“A fat buck.”
“And if we paid you?”
“You’d have to have deep pockets to beat what I’m getting.”
I shift my weight, and the guy looks at me. “You think you can buy me?”
It takes more effort than I’d like, but I say what I need to say. “We’re not asking you to stop watching us. What we are saying is that if we gave you a little incentive, if we signaledwe didn’t want you to follow, would you leave us be for a while?”
“How much are we talking?”
“How much would it take?” Walker asks.
“Listen, kids. I don’t even know why I’m out here, following you lot and looking for a blond guy. And frankly, I don’t care. What I know is that the guy who hired me has the kind of muscle that makes a man think twice about crossing him.”
Walker and I share a look, and I take a moment to figure out what tactic might work. Thinking like Clara would, like she taught us, I stare at the man. Overweight, with trash littering his car. As he practically lives in it right now, that makes sense. Nothing we can use there. It’s not until he rubs his nose that I see a detail we can use.
“How long have you been divorced?” I ask, noting the unusually thin ring finger he’s sporting.
He jolts, my stare coupled with my question making the guy nervous. “Long enough for it to hurt less. Long enough for me to forgive her for doing what she had to do.”
I take a risk. “The blond guy, he went to visit his girlfriend. In secret. Mr. Westerhouse doesn’t approve of the two of them.”
“So, what? He wants me to find him. Who cares?”
Walker takes over, figuring out where I’m going with this. “You’re right about the kind of muscle, money, and power that Westerhouse has. He plans to make an example of the blond guy. We’re keeping him safe, so when his girl finally gets free, he’ll be there, in one piece, for her.”
“You’re not making me want to cross the guy.”
“You wouldn’t be. You’d just be sneezing at opportune moments.” Walker’s smile turns hard, and I know that whatever he says next is going to push the guy to a decision. “And you’d get paid for the mistake. Otherwise, we can make you fail completely. You’ve seen what we can do when we’re trying to have you not follow us. Trust me when I say we can make your life much worse. And possibly much shorter.”
“You think you’re scary, kid?”
He shakes his head. “We’re not. But Westerhouse is, and I know he doesn’t like failure. In fact, I know that at that house, failure can be terminal.”
We wait as the PI thinks it over. “How much for these opportune sneezes?”
I pull out the ring, the diamond dim in the gathering storm.
He scoffs. “How the hell do I know that’s worth anything?”
“Because we got it from Westerhouse.”
He shakes his head. “So it’s useless to me.”
Walker steps in, figuring it out for me. “I’m sure you’ve got somebody who you wouldn’t mind risking a rough go to pawn this. And this thing is worth a shit ton. Even splitting the cash, you’ll be making out.”
He stares at the ring, then holds out a hand. I drop it into it, and he takes a key, scratching along the diamond to test it. Of course, it stays as smooth as ever.
“Fine.” The man tucks the gaudy landmine into the front pocket of his jacket. “Pleasure doing business. I take it you’d like me to sneeze now?”
“Yup, and if we come out and tug an ear, we’d love it if you sneeze again. Otherwise, feel free to follow us around and take all the boring pictures you’d like.”
The man huffs out a laugh. “I think I’m getting the better end of this deal. Westerhouse can’t be that bad.”
“If you believe that, you should probably do deeper research into your clients,” I mumble as Walker and I step away.
Black is much closer when we don’t have to double back every two blocks, and after a couple of misdirections, just in case, it looks like the guy is keeping his word.
