Marty dragged his gaze to Cupcake, who had perfectly gorgeous but normal blue eyes. He frowned as if he felt something was wrong, but he couldn’t say what. Then he flashed that salesman’s smile I remembered from before and said, “Mix it up? A little show-and-tell, a little food, a little dickering.”
“Fine,” Cupcake said. Still keeping the shotgun aimed in the general direction of the armed men, she took the bag of goodies from her belt and placed it on the table. She loosened the drawstring and reached in, her fingers clinking around in the bag before removing a random gold wedding band encrusted with diamonds. My eyes nearly bugged out of their sockets. She tossed it to the center of the table where it rolled before stopping. “There’s the show. The tell is a princess cut, colorless, white fluorescent, GIS flawless, two-carat center diamond, with two side-stone bullets of high-grade rubies mounted on a twenty-four-karat gold band.” Cupcake scooped up the ring and deposited it in the bag, Marty following each movement with avarice in his eyes. “Now feed my boss lady. She gets ornery when she’s hungry.”
In my earbud, Mateo chuckled, the sound almost human. “She used new Berger chips. Cupcake’s been studying your scrap.”
Marty smiled again and said, “For us, waffles, real scrambled eggs, real bacon, real maple syrup. Egg-and-bacon sandwiches for the bodyguards. Coffee for everyone.” He looked back at the armed men. “Notify Wanda we’re ready.” He took the dangerous seat, back to the door.
A moment later, a woman appeared carrying a tray, and she served our plates. My mouth watered. Wheat had taken a hurting when the atmosphere changed, and getting real bread, especially something fancy like waffles, was a rarity. While I felt guilty about feasting while my “employees” munched on sandwiches, it wasn’t enough to stop my enjoyment.
When the meal was over and the only thing left was eggy, maple-y grease smeared on the plates, Cupcake placed the bag of goodies in my hand.
I shoved my plate to the center and weighed the clinking bag hand-to-hand, thinking about all the sheds and containers Cupcake had been inventorying. Thinking about the cats outside looking for the piece of equipment I needed and hoped Marty had. I watched Marty’s eyes as they darted from mine to the bag and back. Wanda removed the plates. The office went quiet except for the soft clink of jewelry. I waited.
“I liked the ring,” Marty said. “Two hundred US for it.”
I chuckled, the bag moving. Still waiting.
“Three hundred,” he said.
I counted four clinks before I said, “I’m not interested in money. I want something you might have in trade.”
“Yeah?” Marty leaned back. Trade meant off the books. Trade meant no taxes, no records. Trade meant possibly, potentially,likely, illegal items changing hands. “I might consider trade.”
I thought about Spy and gripped the table to control my reaction.You see anything?
She sent back a dizzying array of sheds and locked shipping containers. I spotted a repainted one, camo brown over military green, and sent her that way. If Marty had what I needed, it would have been overpainted. Spy and the other cats zeroed in and began to search for a way in, clawing at rusty corners, vaulting to the top.
I opened the bag and started to reach in, then stopped. “Do the honors?” I asked Cupcake. Since I had no idea what was inside, that seemed wise. She retook the bag and removed the original ring. Marty accepted it and pulled a jeweler’s loupe from a pocket. I had never used a loupe, but Marty was clearly an expert, his hands braced on each other to steady the ring and loupe, minuscule movements back and forth and side to side to get a good angle. When he was done, he leaned back in his chair and looked unimpressed, except for a faint uncontrolled gleam in his eyes. Cupcake took the ring back and returned the bag to her belt.
“What else you got?” he asked.
“The man isn’t interested in jewelry,” I said. “Outside.” I stood and had the pleasure of seeing Marty blink. He wanted to see more jewelry, so that would be the last thing I showed him.
The day’s heat had multiplied into a vicious miasma of junkyard stinks: old petrol, burnt motor oil, hot steel, rotting rubber, caustic substances, and dog poo. That was one problem with most junkyards, the dogs. Cats buried their scat, so the stench was less potent. Marty didn’t clean up after his dogs, letting the waste dry in the heat. At least there was no hot-metal stink and exhaust from the foundry. The last time I was here they were pouring steel; the stench and heat had been astounding, rising in waves high over Morrison’s. My Berger chip chirped,Convection causes variations in the temperature of very hot air, and that variation—
I shut it off. Pulled my glasses back over my eyes. “Amos?” I called. “The man’s coming up. Unwrap the trays.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Amos called back. I heard him moving around.
I gestured to Marty. “Help yourself.”
He hesitated. “You left a guard?”
I tilted my head, saying nothing, letting the necessity of a guard—outside, in the heat—worm through Marty’s head. It meant I had more good stuff to trade. I leaned against the rig’s shady side as Marty pulled himself up into the bed and began to rummage around. He was noisy, the vibrations of his search shuddering through the vehicle. It took a long time. Scrawny, stinking junkyard dogs came and went, sniffing crotches, accepting treats from the guards, receiving a halfhearted kick or two from them when they got too personal. They ignored my crew and me, which was interesting. I was sweating like a stevedore, a sticky summer sweat, oily and slimy. I needed water. I had to pee.
Spy had wormed her way inside a container and sent me a vision of a box marked with a logo and words that meant nothing to her, but matched what Harlan had told me months ago had been delivered to Morrison’s. It was the piece of equipment I needed to recover the Simba.
I sent back to her waves of delight, and if a cat could pat herself on the back, Spy would have. She returned to me a vision of a pile of sardines, protein, the only thing cats really cared about. Well, protein, toys, belly rubs, and, occasionally, something to kill.
I sent a vision of her outside, walking around the container and searching out symbols, and got back a vision of a human rolling in mud. I wasn’t sure why. Then she sent me a vision of a corner of the desert-camo siding and a partially painted-over number: 814.I returned a vision of sardines and felt Spy’s back arch with pleasure. The cat and I had struck a junkyard bargain.
Marty finally jumped to the ground and joined me in the shade, his eyes hard and uncompromising. Large sweat rings circled beneath his arms and along his back, the result of moving the heavy scrap to see the trays and the copper. “Okay,” he said. “I saw the silver and the copper. Here’s what I want. Everything in the truck except the crap scrap. I got enough of that to last me a lifetime. And I want the ring.”
“For what?” I asked. “Cash? Or that trade I mentioned? Which we have not discussed.”
“What do you want?” he snapped. Then caught himself and smiled.
I relaxed against the warm armored cab door and tapped my lips as if thinking. “Let’s go for a walk. I’ll pick a container.”
