No Such Thing as a Lost Cause (24 page)

“I’m not a solicitor,” I said, shifting my weight from one foot to the other. I hate
tawking
to disembodied voices. It’s very disconcerting. “Um, this is a little hard to explain.
Would you mind if I came in?”

“Hang
awn
. I’ll buzz you in”

I whipped my head around to Janine and gave her two thumbs up. She raised her nail
polish bottle to return the fat digit salute and the bottle slipped out of her grasp,
turning her thumbs up into an instant
oops
shrug. Oy.

The buzzer went off and I entered the building. There was a reception counter to the
right with framed photos on the wall behind it showing happy, secure customers and
their loyal canine protectors. A woman in her mid sixties came out from behind the
counter as I approached. She could have passed for a friend of my mother’s, if you
didn’t count the multiple ear piercings, and skull and crossbone tattoos parading
up and down her forearms.

A Doberman stood at attention by her side and eyed me with malevolent intent. Okay,
to be fair, that was mere speculation on my part, but, just to be on the safe side,
I didn’t make any sudden moves.

“Wade will be right with ya, hon.”

“Great. Thanks.”

She left Adolph there to entertain me while she walked down a long hallway, presumably,
to announce my arrival.

Just when I’d given up on anyone materializing, a man emerged from the back room.
He was over six feet tall, with a slight paunch that said either he kicked back a
couple of brewskis every night, or he wasn’t as dedicated to his ab cruncher as he
once was. Otherwise, he looked to be in good shape. His face was tanned, and he was
dressed in blue jeans and a work shirt, and cowboy boots that looked like they’d seen
better days. I could hear the soft jingle of spurs as he walked toward me.

Two deep indentations sliced his furrowed brow, making him appear perpetually worried.
He gave me the once-over and I caught a subtle sign of recognition on his face.

I smiled.
See? I may be a minor local celebrity, but I’m still just regular folk.

“Wade?” I extended my hand.

He recovered quickly. “That would be me. And you are—?” His grip was almost too firm,
and my hand felt uncomfortably small inside his.

“Oh, sorry. My name’s Brandy.”

“Brandy Alexander, the reporter? I used to watch you on the early morning news show.
Hey, how come I haven’t seen you, lately?”

“Long story,” I mumbled. “Got some irons in the fire, moving in a different direction.
Gotta weigh my options. So, anyway, do you have a minute? I had something I wanted
to ask you.”

“You looking to get some guard dogs, you came to the right place. I’m not just blowing
hot air. Our dogs are the best in the business.” He lowered his voice. “We have our
share of celebrity clients, and they could tell you. Except I respect their privacy.”

“I will definitely keep that in mind. Um, could we sit down?” My shoulder was getting
better, but it was my first day off pain killers and I was definitely feeling it.

Wade gestured to a couple of plastic chairs in the corner in what constituted the
waiting area. We sat down and I spat out my carefully rehearsed tale.

“I was visiting a friend at the hospital the other day, and I ran across this guy.
We started talking—you know how it is.” I thought of Nick naked and made myself blush.
“So anyway, he dropped something, and I ran out to give it to him, but he’d already
driven away.”

“I don’t mean to be rude, but why would you come here looking for him?”

“Oh, well, he was picked up in a K-Nine Security van. So I thought maybe he worked
here. I was in the neighborhood, so I decided to check it out. His name is Cal. I
didn’t catch his last name.”

I waited for confirmation that he knew him, but all I heard was the soft tinkling
of one of his spurs as he tapped his foot on the tiled floor.”

“Ring any bells?” I asked, finally.

Wade shook his head. “Sorry. The person that told you this must’ve gotten us mixed
up with another company. We have a strict policy against taking riders. That would
be grounds for dismissal. It’s an insurance thing,” he explained. “I have to protect
my business.” He stood, signaling the end of our chat.

I stood, too. “Well, I appreciate your time. So, um, I was thinking, Wade. This place
would make a wonderful piece for a report on local businesses, and it could be a real
boost for you. Do you think I could look around a bit?”

“Sorry.” He cut me an apologetic smile. “I don’t have time to escort you around.”

Just then Tattoo Lady came back into the room. “That sounds like a great idea, hon.
Wade, I’ll take her around. We could use the publicity.” She grabbed my hand and whisked
me down the hallway. Wade started to follow but she cut him off. “I thought you said
you don’t have time for this. And anyway, Ted’s on the phone with that new client.
He wants to talk to you. Pick up line three.”

The woman and I continued down the hall. It led to an outside kennel. Rottweilers,
Pits and Dobermans were housed in four by eight enclosures. They looked hungry. I
swung wide and inched a bit closer to my tour guide.

“Don’t worry, they’re well trained. They won’t hurt you without provocation or a command.
My name is Kaye, by the way. Wade is my nephew.” She gave a hearty chuckle. “Wade
isn’t a people person, so I’m usually the one to deal with the public.”

“Have you worked here long?”

“Three years in May. Started right after my divorce. What a jerk wad. I still don’t
know what I saw in him.”

“I met a guy the other day,” I confided, “and we really seemed to hit it off. I thought
he was really nice, and cute, and well…you know how hard it is to meet nice guys.”

“Tell me about it,” she agreed. “This guy sounds like a keeper.”

“That’s actually what brought me here in the first place. I saw him getting into a
K-Nine Security van, and I came here looking for him. I told Wade he’d left something
behind and I wanted to return it.” I giggled like a nine year-old. “Guess I was too
embarrassed to tell him the truth. Anyway, his name is Cal.”

“No one by that name works here, hon. But we have two drivers, besides Wade, that
is. Ernesto and Phil. Maybe one of them knows your guy. They’re over in the parking
lot hosing down the vans.”

“Listen, Kaye, maybe I should talk to them myself. I mean, if you’re there, they may
not admit they disobeyed company policy and used the work van to give a friend a ride.”

She cut me off with a puzzled frown. “Company policy? There’s no company policy.”

Hmm…No company policy…which means either Kaye isn’t up on all the legalities of the
business or her nephew is a big, fat liar.

“Oh. I must have misunderstood.”

Kaye tugged my arm and we slowed to a stop. “Between you and me, they’re not the classiest
act in town. So if that person, Cal, is a friend of theirs, I’d be careful.” She shrugged,
and the tattooed skull on her left rotator’s cuff bobbed its head in seeming agreement.

We resumed walking, and I spotted a smaller set of kennels. They housed a couple of
Labs, a beagle and two young pit bulls. “Are they guard dogs too?”

Kaye shook her head. “Not hardly. These babies are drug sniffers. My nephew has a
small, side business. He’s got a couple of companies that use him on a regular basis.
He trains the dogs himself. You’d think they were his kids the way he fusses over
them.”

We reached the parking lot. There were two white vans and one black one; each with
the K-Nine Security logo painted on the side. A couple of guys in service uniforms
stood behind them, squirting each other with a hose.

“I’ve got to get back to the front desk,” Kaye said. “Come back and see me when you’re
done. I think a story on this place is just what we need. You two behave yourselves,”
she called out good naturedly. This girl wants to do a story on us.”

One of the men turned off the water as I approached. The other drew a cigarette from
behind his ear and stuck it in his mouth. The tip was wet and it took a couple of
tries to light it.

The guy with the hose held onto it like it was a giant dick and puckered his lips
in my direction. It made me wish I’d taken Janine up on her offer to come with me.
She’d have smacked him upside the head, no problem. I didn’t have a problem with it
either, except I didn’t think that would go over too well, and I needed information.

“Hi,” I said and ignored the show. “Sorry to bother you guys, but Kaye suggested I
talk to you. You got a minute?”

Smokey drew in a long tobacco breath and threw the rest of the cigarette onto the
gravel.

“Trying to quit, huh? My dad used the same technique for years.”

“Yeah? Did it work?”

“Not so much.”

Smokey laughed. “So, how can we help you?”

“Long story,” I said. “But I’m looking for a guy named Cal. I have reason to believe
he had a friend or acquaintance who works here.”

“He owe you money?” asked Hose Boy.

“No, nothing like that. I met him the other night and we started talking. I thought
it would be nice to see him again.”

“Don’t know him. Sorry.” He turned the water back on and returned to washing the vans.

I tried again. “That’s okay. It’s probably for the best. Anyway, like Kaye said, I’m
going to be writing a story on your company, so I hope you don’t mind me asking a
few questions.”

“Ask away,” said Smokey, whose name turned out to be Ernesto.

“So, do you train dogs too, or are you strictly drivers?”

“We’re professional trainers. In fact, Wade turned most of the security and protection
training over to Phil and me, so that he could work exclusively with the drug detection
dogs. There’s a real demand for this kind of work, but he wants to keep the business
small, for now.”

Oh, great. A complete change of subject.
Now, how am I going to work the conversation back around to the vans? I know! I’ll
do it super awkwardly!
“So do you each drive your own vans or do you have to share them? I shared a car
with a roommate once. Major drag. She was a real slob. Kept leaving empty soda cans
everywhere.”
Unh!
Way to go, Alexander. Who gives a shit about my imaginary roommate’s clutter disorder?

Ernesto did not seem to notice. He considered my question as if it were Pulitzer Prize
winning material. “Phil and I drive the white vans. Phil’s a lot shorter and I hate
readjusting the seat and mirrors, so we try to stick to the same van each time we
go out. The black van is Wade’s.”

Suddenly, I couldn’t wait to leave. “Well, thanks for all the info. I’ll let you know
when my story hits the air.”

“That’s it?”

“For now. Listen, please tell Kaye thanks and I’ll be in touch.”

I felt two pair of eyes bore into my back as I ran back to my car.

Janine was asleep in the passenger’s seat. All the windows had been rolled down and
she was swimming in sweat. She woke up as I opened the door.

“Finally,” she grumbled. “Can we go now?”

“One more minute. I swear.” I took out my phone and punched in Edie Wyncotte’s number.
“Edie, it’s Brandy Alexander. Quick question. What color was the van that Calvin Doyle
got picked up in?” Her answer came as no surprise.

“Vince, I’m telling you. Wade Stoller is hiding something. Why else would he lie about
not knowing Calvin Doyle?”

Vince scowled. “Christ, Brandy. That’s all you’ve talked about since the minute you
got here. Will you quit obsessing?”

We were browsing the accessories counter at Meow Ming’s, a trendy boutique on South
Street, in search of a birthday present for his mother. Somehow, I didn’t think her
idea of the perfect gift would be a set of $280.00 hand-made prayer beads from a remote
Tibetan village—or anything else in the store, for that matter. Mrs. Giancola was
more of a crock pot kind of gal.

“I am not obsessing.”

“Yeah? Then, what would you call it?”

“Determined curiosity.”

Vince cracked a smile. The thing is, though, he had a point.

I was obsessing. Maybe it was because I didn’t have a job to occupy my time, so I
was looking for connections where they simply didn’t exist. But I didn’t think so.
I’d made Stoller nervous. I could see it in the way he began to tap his foot and couldn’t
quite meet my eye when I asked him if he knew Calvin Doyle. And he lied about there
being a rule against picking up passengers. Edie Wyncote identified his company van,
and he’s the only one who drives the black one. Sure, Phil or Ernesto, or even his
aunt could have taken it when he wasn’t around, but that wouldn’t make sense, since
they each had one of their own to drive. The more I thought about it, the more sure
I was.

Vince picked a multi-colored scarf out of a woven basket and rolled the material between
his thumb and forefinger. I wrinkled my nose and he put it back down.

“Come on. Let’s get out of here. There’s an antique shop across the street that sells
Depression Era glassware. I saw some really cool stuff in the window. Your mother
will love it.”

Half an hour later, Vince walked out of Grandma’s Attic the proud owner of a Mayfair
Open Rose Pitcher. “You were right,” he told me. “This is perfect. Y’know,” he laughed,
“my mother says all she ever wants for her birthday is for my sisters and me to get
along. So, one year, we took her at her word. She stopped talking to us for a month.”

I grinned. “You know what else I’m right about?” I stopped to grab a couple of soft
pretzels off a street vendor. This was an exercise in self control, as I did not order
a cherry water ice to go with it.

“Let me guess,” he said, and punctuated it with a massive grunt. “Wade Stoller.”

“Vince—”

He held up a hand to stop me. “Look, even if the guy did lie to you, it’s not exactly
grounds for arrest. You’re not an officer of the law.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean he’s not hiding something.”