Tonight Court decided he would just stop in here, grab a few more items to store at his place, listen to LaShondra talk for a minute, and then go home.
The rain remained steady as he pulled into his same spot in the parking lot, but it was no longer slamming down in whipping sheets. The loud thunder and lightning had abated as well, but he could still hear it rolling off in the east. He flipped the hood of his raincoat over his baseball cap, and he climbed out of the car.
As soon as he walked into the market he lowered his dripping hood, but he kept the cap down low. He knew the camera angles in here without looking, although he did perform a fast scan to make sure the broken cameras remained broken.
They hung there partially disassembled, just as before, so Court started for the refrigerated shelves.
He’d only made it a couple of steps before LaShondra called out to him. “Honey, ain’t nothin’ in this here place that’s worth comin’ out in this rain for.”
“Yeah,” he said. He walked to the dairy section with his head down, and he selected a pint carton of milk.
“You one of my regulars now. Three nights in a row.”
“Guess so.”
“I bet you came in just to tell me how good them greens were with vinegar. Ain’t that right?”
“That’s right,” Court said. Then he added, “They were really good.” In fact he hadn’t even opened the can yet, but she was a nice lady and he wanted to make her happy, and this seemed like the easiest way.
She squealed in delight. “I done told you!”
“You did.” Court smiled a little, glancing up at her over a low shelf of bread.
“You gettin’ you some more?”
He hadn’t planned on it. “Sure am.”
Court grabbed two cans of greens and started to turn away, then he scooped a third off the shelf before he began heading up to the counter. His little kitchenette had only one small exposed shelf over the sink; now that shelf would be lined halfway across with turnip greens.
He grabbed a loaf of white bread and some packages of ramen noodles, and he turned for the front.
At the register he kept his face angled to the left to position it away from the camera. He repeated his now-customary ruse, pretending to look down to the newspaper rack.
LaShondra started ringing up his items, and she continued talking about what Court had come to suspect was her favorite subject. “They good for you. Make you feel better. Hey, you look a little better than you did last night.”
“Feel a little better,” he replied.
The door clanged open to Court’s left, and a short man walked in wearing a thick black jacket over a dark gray hoodie. Court eyed him for a half second and saw he was way too young to be an operator or a cop. He was Hispanic, he might have been twenty, and he didn’t even glance up as he passed by.
“Hey, baby,” LaShondra called out to the man as he walked behind Court on his way to the back of the little store.
The young Hispanic made no reply.
Court put his change in his pocket while LaShondra bagged his groceries. She spoke softly to him. “Lots of folks ’round here don’t speak no English.” It was her explanation for why the man had not replied to her, as if Court were wondering.
He wasn’t. The Hispanic went back to the beer cooler, and Court now had his eyes on two new people coming through the door. A male and a female, both African American, both in their late twenties. They were athletic-looking, and Court could imagine either one of them being undercover law enforcement or even FBI surveillance types, although he knew he was paranoid, and they could also be nothing more than civilians who liked to go to the gym.
Behind them a burgundy Monte Carlo rolled up and stopped at one of the gas pumps.
“What’chall doin’ out in this rain?” LaShondra called out to the couple like she knew them, but this did little to allay Court’s suspicions, since she had spoken to him the same way the first time she set eyes on him.
But the female spoke to LaShondra by name and with obvious familiarity, so Court relaxed.
LaShondra handed Court his plastic bag now. “Now you go home and get to feelin’ better, you hear?”
“I will,” he said with a little smile.
As he started towards the exit, he saw that two men had climbed out of the Monte Carlo and were approaching the store.
This market had been completely empty the first couple of times he’d been in, but those visits had both taken place later in the evening. Now, just after midnight, even in this storm, the Easy Market felt like Grand Central.
Court held the door open for two young men, both in their late teens or early twenties, just like the first guy through the door.
The young man in front was white and he wore a black skullcap and a black jacket. He nodded his thanks to Court.
The second man, on the other hand, looked at Court with rapidly blinking, searching eyes. He was Hispanic, his jaw was clenched tight, and he passed through without a word.