McKinley could think about that later, though. Right now, all he could get his head around was lunch.
AN elderly man wearing a straw boater sat on a folding chair in the shade outside the hair and nail salon, smoking a cigarette. Strange passed by him, nodded by way of a greeting, and received a slow nod in return.
Strange entered the salon and saw that Devra Stokes was not in, or at least was not in the front of the shop. He went over to the older woman who had been giving him the cold looks the day before, and who seemed to be in charge. Strange guessed her height at four-foot-ten or four-eleven, straddling the line between short and dwarf. Her face was unforgiving, without laugh lines or any other evidence that she knew how to smile.
“Devra in?” said Strange.
“She is not.”
Strange flipped open his badge case and showed it to her for a hot second. His private detective’s license read “Metropolitan Police Department” across the top. It was the one thing that most people remembered, especially if it was shown and put away in a very short period of time.
“Investigator, D.C.”
This was his standard introduction. Officially, the description was correct, intended to give the impression that he was with the police. Anyway, it wasn’t a lie.
“That supposed to mean somethin’ to me?”
“My name is Strange. I spoke to you on the phone a little while earlier. You said Devra would be in today.”
“I sent her home early.”
“But you knew I was comin’ by.”
“So?”
“You’re interfering with an investigation.”
“So?”
Strange stepped in close to the woman. He had more than a foot of height on her, and he looked down with intimidation into her stone-cold face. She didn’t back up. Her expression didn’t change.
“Yesterday,” said Strange, “when I came by here, I got followed on my way out. You know anything about that?”
“Why would I? And if I did know, why would I care? And why would I care to tell you?”
“You got a name?”
“I got one. But I got no reason to give it to you.”
“I know where Devra lives,” said Strange, realizing it was childish the moment the words left his mouth. “I’ll just go over there now.”
“You mean you ain’t gone yet?”
Strange left the shop, muttering something about a tough-ass bitch under his breath.
He heard the old man in the chair chuckle as he headed toward the parking lot. Strange stopped walking, stared at the old man for a second, then relaxed as he saw the friendly amusement in the old man’s eyes.
“Little old girl stonewalled you, right?”
“That’s a fact,” said Strange.
“You a bill collector? ’Cause if you are, you ain’t gonna get nary a penny out of Inez Brown.”
“I can see that. She the owner of that shop?”
The old man dragged the last life out of his cigarette and dropped it to the concrete. He ground the butt out with the sole of his black leather shoe as he shook his head.
“Drug dealer owns that shop,” said the old man.
“You know his name?”
The old man continued to shake his head, smoke clouding around his weathered face. “Big boy, wears jewelry. Got this ring that covers his whole hand. Has silver teeth, too. It ain’t unusual for his kind to put money into these places. Those young boys like to hang out where the young ladies do.”
Strange nodded slowly. “Can’t blame them for that.”
“No. You can blame ’em for a lot, but not for that.”
“You have a good one,” said Strange.
“Gonna be hot today,” said the old man. “Hot.”
Back in the Caprice, Strange eyeballed Quinn, who was outside the grocery store, his face close to the face of a young man, both of their mouths working furiously. Even from the distance, Strange could see that vein bulging on the left side of Quinn’s forehead, the one that emerged when he got hot.
Strange found what he was looking for in the small spiral notebook by his side. He phoned Janine and asked her to run the plate numbers from the Mercedes that had tailed him the day before. He had her look into any priors on an Inez Brown, and he gave her the address of the salon and its name so that she could check on who it was, exactly, who held its lease.
“Anything else?” said Janine.
“I got some shirts hangin’ back in my office, need some cleaning.”
“Thanks for the opportunity to serve you. You want those shirts pressed, too?”
“Not too much starch, baby.”
“When you need ’em by?”
“Yesterday.”
“Consider it done. Now, maybe you got something else you want to say to me.”