Max took a deep breath and begged for patience. “I’ll bet you have the number in your computer. Our friend here can punch it in. Or maybe you’d feel better doing it.” Young or old, men could really be bastards.
He grunted, did a hunt-n-peck on the keyboard, then reached behind for the rotary phone and dialed the number himself. Stretching the cord to the limit, he disappeared through a door into his pharmacist’s lair. She smiled at Freddy as they listened to the drone of the old man’s voice.
“He’s always hated me,” Freddy offered.
Carbuncle returned, slammed the phone down, grabbed a bottle off the shelf, and rang up the sale. “Ten dollar co-pay.” He held out his hand.
Freddy reached deep into his pocket, his fingers wiggling around somewhere down near his knees, and finally produced a crumpled ten dollar bill. Carbuncle took it, shoved the pill bottle in a bag along with the receipt, and thrust it at the boy.
Then he turned on Max. “What do you want?”
“Well, I was going to order my six-month supply of birth control pills, but you know what, I think I’ll go to the Safeway near my house. They’re much more congenial.” She smiled, turned on her heel, and hastened after Freddy.
The boy was waiting at the end of the aisle, staring at the bottles of cough medicine, some red, some green.
“Thanks.” He shuffled and didn’t quite meet her eye.
“You’re welcome.”
“Why’d you do it?” This time he flashed her a glance.
Max started walking as she talked. Freddy kept up. “Two reasons. First, he was a dickhead.”
His eyes went wide, then the corner of his mouth lifted. Damn, the kid had a lady-killer smile and long lashes a model would die for. Give him a couple of years and the girls would be dropping like flies at his feet.
“My mother would try to wash your tongue with soap if she heard you say that.”
“My mother already did.” She passed through the front door.
Freddy followed. “It didn’t do any good.”
Max laughed as he caught up with her.
“Hey, lady, what’s the second reason?”
Oh, she had him, she had him good.
“I want to know about Ms. Spring, the woman who got murdered.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Why do you want to know about her?” Freddy stopped at the edge of the curb, still in the shadow of the store, his smile gone.
Max went cold without direct sunlight and tried for the honest approach. “I was her friend.” Though friends didn’t quite describe the sensation of another spirit, another soul, another essence seeping into your bones and your very organs.
His lip curled. “Yeah, right. Bethany didn’t have friends.”
So exactly what did he consider himself?
“We were e-mail buds,” Max improvised. E-mail, Internet, cyberspace, yeah, that was close to another plane of existence. She hadn’t seen Bethany’s computer, but she knew it was there in the house somewhere. She still wasn’t lying, per se.
“E-mail?” His chin jutted, his eyes widened. They were brown, a deeper, more compelling color than that of his hair.
“Of course. How do you think she did all her scheduling? Mrs. Pratt wasn’t her only client, and you weren’t her only boy.”
Ooh, bad choice of words; she saw that right away. He didn’t react well, his body stiffening, his fist clenched and white on the nylon strap of his backpack.
Max tried smiling. Too late.
“I wasn’t her ‘boy.’”
Wondering how many times he’d been called boy and by whom, she backed off, softening her tone. “No, I’m sorry, you worked for her. There’s a difference.”
It was noon. More cars filled the parking lot. Max was aware of the curious eyes as people entered the store.
Freddy didn’t care. He ignored her apology and pushed his hair out of his eyes to glare at her. “You’re just like them, aren’t you?”
“Them?” Oh, yeah, she’d pushed a button all right.
“Adults. Parents. Teachers. Old pharmacists.” He jerked a finger at the door behind him. His face grew red. He paced three steps to her left along the storefront, then returned to stand right in front of her. “You think I’m so irresponsible. That I wouldn’t know my ass from a hole in the ground. Always talking down to me like I’m stupid, like I don’t get it.”
Max jumped into the middle of his tirade before she really lost him. “I don’t call it irresponsible to make sure Mrs. Pratt gets her medicine even though you know Bethany’s not going to pay you. And I don’t call it irresponsible to go up against Dickhead in there”—she flapped a hand in the old Carbuncle’s direction—“in order to get it for her. I’ll call it courageous, actually.”
The praise took the wind out of his angry sail. He made a half-turn, then shuffled his feet. “Yeah, well, Mrs. Pratt needs it.”
“You can’t let her down.”