“Dad’s not back from his road trip. He doesn’t know about this.”
“That’s probably good. No use upsetting him in his condition. But I don’t want you calling the cops neither,” she said. “I’ll come to the store this afternoon. Can you throw something over the car until I get there? No need to advertise somebody’s opinion of me.”
“Sure. Are you sure you don’t want me to call the police? We should report this.”
“It’s not a matter for the police. It’s a matter for the insurance company, and my rates are high enough already. I’ll handle it.”
I turned around and looked outside. Tak was squatted on the sidewalk, taking pictures of the glass next to the side of the car.
“Ebony, what can you tell me about Tak Hoshiyama?” I asked.
“Why do you want to know about him?”
“He brought my scooter here from the banquet hall this morning. Now he’s outside looking at the car.”
“Don’t know much about him, only his parents. They’re good people. Go talk to him. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
After hanging up, I went to the storage area to find a tarp. The best I could do was a set of water-damaged Twister mats. I grabbed a roll of duct tape and met Tak on the sidewalk.
“Can you help me make a tarp out of these?” I asked. “Ebony can’t get here right away and she asked if I could cover the car.”
His eyes cut to the Twister mats and he looked as if he was fighting off a smile. I braced myself for a snide comment, but none came. He took the Twister mats and the duct tape from me.
“I can handle the tarp,” he said.
“Thanks.” I turned back to the store.
“Where are you going?”
“To get a broom to sweep up the glass.”
“We should probably leave everything the way it is for the police.”
“I didn’t call the police.”
“Why not?”
“Ebony asked me not to.”
“You shouldn’t listen to her,” he said.
“Why not? She’s the second-most important person in my life. If it wasn’t for her and my dad, I wouldn’t have anybody.”
I was as shocked by my admission as Tak appeared to be. I regretted the outburst. Tak took the Twister tarps and turned away. I went inside for a broom and dustpan. When I returned, he was surrounded by unfolded Twister tarps laid out in a grid. He secured the edges with strips of the durable silver tape while I swept the sidewalk.
“Do you think it’s weird that the glass is on the outside of the car and not the inside?” I asked.
He stared at me. The dark brown intensity of his eyes made me uncomfortable, but I couldn’t stop myself from talking. “Someone would have had to break the window from inside the car.” I put my hand on my suede pouch, thinking about the torn fabric. For the moment, I kept it to myself.
“Did you look inside the car?” he asked.
“No. You arrived right when I first saw the damage. Why? Did you look?”
He hesitated. “No,” he finally said. I remembered seeing him crouched by the side of the car taking pictures with his phone, and immediately knew he was lying. I just didn’t know why.
“I’ll finish this up out here if you want to get your store opened,” he said.
“That’s okay. I’ll stay and help you.” I moved to the far end of the Twister-mat tarp and waited for him to finish taping the last ends together. When he was done, we each picked up a corner and carried the patchworked plastic to the Cadillac. I went behind the car and he went to the front.
The makeshift tarp barely covered the enormous vehicle. I peeled off two short strips of tape and secured the back corners to the undercarriage next to the wheel wells and then did the same for the front. I didn’t want anybody—Tak included—poking around Ebony’s car before she arrived.
“Thanks for your help,” I said with a small wave. I opened the shop door, but Tak called out behind me.
“Margo—hold up.” He caught the door with his hand. “Were you here last night? All night?”
“Of course I was,” I said. And then added, more tentatively, “Why?”
“I was wondering why you didn’t hear this.”
In the section of Vegas where I lived, I’d learned to hear the questions that people often wouldn’t ask out loud. My self-protection walls went up. It didn’t seem like a good idea to tell Tak or anybody that I was staying at the shop alone. It also seemed as though I needed to convince Ebony that maybe there was a very good reason for reporting the vandalism to the police.
“My dad’s a heavy sleeper,” I said, which was true. I was sure wherever he was sleeping in the middle of the desert, he hadn’t woken up once. “And I fell asleep in front of the TV.”