Torrent(9)

“Geez, Temi, you’ve been all over the world for tennis, haven’t you? I can’t imagine what seems appealing about driving around the Southwest in a clunky thirty-year-old van with AC that only works intermittently and when it does, you wish it didn’t, because there’s a burned meat smell that comes out of the vents.”
“Hey,” Simon said, “don’t talk about Zelda like that.”
I shushed him. He crossed his arms over his chest and gave me a glare that would have been a lot noisier if he weren’t inhibited by Temi’s presence.
“I’ve seen much of the world, yes,” Temi said, “but I was always so busy training that I didn’t have time to enjoy it. I always thought there’d be time later, but...” She finished with a shrug.
“Well, uhm, I’m sorry you came all the way out here,” I said, “but we can’t afford to hire anyone. This isn’t the best time either. We’ve run into some...” Trouble? I wasn’t sure if we were in trouble exactly, but the punctured motorcycle tires and the fact that the deputies had promised to “be in touch soon” left me wondering if we should abandon Prescott before—
A hand clasped onto my arm. Simon lifted a give-us-a-moment-please finger toward Temi, then hauled me to the far side of the picnic table. The brush didn’t quite hide the view of cars cruising down the road toward town, their noise insuring our conversation would be private.
“What are you doing?” he whispered.
“We’re not hiring her, Simon. We barely covered the fee for the campground. Full-time employees are slightly more expensive.”
“We can find a way.”
“Says the man who stole the pepper shaker from Denny’s last night.”
Simon pointed at my nose. “That was a revenge theft, and you know it. They charged me for the onion ring upgrade, but I didn’t get onion rings.”
“A normal person would have simply pointed this out to the server.”
“If you don’t know I’m not normal by now, you haven’t been paying much attention over the last four years.”
I conceded this with a wriggle of my fingers, but said, “We can’t hire her, and this wouldn’t be a good time to expand the business anyway, what with the possibility of vengeful motorcycle riders coming after us.”
“What if we didn’t hire her? What if we made her a business partner? She could share profits.”
“You barely know her, and you want to share our meager profits? I know she’s pretty—”
“She’s gorgeous.” Simon sighed and gazed over my shoulder. Temi had opened her car door and sat with her legs crossed as she poked around on her phone.
“Yes, but that shouldn’t influence our business decisions.” I prodded him in the chest to reclaim his attention. “What if she were four feet tall, hunchbacked, and had breath like moose droppings?”
“If she drove a Jag, I’d still want to take her on. She obviously has some resources at her disposal. Maybe she’d finance the purchase of a new Dirt Viper.”
“If she’s desperate enough to want to work for us, I doubt she has funds left to finance anything, but I’m glad you don’t want to simply sleep with her—you’re planning ways to exploit her financially too.”
Simon’s shoulders drooped. “I... it’s not like that. I thought that practicality would appeal to you.”
“Uh huh. Listen, I have personal reasons for not taking her on.”
“Like what?”
“Like nothing I’m going into here.”
Skid Row’s Youth Gone Wild blasted from my pocket. It startled me, both because Simon had changed my ringtone without telling me—again—and because I’d been dreading a call. If those motorcycle riders on the hillside had written down my number and were using it...
“Are you going to answer it?” Simon asked.
“You think I should?”
“It could be a client.”
“It could be a psycho with a tool that can rip people’s heads off.” I glanced toward Temi, hoping she hadn’t heard that. She was politely ignoring our conversation, ostensibly at least.
“Here.” Simon held out his palm.
I dropped the phone into it without hesitation. My brave moments didn’t extend to talking to creeps on the phone.
“Rust and Relics, this is Simon,” he answered. “Yes. Yes. That’s right.”
“Who is it?” I mouthed.
“Let me give you to my assistant.” Simon gave me an arch look. “She’ll get your address and payment information.”
In other circumstances, I would have smacked him for calling me an assistant, but this time the tension flowed out of my body in a wave of release. A client. Clients were good.