There was a red light between me and them. I groaned in frustration as I stopped at it and saw them just make the light a block ahead.
My phone rang. It was Albert.
“They, like, left.”
“I know that. I’ve been following them and trailing badly. I might just lose them. Why didn’t you call earlier?”
“Like, my manager was around. I don’t want to lose Productivity Points!”
“Ugh, this company is driving me bonkers.”
“Try working here.” Pause. “Sorry I couldn’t call earlier. I know I’m a screwup.”
Now I felt bad. “You are not a screwup, Albert. But you do undercut yourself. That junk you smoke is keeping you at a dead stop in life.”
“I don’t smoke junk! I don’t touch that stuff.”
“Oh, come on, I know you’re still smoking marijuana.”
“That’s not junk.”
“What is it? Magical fairy leaves from the gods?” This boy gave me no end of irritation.
He laughed. “You could say that. No, junk is slang for heroin. That’s bad stuff, man. I’d never touch that.”
“It’s all a matter of degree.”
“Well, I bet you drink,” he said with a whine that would have been more appropriate coming out of my grandson.
“Not to excess, and it never got in the way of my education or career. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some murderers to tail.”
I hung up just as the light turned green. The security vehicle was still way ahead.
They continued straight then had to slow as an eighteen-wheeler pulled out of a supermarket and blocked their way. Thank God for late-night delivery trucks.
The four-by-four began to pass. I moved as fast as I dared. I wanted to catch up, but I didn’t want to attract attention. I worried that these guys would recognize my vehicle. They had obviously been spying on me. Luckily, the streets of this sleepy town are poorly lit, and trying to identify the make and model of a distant car in poor light in a rearview mirror is not an easy task.
I used the eighteen-wheeler as a shield as I approached, which allowed me to take on greater speed. The next time we got caught by a red light, the security guys were only a block ahead and we had left the supermarket truck behind.
We were on the main business road on the edge of Cheerville, heading out of town. I had already checked the location of their office, and that stood in the opposite direction, so these guys were going somewhere else.
After another couple of blocks, it turned out they were going to a motel.
And not just any motel, but the Show ’n’ Tell Motel.
The Show ’n’ Tell Motel is infamous among the conservative and staid residents of Cheerville. It has a reputation of being a place for assignations of the paid variety. The evidence for this was the garish neon lighting showing an eye opening and closing, the swimming pool that hadn’t been filled since 1967, the general squalor of the building and grounds, and the fact that it stood right next to the On-Ramp Burlesque (“Truckers welcome!”).
The On-Ramp Burlesque was so named, I dearly hope, because it stood next to the on-ramp to the Interstate. I did not want to ponder other possibilities. It was understated, a blank concrete facade with no windows and a large sign within view of the highway that carried no suggestive pictures. True to its name, it had parking both for cars and trucks, and several eighteen-wheelers were parked there, their exhausted drivers getting a little diversion from their all-night marathon drives across the country.
You would think that the good citizens of Cheerville would kick up a fuss about these two establishments, and you’d be right. But there was nothing they could do about it because both businesses stood just outside city limits, on state land. Cheerville had tried buying the land specifically so they could zone these two places out of existence, but the state wasn’t selling. I suspected bribery at the state level.
As the Escudo Security vehicle pulled into the motel and parked out of sight around one side, I was faced with a similar problem to the one I had back at SerMart. If I parked there I would stick out like a sore thumb—not my vehicle, but me. No one would think anything of a seventy-one-year-old man going to such a dive. People would only wink and nod. But a seventy-one-year-old woman? Not on your life. People would think I was a vengeful wife or an angry Bible-thumper. No one would think I was actually a customer. I couldn’t blend in. I would only attract suspicion.
I had never been faced with this particular brand of sexism before, and I couldn’t figure out how I felt about it. Somewhere between annoyed and flattered.
The safer option was to park in front of the On-Ramp Burlesque. The Panamanians or whoever they were wouldn’t be able to see me. They had gone to the far side of the motel.
I pulled in, parked by a larger vehicle that would partially shield me from view if my targets came around to the front of the motel, and got out.
Just as I did, another car pulled up not too far off, and three young men got out, drunk and laughing. They looked like college kids. They spotted me and stopped, jaws hanging open. One giggled. I frowned.
“What are you doing here?” one of them asked.
I put a hand on my hip and gave them a come-hither look.
“Hey boys, I’m the next act. The Gyrating Granny. Wait till you see my—”
They leapt in the car and peeled out of the parking lot so fast they left a trail of burnt rubber.
I hurried over to the Show ’n’ Tell Motel before someone from the strip club kicked me off the premises for hurting their business.
The motel was one of those old places that has a single story with
