I got up. “By the way, where did you find Bron’s truck? It wasn’t near the Miata at the Skyway, and it sure wasn’t where I found Bron’s body.”
“What business is it of yours?”
“Bron was driving his truck; Marcena, according to you, was alone in the Miata. That means there is probably evidence in the truck showing who attacked him, or how he was attacked, or some darn thing or other. I think it’s kind of hard to misplace a semi, although not really impossible.”
“When we find it, Polack, you’ll be the first to know—I don’t think. Time for you to move on.”
He thrust the arm with the bulging marine tattoo under my elbow and hoisted me to my feet. It was unsettling that he could shift me so easily, but I didn’t try to fight him—I needed my strength for more important battles.
When we were facing the aisles of merchandise with the conveyor belts clacking overhead, he spoke into a lapel mike. “Jordan? I got a girl here who made it into the warehouse unannounced. She’s heading for the front now—make sure she gets out of the shop, will you? Red parka, tan hard hat.”
I decided telling him I was a woman, not a girl, would just get me into a tiresome exchange that wouldn’t help any more than a physical fight. As he stood with his hands on his hips, snapping at me to get a move on, I started singing the old Jerry Williams song, “I’m a woman, not a girl—I want a real man,” but I did get a move on.
I refused to turn my head to see if Grobian were still watching me and marched down the first aisle with my head held high. I wondered how he would know if I really left, but as I moved through aisles crammed with stuff, beneath the conveyor belts ferrying it around, past the crew in red smocks that read “Be Smart, By-Smart,” stacking everything from crates of By-Smart’s private-label wine to vast boxes of Christmas decorations, I saw the video cams at every corner. Woman in red parka and tan hard hat, visible to all and sundry. As I worked my way through the maze of aisles and forklifts and boxes, the loudspeakers kept booming—“Forklift needed at A42N”; “Bad spill at B33E”; “Runner to truck bay 213.” If I turned back, I imagined they’d start booming, “Woman in red parka on the loose, search and destroy.”
In between the wine and the Christmas decorations, I abruptly squatted behind a forklift laden ten feet high with cartons and took off my parka. I turned it inside out and folded it over my arm, hiding my hard hat underneath it. On the back of the forklift was a By-Smart hat that the driver had chosen not to wear, despite all the signs urging him to “Make the Workplace a Safe Place.”
I put it on, left the parka tucked behind a crate of sunlamps, and doubled back to the hall where the offices were. Grobian was meeting with a Mexican and he didn’t want me to know who it was. That meant—I was going to find out.
Grobian’s door was shut, and someone with the By-Smart guard paraphernalia—stun gun, reflective vest, and all—was standing outside. I backed into the paper room, where the printers and fax machines were. I couldn’t hear what was going on over the noise of the machines, so after a couple of minutes I looked outside again. Grobian’s door was just opening. I ducked my head and moved down the hall to the canteen. In the shadow of the doorway, I watched Grobian summon a guard to escort his visitor back into the warehouse.
I didn’t need to stand too close to recognize the chavo whom I’d seen at Fly the Flag two weeks ago. The same thick dark hair, the slim hips, the army camouflage jacket. Freddy. He’d been talking to Pastor Andrés, then to Bron, and now to Grobian. They kept talking while they waited for the guard. I could hear enough to tell that they were speaking Spanish, Grobian as fast and fluently as Freddy. Just what were they discussing?
36
Shown the Door—Again
Any hopes I had of intercepting Freddy were thwarted by the security staff. By the time I slipped back to the sunlamps to retrieve my parka and my own hard hat and got out the front door, the guards had put Freddy into a Dodge pickup and sent him on his way. I was just in time to see his taillights disappear as I jogged outside. I’d had to waste a minute talking to the woman standing guard at the entrance.
“You the detective? Can I see your ID? We lost track of you there for a few minutes—I’m going to have to search you.”