Mud, Sweat, and Tears Read online

  But they were glued to the booth, I realized as I studied it more closely. They must have learned to do that after someone like me had worked there. I pushed at the vase, my fingertips leaving tracks in the dust.

  A girl who looked to be in her late teens or early twenties brought our order and picked up the goalpost. “Enjoy,” she said.

  “Thanks.” I slid my platter off the tray, ignoring the look of horror on Viv’s face. “Is your boss freaked out about this whole missing football business?”

  “Boy, is he! He’s furious. He’s Team Garrett, all the way.” She dropped her voice and looked around. “I mean, don’t tell anyone I said that. But yeah. You should hear him.”

  I looked at Viv, who seemed as confused as I felt.

  “Levi Dean is Team Garrett?”

  “No, no!” She laughed and shook her head. “I thought you were talking about Julian, my boss. My boss. He’s the manager. And yeah, I guess it would be kind of awkward, since his boss is Garrett’s rival.”

  “Would be?”

  “Well, I mean, Mr. Dean is never here. I seriously thought Julian was the owner until two days ago. I’ve worked here six months and I never even saw that Deanguy.”

  “He doesn’t work here?”

  “No, he just owns the place.”

  Must be nice, I thought. I eyed the stack in front of me and decided I didn’t feel up to waiting any longer. I took my knife and carefully cut a bite out of the very center, to maximize the fried egg coverage.

  Viv tilted in her seat so she wouldn’t have to watch.

  “Not a hands-on kind of guy, huh?”

  “Not usually. He did come in the other night and let us all go home early, though. So that was nice.”

  “I’m sure. What night was this?”

  “Thursday night. I remember because I had a paper due Friday and I got to go home and work on it.Yay!”

  “Yay,” I said.

  “Okay, well…can I get you anything else?”

  When she walked away, I looked at Viv.

  She gave me a raised-brow look. “Interesting.”

  “Thursday night. When the football went missing.”

  “We need to get more information from this girl. So, the manager is Team Garrett but he works for Team Dean. That could be a clue.”

  “But, how does that make sense? I mean, why would he steal from the guy he supports?”

  “How do I know? But it’s something, right? I mean, the guy doesn’t darken the door for six months and then shows up on the very night the ball goes missing? That’s too much coincidence to be coincidence.”

  As I listened to Viv’s rapidly developing elaborate plan to make friends with the waitress and perhaps even get part-time jobs at Taco John’s so we could fully infiltrate the organization (“deep, deep cover,” she said), I ate my enchilada stack and decided that if there was a Nobel Prize for Tex-Mex, whoever invented this fried egg thing should certainly be in the running. I closed my eyes and savored.

  “You’re not going to hurl, are you?”

  I opened my eyes to find Viv studying me with concern, her phone in one hand like she’d been about to call someone.

  “Just the opposite,” I said.

  “Good Lord. What’s the opposite of hurling?” She started to rise, the phone still to her ear.

  “Not what you’re thinking. I just mean, I’m savoring. Not hurling.”

  “Because whatever you’re doing, it’s not my fault. I take responsibility for the ankle thing, but this…” She gestured toward my now-messy plate with a faint look of horror. “This is all your idea.”

  “It’s phenomenal. You should try it,” I said, knowing full well she would die first. “Here, have a bite.” I scooped a bite of the enchilada onto my fork, making sure to get a runny bit of egg mixed in.I leaned toward her.

  She edged backwards, her lips clamped. “MMMM-mmm.” She shook her head hard. She looked like an 80-year-old toddler refusing her castor oil.

  I rose and leaned, bracing my left hand on the table to take the weight of my bum ankle. “Come on, Viv, live a little.”

  She tried to say “No,” but all that came through her clamped lips was a high-pitched protest.

  “You’re adventurous, Viv. You live on the edge. Surely you’re not going to let a little –”

  I stopped, studying the shelf behind Viv’s seat. The sun streamed through the window to our left, and I hobbled to a full stand, using the table to brace me as I moved around the edge for a closer look.

  “Get that thing away from me!” Viv cried as she scrambled against the wall of the booth, one Ferragamoed heel out to kick me away if necessary.

  Ignoring her, I examined the pottery behind her, then looked back at the vase that had been at my back.

  “Look,” I said. I pointed to my vase, then to hers. “Notice anything?”

  Viv’s eyes went frantically between my face and my fork. It was as if I was pointing a loaded gun at her – she couldn’t see anything else.

  I tossed the fork onto my plate in exasperation. “Forget the enchiladas. Look at the vases!”

  She studied me, still clearly suspicious, for a few more seconds before she let her eyes dart between the two vases. “They’re… pretty?”

  “No, look! Really look at them.”

  Her eyes still glued to mine, she reached out a bony hand and slowly slid the platter holding my enchiladas to the far side of the table, out of reach for either of us. “Hey Salem,” she said with the tone of someone trying to coax a wild dog out of its den. “You know what let’s do? Let’s just take your temperature right quick. Okay, sweetie? Just let me feel your forehead –”

  “Some detective you are,” I said, feeling quite smug. “You have not noticed that every single thing in this place is covered with a fine layer of dust, except this one vase.”

  She appeared somewhat stumped. “Is it? Yes, well…that’s…that’s a shame.” She began fumbling with her phone, and I realized she was trying to dial it one-handed.

  I slid into the booth beside her. Her eyes widened and she kept her foot up, her hands giving awkward little jolts like she was ready to karate chop me.

  “Viv, listen to me. Sometime between tonight and Thursday, someone dusted this one vase. Just this one.”

  Viv was starting to look panicked, leaning around me to see if there was anyone nearby who might help control a psychotic customer. “We will speak to the management. That’s what we’ll do. This is an outrage.”

  “You do remember that we’re here because you refused to listen to me?” I said.

  “I do. Indeed I do. Your poor ankle –”

  “Then listen to me now. Look at the vase, Viv. It’s possible that someone dusted it to remove fingerprints, right? I mean, it’s just the right size to hide, say, a football…” I trailed off with a grin and cocked my head toward the vase.

  I had to hand it to her. Once she realized what I was saying, she was quick to run with it. “We found the football!” Then she ducked down over the table, one hand over her mouth. “We found the football!” she whispered.

  “We might have found the football!” I whispered back, too happy at the moment to squabble over petty details like which one of us, in fact, found the football.

  “We have to call the police.”

  “They’ll need a search warrant,” I said.

  Viv handed me her phone. “Call your boyfriend.”

  I also did not feel like it was the time to argue over that one. If my life hadn’t gone off the rails early on, Detective Bobby Sloan might have, in fact, been my boyfriend right now. More likely he’d have been my ex-boyfriend, but still…I called him.

  I leaned over and whispered into the phone. “Bobby, Viv and I might have found the football.”

  I can’t repeat what he whispered back, but suffice it to say that, after I finally clarified why I thought we might have found it, he seemed illogically dubious.

  After I argued with him for a while, he said,
“Salem, in the first place, I’m homicide. I ought to send you over to property crimes but I don’t want to waste their time with this. And in the second place, even if this was my department, I can’t just barge into a place and go looking through stuff without a warrant.”

  “But you have probable cause now. Because of the dust.”

  “There is no way in hell I’m going to go to a judge with this cockeyed story for probable cause.”

  “Oh.” I slumped in the booth. After the day I’d had, it seemed supremely unfair that it would end without a victory of some sort, and discovering the beauty of the Two-Point Conversion was small solace. “Do I need a warrant?” I asked.

  Bobby heaved a gigantic sigh. “Busy bodies aren’t generally held to the same standards cops are.”

  “And if I do look in there and see a football, and tell you, is that probable cause?”

  “I suppose so, but Salem –”

  I hung up on him. “He won’t come,” I told Viv. “But we can look.”

  Viv rose, but I put a hand out to stop her. “Wait, I don’t want anyone else to see. I want to look in there and then let Bobby know so he can make the arrest.”

  Viv nodded, her eyes flashing with excitement. “Do you want to jimmy the back door open after closing time and sneak in?”

  I stared at her for a beat. “No, I do not want to jimmy the back door open after closing time and sneak in. I want you to create a diversion so I can climb up there and have a quick look.”

  Viv’s eyes sparkled and she nodded. Then she shot out her hand and my enchilada platter went flying across the room.

  Shards of deep yellow pottery – and my enchilada stack – splashed across the terra cotta floor. The racket had everyone in the place looking in our direction.

  I glared at Viv.

  “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry.” She held her palms up. “I can’t even – look what a mess I’ve made.”

  “Good going,” I said sideways through my clamped jaw. “Now the entire room is looking at us.”

  “This is just part of the buildup. Go with it.” She pushed at me until I slid out, then she climbed out from the booth, emphasizing her old-lady status and hunching over more than normal, speaking loudly. “Oh, Salem, look at your dinner. Bless your heart. I am so sorry.”

  She went on and on to the waitress, to the guy who came to clean up her mess, to the diners around us about how sorry she was, how her arms had started doing this thing lately where they just shot out for no reason at all. She said she was so embarrassed and sorry to have ruined their dinners. Then (and I’m pretty sure she did this on purpose to shore up her act) she smacked the guy sweeping up the mess. He assured her there were no hard feelings, but he edged out of reach while he picked shards of pottery out of the splattered enchiladas.

  One of the ladies at a nearby table stood and assured Viv that her mother had had the same problem, so she could sympathize. Then she glared daggers at me, probably because I wasn’t looking sympathetic in the least.

  All in all, it was probably the most conspicuous I’d ever felt. I put on a half-hearted show of reassuring Viv that it was fine, I hadn’t even really wanted the enchiladas (while hissing through my teeth that she was buying me a gift card before we left the premises) while everyone stared at us. I kept casting glances around, looking at the vase, sure the football was in there, increasingly desperate to find it before something else happened and I wouldn’t be able to look.

  The manager came over. “Everything okay over here?”

  “Just me being my clumsy self,” Viv assured him, putting her hand on his shoulder to turn him away. She led him away from the messy blop of goo on the floor, and I noticed the rest of the diners turning their attention back to their plates. Viv, the manager and the busboy were still too close for comfort, and there were several diners around, but I couldn’t handle it anymore.

  I edged into the seat where Viv had been and scooted as far back against the wall as I could. I leaned way back and half-stood, leaning over my left shoulder to peer over the edge of the vase.

  It was too high. I pushed myself higher and could barely see over the lip. Finally, with a quick glance around, I reached up with my left arm, pushed aside the plastic plants and jammed my hand down into the vase.

  I knew I’d hit pay dirt as soon as my fingertips touched the bumply edge of the football. The problem was, I could only touch the tip. I stepped onto the tiptoes of my left foot and pushed, palming my hand against the nose of the football and squeezing. I gripped as tightly as I could and slowly pulled it out of the vase.

  If there had been any doubt that I’d found the football, the scribbled autographs in silver ink all over the surface of the ball took care of that. I moved to tuck the ball down out of sight, but in the excitement of the moment I forgot about my bum ankle and let my weigh fall on it.

  I gave a gasp of pain that drew the manager’s attention. His eyes grew wide as he saw what I held. Then they narrowed, and I realized what it looked like.

  I’d been caught red-handed with stolen goods.

  “There was no dust!” I explained. I pointed to the two vases flanking our table.

  This, of course, made no sense.

  “The football!” the manager shouted. He jabbed a finger at me. “She stole the football!”

  “I did not! I just found it. Just now.In your vase.” I tried to turn the accusing tone back on him but with everyone staring at me, it was hard not to sound guilty.

  He crossed the floor to the table and reached for the ball. “Give it to me!”

  I tucked it behind me and leaned back. “No! The property crimes unit is on their way, and they’ll be wondering why you have stolen goods in your possession.” At least they would be, as soon as I called Bobby back.

  “It’s in your possession,” he argued. “Give it to me, now! I’ll hold it for safekeeping.”

  “I’ll hold it for safekeeping.” I was practically lying in the booth now, the ball tucked behind the small of my back while I guarded it for all I was worth.

  A crowd gathered around the table. The woman who’d reassured Viv and her husband, a younger couple, the guy cleaning up Viv’s mess. They all stood on tiptoe and started relaying messages behind them.

  “That girl has the football.”

  “They found the football.”

  “She was trying to hide it in that vase,” the busboy said.

  “No I wasn’t,” I said with indignation.

  “No, she wasn’t.” I turned looked to my left to see another guy around my age, thin and with the body of a tweaker, staring at the vase. “I saw her, she pulled it out of that vase. It was hidden in there.”

  So much for my covert sleight-of-hand skills. But since he was helping me, I nodded vigorously and half rose. “Exactly. What he said.”

  “There is no way the ball was in that vase,” the manager said. “Here, give it to me.”

  I jammed myself back into the booth. I pressed too hard. The ball shot out from behind me and across the booth, landing in the opposite bench.

  A collective “oooh!” went up from the gathered crowd. Then, with a wild-eyed look around, the tweaker guy grabbed the ball, turned, and sprinted away.

  He slipped on the enchiladas and crashed to the floor, the ball bouncing crazily away.

  Before anyone else could react, Viv had the ball in one hand and one of my crutches in the other, swinging it wildly. “Back it up! Back it! The heck!Up!”

  Everyone backed up like she was holding a bomb. The guy on the floor groaned, rising slowly while he clutched his elbow, which had apparently taken the brunt of the blow.

  Viv looked at him, then at me proudly, as if this had been her plan all along.

  “Oh, shut up,” I said.

  A patrol cop came in just then. At first, I thought it was just happy coincidence, or maybe one of the patrons had called the police when I first brought the ball out. If so, they’d gotten here really quick. But then Bobby walked in behind hi
m.

  He stood in the doorway and took stock of the situation. The patrolman walked through the crowd, asking a few questions here and there, while the diners slowly went back to their seats, mumbling to themselves.

  “Give me the ball,” Bobby said to Viv.

  “No problem,” she answered lightly, tossing it over to him. “We are happy to do your job for you, once again.”

  “I’m homicide,” Bobby reminded her. “This time, you’re doing Randy’s job.” He gestured toward another guy who’d just come in looking both harassed and relieved.

  We all had a powwow and after a few grudging minutes, the manager and we all agreed that it must have been Levi Dean who had placed the ball where it was. “He never comes up here,” the manager said. “Thursday was the first time in months he’s made an appearance, then he sends everybody home early. I thought it was weird. But he’s the boss.” He shrugged.

  By the time a reporter from the newspaper showed up and asked to take pictures with us all together, the manager, Viv and I were good buddies. We stood with the waitress, me leaning on my crutches, the waitress and manager holding the ball between them, both with wide grins, and smiled for the camera.

  “I told you,” I said to Bobby as I walked past him to Viv’s car.

  “Oh, I know,” he said. “I knew I’d better get here quick. If you two are together, something catastrophic is going to happen.”

  “Just read the paper tomorrow,” I said. “In case you haven’t heard, I am both a frigging inspiration and a hero.”

  “And a pain in my butt.”

  “Don’t forget to look for me on the front page,” I sang on my way out. I couldn’t believe I’d ever pretended he was my husband. A thousand times.