Page 13

It was growing late, and the crowd had mostly disbursed, so Joe, seeing an opportunity, steeled herself to beg Wendel for an outside ciggie-break in order to tag the still mooning-it-up pair’s car. Pulling a fresh butt from her apron pocket, she approached Wendel and waved it around with a hopeful look.
“Really?” Wendel grunted, but when she gave him a beseeching look he gave in, being a tobacco fiend himself. “Fine.” Begrudgingly, he let her go.
He didn’t need to know she never put the damned thing in her mouth. Handy, though, that the nicotine plea gave her an excuse to walk the parking lot for any suspicious goings-on, every time she asked for a break. Tonight, her objective was two-fold. Look for drug dealers and slap a tracker on the cozy-couple’s car.
She’d previously slipped the small GPS disc into the decoy pack of cigarette before her shift, so it wasn’t tough digging it out and palming the small item while she walked through the darkened lot. Once she found the car in question, she went low on her back, and easily attached the device beneath the Subaru’s chassis. She found a perfect spot, heard the small disc settle into place, then slid out and began to stand up when…
Deep, male voices, not too far away, raised in dispute. Joe swiftly went back down on her heels, hiding between cars.
“I’m not bringing that shit to my house,” one man argued. “What happens if my wife sees it, or the kids get into it? I’m okay transporting your stuff, but I’m not putting my family at risk.”
Asp-hole, Joe growled to herself. Didn’t he know he was already doing that by getting involved with people who were illegally making and selling the nasty shlimazel she surmised they were talking about? Some idiots were so clueless.
Keeping to her squat, Joelle inched closer to the conversation.
“You’ll do what the bosses want, or you’ll find yourself missing a few of those family members,” a gruff voice responded.
Fudge. Why was Joelle always right?
“Fine,” the reluctant mule gave in. “I get this is an emergency because your storage facility is under inspection to be sold. But this is a one and done. I’ll keep your shit locked up in my tractor for now, but as soon as your unit is in the clear, that stuff goes back to you.”
“We can work with that,” the second man answered, seemingly appeased.
Joelle needed to get closer. She had to get an identity on the men; see what they were driving. The first guy had talked about his tractor, and Joe assumed it wasn’t the farming kind. Which meant he had to drive a semi. But would he have brought that to the bar? She hadn’t seen one as she’d walked around.
The only way Joe could think to get an ID on the pair, was to back off, then approach with an unlit cigarette in hand, making her heels crunch on the crushed stone parking lot as she sashayed over to flirt. They’d drop any controversial talk once they saw her coming, then would hopefully engage without suspicion.
She moved silently away, unfastened the top two buttons of her shirt, and held the unlit cancer-stick between her fingers. Then doing her very best impression of a lady of loose morals, she sashayed across the lot, back toward the men’s position, putting an extra swing in her hips.
Joe made as much noise as possible as she approached. “Hey, y’all. Either of you two gentlemen have a light for a lady?” she asked in her fake southern accent.
“Nope. Get lost.”
Ahh. So voice number two didn’t want to play nice.
“Seriously?” Joe pouted as she walked closer. “Where are all the noble souls these days?” Dagnabbit. The pair weren’t even close to the one and only sodium vapor light in the lot, so their faces were in shadows. But not for long if she had her way.
“Back off, lady,” number two said again.
She stopped and simpered.
“Aw, Chuck. What’s it going to hurt.” The married perp must have felt bad for her, because he walked over, fishing a lighter out of his pocket.
“Fine,” guy two clipped. “But we’re finished. I’m out of here.” He quickly strode away and got into a car that was too far away to ID. It looked blue in the dark, and was shaped like an older sedan, but that was all Joe could determine.
Still, getting a look at one of the pair wouldn’t be a bad night’s work. From what she’d overheard, the nicer of the two guys was a trucker who ran the drugs. The agency was after the bigger fish, but this perp would be a good place to start.
“Thanks,” Joelle purred. “You’re a lifesaver.”
The guy held the flame to her cigarette, then lit one for himself while she was then forced to inhale. But in the light, while Joe dragged the smoke into her lungs, she took careful note of his face. Luckily, it wasn’t ordinary. The man was actually pretty darned good looking.
What a waste.
Without being able to snap a picture, Joe memorized the color of his eyes, the style of his hair, the shape of his chin, and every little laugh line around his mouth. Already having mentally catalogued his height and weight, Joe would talk to the agency’s forensic artist first thing in the morning, and see if they could do a mock-up of the guy that might get a hit in their criminal data-base.
Unless…
Joelle blew the offending smoke out from between pursed lips as provocatively as she could muster. “I don’t suppose you…? Um…” With her free hand, she twirled her ponytail flirtingly. “…would you be in the mood for company? Like, in your car, maybe?” She stuck her tongue out and licked her bottom lip, hoping for an invite.