it look like he was buying the cabinets, for the discount, you know? So we agreed to meet here and talk.”
Gloria seemed to buy it. The dimple kind of faded in and out while I talked. I wondered if it was a tell, kind of like full dimple for when she believed me, less dimple for skepticism. If so, I was doing pretty well.
“You should talk to Michelle,” she said. Full dimple. I was golden. “Those guys came in here once in awhile, but they always wanted Michelle to wait on them.”
“Okay. Is she working today?”
“She’s on break. Out back.”
Gloria topped off my coffee and left. I threw money for the Hungry Man down and added a nice hefty tip, then hurried out the door and around the back of the restaurant where I spotted a large tangle of blonde hair and a steady plume of smoke.
“Michelle?” I said.
She turned to me and I got a good look at her. Fine features, hidden beneath some thick makeup. Pretty green eyes. A slight overbite. I had to admit, these Ram’s Horn waitresses were kind of cute.
“Uh-huh,” she said. Her voice was deep with a hint of rasp. It wasn’t the most flattering setting. Michelle stood next to the restaurant’s dumpster. I’m glad I hadn’t touched the Hungry Man. The smell from the giant green bin of death was overpowering. If I had consumed the 10,000 calorie special, I might be hurling it back up right about now. But the back of the restaurant opened up onto an alley and there was nowhere else for a smoker to go.
“I’m trying to track down a guy I met, his name is Randy and he said he worked for the salvage shop across the street.”
“He ain’t workin’ there no more,” she said. Grammatically challenged, I noted, without judgment. Hey, we’ve all got our faults. Mine happens to be a propensity for lying to waitresses.
“Because of the accident?”
She nodded.
“Did you know him?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “He’d only worked there a week or two, right?”
It was my turn to shrug.
“I knew his boss, Nevada,” she said. “He’d been coming here for years.”
“Were you guys friends?”
She raised an eyebrow at me while simultaneously taking a deep drag.
“Are you a cop or something?”
“I’m remodeling my kitchen. Randy was going to hook me up with some cool wood for my cabinets.”
She gave me a quick glance up and down. Yep, I could read her mind, he looks like Mr. Suburban House-Fixer-Upper.
“As good a friends as a waitress and customer can be without ever hooking up outside of here,” she said, her tawny mane nodding toward the back of the Ram’s Horn.
I paused. Not much here, I thought. Then I asked, “Did Nevada ever bring his girlfriend in here?”
She nodded. “Cute girl.”
Okay, not much accomplished.
“Randy cracks me up,” I said. “I can’t believe he still drives around that piece of crap yellow Cadillac. What is it, like, a 1965?”
She shrugged her thin shoulders. “I only seen him in that black Nova. I used to drive one just like it in high school. Mine was gold, though. With huge rust spots all over. If I hit a pothole, little chunks would fall off.”
“Did you know Nova in Spanish means ‘It won’t go?’” I said. I was chock full of interesting tidbits like that. It was a big reason waitresses found me so fascinating.
“No shit?” she said. “That’s funny.”
Our bonding over and with a description of Randy’s car, I thanked Michelle, resisted the urge to run my hands through her hair and see if my dog Biffy, who ran away when I was three years old, was hidden in there. He wasn’t. I walked back to my Taurus. Well, I had a description of a car. But little else.
I looked at St. Clair Salvage across the street. I wondered if I could just peek in the window and get a look at Hornsby’s desk. That wouldn’t be a crime, would it? Window shopping? People do it all the time.
They wouldn’t send me to Jackson for that, would they?
Nineteen
The direct approach seemed the best. I crossed the street, went around behind the main building and pressed my face up against the nearest window. Through a thin layer of grime I saw a lot of open space with a bunch of gear on the floor. Clearly not the office, although I figured Nevada Hornsby’s corporate décor wasn’t exactly Architectural Digest caliber. I walked down to the next set of windows. I saw an old