“Yeah . . . no . . . I’m here,” she insisted. Yet as she remembered one last store in the SuperStars plaza, Charmaine had a brand-new idea.
70
It was a card store—Card Kingdom—dedicated to greeting cards, of all things.
Nola didn’t need a sketch pad to know something smelled. Parked diagonally across the street, she eyed the storefront, which took up the ground floor of a two-story concrete thumb of a building sandwiched between a gas station and a skate park that was empty except for an elderly man sitting there with a little black dog on his lap. The neighborhood, just outside Philadelphia, wasn’t bad; it just felt left behind.
As for Card Kingdom, the front window held a giant Hallmark logo sticker that bubbled against the glass, along with an oversized Christmas present filled with faded rolls of wrapping paper featuring Garfield and the Smurfs. If Card Kingdom was trying to attract business, they weren’t trying hard.
Back during her early military training, they called it sizing up the building. Clear front entrance. Single access point. Standard locks. Most important, no cameras. If time were on her side, she’d do a full sweep, checking all the angles. But the way things were going, if someone beat her here . . .
Kicking open the car door, Nola plowed toward the storefront. An actual bell rang overhead as she stepped inside, the smell of old paper wafting over her and bringing, in the midst of this, an actual good memory—her teacher Ms. Sable taking her to the art supply store for the first time.
Inside, Card Kingdom was nicer than she expected. Its four aisles of yellow, seventies-era, faux-blond-wood display cases were old, but the greeting cards seemed new, or at least not picked over.
On her far right, the cash register was manned by a twentysomething guy—thin eyebrows and delicate features—wearing a plaid flannel shirt and one of those gray slouchy beanie hats that looked ridiculous in the heat of summer and instantly told Nola he was more fashion victim than threat. Scrolling on his phone, he barely looked up.
Hoping to be quick, Nola wove through the narrow aisles, passing sections for birthday cards, anniversaries, get well, and farewell . . . and even, as she turned the corner, a section labeled Dirty for Him/Dirty for Her.
Scattered along the walls were Formica shelves of snow globes, ceramic figurines, crystal animals, and every other useless knickknack that a store like this sells to stay in business, but what caught her eye . . .
“Any Father’s Day cards?” Nola asked.
“Tomorrow,” Beanie Hat said with a grunt, still phone-scrolling.
Nola made a note. Father’s Day already passed. Strike one.
At the back of the store, a vertical sliver of light revealed a back door that overlooked a small parking lot behind the building. She squinted, spotting three cars—for a store with only one employee. Strike two.
Yet what caught Nola’s eye more than anything else . . . There. Along the right-hand wall.
An elevator. Polished steel. High-tech call buttons. State of the art.
Like something you’d use for a fortress.
71
“A man walks into a bar . . .” Zig called out, easing the front door open.
Decades ago, Zig’s father would make the same joke when ten-year-old Zig would enter their local pub, on his regular quest to “get your father’s ass back here.” As a kid, Zig laughed along with his dad’s joke, even though he didn’t quite get it. When he got older, he saw it for what it was: a great way to disarm, especially when trouble was coming.
“Mr. King? Elijah . . . ?” Roddy added, beer whiff rolling over them, but also another smell, a faint sour and sweet one that Zig couldn’t quite place.
As Zig followed Roddy inside, he noticed that Roddy’s hand wasn’t on his gun. When a uniformed cop enters a bar, people look away and shut down. Roddy clearly wanted answers, not trouble.