“Really, you need to go. Somewhere else. Leave.” He put his arms under mine and yanked, trying to lift me out of my chair, his hands alarmingly close to the girls, Danger and Will Robinson. My br**sts were all I had. I had to maintain their integrity. Allowing a thirteen-year-old to grope them would be wrong on so many levels.
“But it’s my office,” I said, slapping at him. “You go.” I kicked against my desk until he dropped me back into my ninety-nine-dollar office chair.
He knelt beside me. “Please, Charley, just go.”
I grew wary. People had a tendency to try to kill me at the most inopportune times. But his pleading was much less “life-threatening situation” and much more “I screwed up.”
“Angel Garza, did you steal all the toilet paper from the women’s restroom again? We’ve talked about this.”
“No, I promise. You just need to leave.” The front door opened, and he dropped his head into his hands. Apparently, it was too late for me to escape. I was caught like a fly in a spider’s web. I could only pray for survival.
I took a sip of coffee instead as a Hispanic woman walked into Cookie’s office, a curious determination to her gait. I didn’t recognize her, but I felt like I knew the face. She was in her late fifties with long black hair that hung in pretty waves over her shoulders. And she was dressed to kill. Hopefully not me, though. She wore skintight jeans, knee-high black leather boots, a soft gray sweater, and a D&G bag that hung from her shoulder like an Uzi. I liked her.
She spotted me and made a beeline to my desk.
“You can’t tell her, Charley,” Angel said, panic rounding his eyes again. And I suddenly knew who she was.
I looked up at her and tried to hide my utter shock as she came to a stop in front of my desk. “Are you Charley Davidson?” she asked, her Mexican accent soft, the sharpness in her tone anything but.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I panicked right alongside Angel. It was the only thing I could think to say. “I don’t know. What?”
She blinked at me, then realized I was panicking. Honestly, it was like admitting to murder before being interrogated.
“Ms. Davidson,” she began, but I decided to trip her up, to throw her off the trail of blood I’d left like an injured animal.
“I don’t speak English.”
“I’ve asked around about you,” she continued undeterred. “I know who you are. What you do. But what I can’t figure out for the life of me is why you would be depositing money in my bank account every month. How do you know my account number? And why would anyone do such a thing?”
“What? Me?” I looked around, hoping she was talking to someone else.
“You can’t tell her, Charley.”
“I won’t,” I whispered through my teeth. Then again, his mother looked a tad hell-bent. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do.” She crossed her arms and tapped her toes on my carpeted floor.
“Can you just excuse me for one moment?”
“Look, I’m not accusing you of anything, but you’ve been putting money in my bank account. Five hundred dollars every month for almost three years now.”
“Five hundred dollars a month?” Angel asked, appalled. “Is that all I’m worth to you?”
I grabbed his arm and held up an index finger to put his mother in pause mode as I herded him out the side door, the one that led to the interior stairs of Dad’s bar. “Excuse me just one sec.”
“Five hundred dollars a month? I could haunt a rich guy’s ex for five hundred dollars a month.”
When Mrs. Garza eyed me, her expression part leery and part suspicion, I smiled and closed the door between us. “Look —”
“Migrant workers make more than I do.”
“Angel, you are part-time. Part-time. And that was all I could afford when I first opened up.”
“Yeah, well screw you. I quit.”
“Wait a minute,” I said, eyeing him. “You know exactly how much you make. You’ve known the whole time. I told you.”
“I know.” He shrugged. “I was just hoping for a raise. My mother needs a new car.”
“And I have to supply it?” I asked, taking my turn at being appalled.
“If you want to keep your best investigator, you do.”
I poked his chest with an index finger. “This is extortion, buddy.”
“It’s business, pendeja. Pay up or shut up.”
“And just who says you are my best investigator? You’re my only investigator.”
“Either way.”
“This is wonderful. What am I supposed to tell her?”
“You’re the one with all the answers. And you’re a PI. Tell her an uncle died and left you in charge of doling out the money or something. Isn’t that what rich people do?”
“That’s a job for lawyers.”
“Then I don’t know. I can’t think of everything.”
“Angel,” I said, placing a hand on his shoulder. His eyes were such a deep, rich brown and his face was so young, his chin sprinkled with the soft beginnings of facial hair. He died too young. Way too young. I often wondered what he would have done with his life if he’d had a chance. He was such a good kid. “Maybe we should tell her.”
“Fuck that.” His stormy eyes suddenly turned angry. “No.”