I offered her a sheepish shrug. “Yeah, I forgot to cancel, and he painted them after we moved out. He was really happy that they were so clutter free.”
“Well, that’s just fantastic.”
Her enthusiasm seemed disingenuous. It was weird.
“Surely, someone else owes us money,” she said.
Then it hit me. The answer to all our prayers. Or at least a couple of them. “You’re right,” I said. Reyes Farrow owed me and owed me big. I grinned at Cookie. “I solved a case. I am due my usual rate, plus medical expenses and mental anguish.”
She looked hopeful. “What case? Who?”
The determined set of my jaw told her exactly who I was talking about. She got that faraway, dreamy look in her eyes. “Can I help collect?”
“Nope, you have to get all this stuff sent back. How else are we going to eat for the next month?”
“I never get to have any fun.”
“It’s your own fault.”
She cleared her throat. “How is any of this—” She spread her arms wide. “—my fault?”
“That’s what you get for leaving me unsupervised. Don’t you have return receipts to fill out?”
She lifted a handful. “Yes.”
“From your apartment?”
“Fine.”
She took the receipts and started to leave me to my own devices. She would never learn.
“Oh,” she said before opening the door, “I took your remote, so don’t even think about it.”
That was so uncalled for.
* * *
After she left, I sat down and tried to think up a plan of action. If only I could get ahold of Angel. If anyone could find that low-down, dirty—
“How did you do that?”
I jumped at the sound of a voice coming from behind me. It was high. The jump. Not the voice. I pressed my hands to my heart and turned to the thirteen-year-old departed gangbanger who went by the name of Angel Garza. He stood in my apartment, wearing his usual jeans and dirty T-shirt with a bandanna wrapped around his head. “Angel, what the hell?”
“What do you mean, what the hell? What did you do?”
“What?” I asked, trying to calm my heart. I didn’t normally get that scared when Angel popped in.
His dark brown eyes narrowed in question. “How did you do that?”
“I don’t know. What did I do?”
“I was at my cousin’s quinceañera one minute, then here the next.”
“Really?”
“Did you do that?”
“I don’t think so. I just thought about you, and you were there.”
“Well, stop it. That was weird.” He hugged himself and rubbed his arms.
“This is cool. You never come when I need you.”
“I’m your investigator, pendeja, not your lapdog.”
“I can’t believe that worked.”
“What are all these boxes?”
“Did you just call me pendeja?”
Then he noticed me at last and got the familiar look in his eyes. “You’re looking good, boss.”
“And you’re looking thirteen.” Throwing his age in his face always worked. He bristled and turned to study my new cheese pot. He wouldn’t like what I was about to ask him, so I stood and faced him head-on, my stance set, my expression hard. “I need to know where he is.”
Surprise straightened his shoulders a moment, but he caught himself and shrugged. “Who?”
He knew exactly who I was talking about. “He was just here a minute ago, standing outside my apartment building. Where is he staying?”
Frustration slid through his lips. “You’ve stayed away from him for weeks. Why now?”
“He owes me money.”
“Not my problem.”
“It will be when I can’t pay your salary.” To pay for his investigative services, I sent an anonymous cashier’s check to his mother every month. He couldn’t use the money in his rather sparse condition, but she could. It was a perfect arrangement.
“Shit.” He disappeared through a wall of boxes. “Every time you get near him, you get hurt.”
“That’s not true.”
He reemerged but only partly. “What’s a Flowbee?”
“Angel.” I put a finger under his chin and stroked the barely emerging growth of hair that peppered his jaw. “I need to know where he is.”
“Can I see you na**d first?”
“No.”
“You want to see me naked?”
“No. And yuck.”
He straightened, offended. “If I was still alive, I’d be older than you.”
“But you aren’t,” I reminded him gently. “And I’m sorry for that.”
“You aren’t going to like it.”
“That’s okay. I just need to know where he is.”
“He’ll be at Garber Shipping in the warehouse district tonight.”
“At a shipping warehouse?” I asked, surprised. “Is he working there?”
Reyes had money. Lots and lots of money. His sister told me. So why would he be doing manual labor for a shipping company?
After Angel took a long moment to nibble at a hangnail, he said, “Depends on your definition of work.”
* * *
After being stunned speechless by Reyes’s new job title, I walked toward my front door, wrapped a hand around the knob, then rethought what I was doing. I was going to face Reyes Farrow. Unarmed. Reyes had never tried to hurt me directly, but he’d been out of prison for two months. Who knew what the man was capable of? He’d probably learned a lot of bad habits since leaving the big house. Like cheating at poker. And urinating in public.