hand, he gently pried the napkins from my fingers. “Eat first. That stuff isn’t going to go anywhere and maybe it’ll improve your mood.”
When I opened my mouth to protest, he popped a fry into it and winked at me. “Eat, Maggie. Food tastes better when it’s hot.”
Deciding he was right, I ripped into my own bag.
We ate in silence. Me, with grease dripping down my chin from my double-cheeseburger. I was halfway through it when he spoke again.
“So, you’re working in cahoots with the U.S. Marshal Service and the cops? How do you juggle that with work for the boss?”
“Cahoots?” I asked, using a fresh napkin to wipe the grease from my chin. “What are you, an octogenarian?”
Gino raised an eyebrow, pointing a fry at my metallic skin. “You really think that you’re in a position to make fun of me?”
“I’m not working for the Marshal Service or the cops,” I told him. “I’ve got no conflict of interest, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Do I look worried?” He stole one of my French fries. “I was just wondering how you make the logistics of that work.”
I lowered my half-eaten burger to my lap. “Griswald is doing a private job and I’m helping him out.”
“And our mutual friend? What’s his involvement?”
“I may have accidentally crashed his undercover investigation,” I admitted. I looked down at my sandwich. I really didn’t want any more of it, but I’d made such a big show of ordering a double that I felt forced to finish it.
“Huh,” Gino replied noncommittally. “Interesting.”
I wondered what that meant. More importantly, I was curious what he was going to report back to his boss.
“So…about the Skee-Ball,” he said, changing the subject. “It’s going to be tricky to get.”
“Is it in a locked vault or something?”
“Nope,” Gino said. “It’s a piece of cheese.”
I blinked at him. “What?”
“It’s the piece of cheese in an elaborate mousetrap.”
“I’m not following,” I confessed.
Gino looked at the food in my hand. “You don’t want to finish that, do you?”
I shook my head guiltily.
“So chuck it,” he invited, holding up his empty bag.
“Chuck it?” I repeated, confused.
“What are you going to do, force it down and make yourself sick?”
I looked down at the burger. All the lessons Aunt Susan had imparted about the less fortunate children in the world collectively shamed me. “That’s a distinct possibility.”
“Geez, Maggie. Give yourself a break every once in a while. You don’t have to do the right thing all the time.”
“You do know what I do for your boss, right?” I countered.
He nodded.
“So by definition, I’m not doing the right thing.” Self-reproach made my voice crack.
He offered me a sympathetic smile. “Maybe what you do isn’t legal,” he said gently. “But never doubt what you do is right.”
“He feeds you and he spouts wisdom,” God piped up from the dashboard.
Gino glanced at the squeaking lizard, giving me the chance to drop my burger into his empty bag, unseen.
“Cheese,” he said, gracefully changing the subject as he crumpled the bag closed. “The Skee-Ball is cheese because the house it�
�s in belongs to the DA.”
“The district attorney?”
“Yup.”
I sat back in my seat and considered the new nugget of information. We wouldn’t just be breaking into a house. We’d be breaking into the home of the most powerful lawyer in town. A man who had the entire police force at his beck and call. I gulped nervously.
Suddenly, a simple burglary was a lot more dangerous than I’d anticipated.
15
If Patrick noticed the remnants of glitter in my hair or the dark circles under my eyes when we met in the parking lot of the game center the next day, he didn’t comment.
What he did say was that the guy working the security camera room was a cop. When I asked if there were any blind spots, he’d looked surprised but told me the staff restrooms weren’t monitored.
Then we’d walked into the building together. It had a completely different vibe during the time it wasn’t open for business. No blaring music, no flashing lights, no screaming kids, no beeping games, it was almost peaceful in an abandoned haunted house kind of way.
Patrick waved to a nearby camera and then led me back to the staff area. We stopped outside the TV room.
“Ponch,” Patrick said to the guy with the beer belly I’d met the day before. “This is the new hire.”
“Hey,” the cop said, absentmindedly rubbing his tummy as he turned his chair to face us. “Nice to meet ya. What’s your name?”
“Peggy,” I lied smoothly. “Nice to meet you, Paunch.”
He frowned at me.
“Not nice?” I asked with a fake smile.
“Ponch, not Paunch,” he muttered, clearly insulted.
I winced. “Sorry.”
“Whatever.” He spun his seat back around, leaving us staring at his back.
I glanced up at Patrick and realized he was clenching his jaw, fighting a smile. “This way,” he said sternly. “Find a shirt and get to work.”
We left Ponch’s area and moved to Patrick’s office. As he unlocked the door, I wondered if it, too, had a camera and whether the other cop had seen our conversation the day before.
He pointed to a pile of ugly orange uniform shirts. “Take two.”
“Gee, thanks!” I went and grabbed shirts in two different sizes.
“Try not to piss off Ponch,” Patrick urged. “He’s not a bad guy.”
Nodding my understanding, I went to the staff restroom. “You can come out now.”
God scrambled out of my bra and ran down my arm to my hand. I put him on the sink.
“This place is disgusting,” he announced.
He’d get no argument from me.
“Your turn, Benny,” I said softly.
The little white mouse pulled himself out of the front pocket of my jeans and scurried down my leg.
“You both understand what you’re supposed to do?” I asked as I pulled on a shirt that was a size smaller than I usually wear.
“Yes, yes, yes,” Benny affirmed.
“It’s not rocket surgery,” God snarked.
We’d decided that he and Benny were best equipped to move around the game center without getting caught on camera.
I admired my reflection in the mirror. The shirt fit well, flattering my curves. I considered sticking with it, but then remembered how quickly I’d blown off the attention of Alicia’s father. I needed to do everything possible to regain it.
Sighing, I took the tee off and slipped an even smaller one on. It was too tight. It made me look like I had the cleavage of Jessica Rabbit. I hated the way the black bra showed through orange cotton but knew Aunt Loretta would approve.
“You two ready?” I asked my animal helpers.
“Yes, yes, yes,” Benny said, running around in circles.
“A single affirmative would be effective,” God griped as he joined the mouse on the floor.
Carefully, taking care not to step on them, I slowly pushed the door to the restroom open, allowing them to start exploring.
Grabbing the extra shirt that I needed to exchange for a smaller size, I marched into Patrick’s office with my head held high and my chest stuck out.
Patrick was on the phone when I walked in, but his sentence trailed off as he got an eyeful of me. “…or…or tomorrow. I have to call you back.”
I busied myself with switching the shirts, feeling a surge of pleasure that I’d caught a guy I’d made love with off guard with my new look. Suddenly, I felt more sexy than awkward.
“Is…is that what you’re planning to work in?” Patrick barely managed to get out. Color dotted his cheekbones.
I nodded. “You like?” I made a show of doing a slow spin for him, enjoying that, for once, I had the upper hand in our dynamic.
He took a step closer to me. “Mags…”
I stared up at him expectantly, licking my lower lip for added effect. “Uh huh?” I asked in my best impersonation of Marilyn Monroe.
Patrick frowned. “I hope you know what the hell you’re doing.” With that, he stalked out of his own office. “Find Dale.”
“Find Dale,” I repeated, checking to make sure I’d gotten the right size shirt. I wandered down the hallway, past Ponch watching his screens, and into the deserted public area. I didn’t spot the lizard or mouse.
I heard banging coming from a corner on the other side of the room and went to investigate.
There stood the biggest claw game I’d ever seen. It had to have been eight feet long by at least six feet across. Toys, at least four feet deep, filled the space. Someone wearing khakis and an orange shirt was bent over fiddling with some wires that I assumed were connected to the giant claw controls.
“Excuse me,” I said.
The woman who spun around looked at me as though she hadn’t heard a spoken word in years.
“I’m looking for Dale,” I explained with what I hoped passed for a friendly smile.
“I’m Dale.” Her voice was high-pitched, like a dopey cartoon character.
Considering I felt like I looked like one, we’d probably make a good pair. “Hi. I’m Peggy. I was told to find you.”
“You the new one?” Dale asked, turning back to her work and closing the partition that hid the wires.
I nodded. “How can I help?”
“Got to top off the box.”
I looked around and saw no boxes. “The box?”
She patted the side of the claw machine. “The big toy box. See that star?” She pointed to a star painted on the side wall.
“See it.”
“We’ve got to fill the toys to that level. Wait here.” She strolled away, leaving me standing there with nothing to do.
“I deserve hazard pay for this,” God griped from nearby.
I knew he couldn’t be hungry, because once I’d left Gino the night before, I’d taken him home and begged Piss to catch a cricket for him. She’d been kind enough to get two.
“There’s sticky candy and discarded gum everywhere,” the lizard continued to complain. “If I get stuck somewhere…”
I glanced down at him, wondering what he wanted me to do. We’d already discussed it wouldn’t look good on camera if I appeared to be talking to myself. I was trying not to attract attention…well, except for wearing an extreme pushup bra beneath a too-tight tee.
Dale returned carrying a large box. She put it down, broke the tape sealing it closed, and reached inside. “We just toss ’em.” She took a couple of cheap, small stuffed animals, something that resembled a cross between a pig and kitten, and threw them over the eight-foot-tall plexiglass that surrounded “the box”.
I had just joined her in the tossing when a voice boomed over the loudspeaker. “Dale to the break room. Dale to the break room.”
The unexpected noise startled me, and my toss missed its mark, bouncing a fuzzy pigten off the side and sending it flying across the room. As I moved to retrieve it, Dale walked away.
When I finished transferring the remaining toys to “the box”, they still hadn’t reached
the star on the wall. Shrugging, I picked up the empty box and went in search of more toys, deciding it was good for my cover to look like I was a “take initiative” kind of employee. I found the entrance to the storeroom and stepped inside. There were massive rolls of paper towels and toilet paper for the bathrooms, what looked like some discarded games, and even a stack of Skee-Balls. I considered taking one, but then remembered there was probably a camera trained on my every movement.
I located the boxes labelled toys and pulled one that was about chest height toward me. I almost fell over from the sheer weight of it. It weighed considerably more than Katie. I didn’t think I could carry it all the way to “the box”. I was already breathing hard and on the verge of breaking a sweat and I’d only moved a few inches. How had Dale carried the other one so easily? Was I that out of shape that I couldn’t handle the manual labor she’d made look easy?
I was glad that God wasn’t around to witness my struggle. He’d, no doubt, lecture me again about being out of shape.
I put it back down on the pile where it had been resting and tried to get a better hold on the box, thinking that might help. I still strained to lift it.
“Not that one,” Dale said from behind me.
Startled, I dropped the box back to its resting place. It fell with a thud.
“This one.” She easily picked up a box and began carrying it. Maybe it was lighter than the one I tried to lift. Or maybe God was right and I needed to work out. Not that I would tell him.
“You shouldn’t be in there,” Dale said when I followed her back to “the box”. “You don’t have authorization.”
“I was just trying to help,” I murmured.
“Just do what you’re told,” she snapped.
She dropped the toys in front of “the box”. “Empty this and don’t do anything else.” She stalked away.
It wasn’t easy getting the box open. She’d made it look easy with the first one, but this one was sealed with the kind of tape that could have patched up the Titanic. I wrestled with the box for a couple of minutes until Patrick walked by.
Without speaking, he pulled a penknife from his pocket and slit the tape with one slice. Then he left.
