A few guys approached Gabe, who bucked up to twice his size at their approach.
“You got some cash?” the first guy asked.
“No.”
“What, you’re too good for us?” the second guy asked.
“How about your little girly, then?” The last guy took a step toward Reyna. She sidestepped closer to Gabe.
Gabe shot them a menacing glare and then pulled back the front of his jacket. The handguns he’d secured there earlier were clearly visible. “You’re making a terrible mistake. Just keep walking.”
One guy showed off his own gun, but his friends looked warier.
“Promise I’m faster on the draw,” Gabe snarled.
“Come on, Dom.”
“Yeah, Dom,” Gabe spat. “Listen to your buddies.”
Dom offered some choice expletives before being dragged away by his friends. Reyna only breathed again when they were a block away from them. She sure hoped that they didn’t run into them again. She knew that encounter wouldn’t go as well.
“Fucking cocky bastards. Thinking only with their dicks,” Gabe growled relentlessly as they walked the last few blocks. “Think they’re so bad. They wouldn’t survive a night on my fucking streets.”
Reyna smiled at him. She liked seeing Gabe be all big bad tough guy. No wonder Meghan was into him.
“Well, here we are,” Gabe said.
They stared up at the decrepit apartment building. Most of the windows were boarded up with an air-conditioning unit sticking out. A group of kids played with a kickball in the street. A few elderly men played backgammon on the stoop. A drug deal was happening on the corner.
“Great place,” Reyna muttered.
They approached the entrance, which had a gate that had long since been deactivated. One of the elderly men called out to them, but they both ignored him and hurried up the steps. They checked the registry for Jodie’s cousin’s name, June Gardner. There was no one by that name, but they’d been expecting that. They buzzed the apartment number. No one answered.
Gabe shrugged and took to the stairs. They went up five flights before finding the apartment just off of the landing. Gabe knocked on the front door long enough for someone to finally crack it open. It was a large woman in nothing but a bra and underpants. Her hair was in curlers and she wore a permanent sneer.
“What?” she spat. “I don’t need nothin’. Don’t need you bangin’ on my door. Fuck off.”
Reyna jumped forward. “So sorry to bother you, ma’am. We were just wondering if June Gardner lived here.”
“Don’t know no one by that name.”
“Or Jodie. Tall, black, curly Afro?”
“Yeah that bitch came by.”
Reyna’s heart leapt. “When?”
“Don’t fucking know. But I sent her on her way just like I’m ’bout to send you on yours.”
“Do you know where she went?” Gabe interjected.
“Do I look like someone’s fucking keeper?” the woman spat, and then slammed the door in their faces.
Gabe looked like he wanted to barrel through the door. Reyna put her hand on his arm and shook her head.
“She’s not going to be any more help. I think if she was this nice to us then she wouldn’t have been any kinder to Jodie.”
“True.”
“Come on. Let’s find someone more willing to give information.”
They headed back downstairs and Reyna walked over to the elderly man who had tried to flag them down. He at least had wanted to talk to them.
“Hello,” she said with a smile.
“Well, hello there,” he said with a toothless grin. “I’m Harold.”
“Nice to meet you. We are looking for our friend June. She used to live here and we haven’t heard from her in a while.”
“June, June, June,” the man said as if looking deep into the recesses of his mind.
“Our other friend, Jodie, came looking for her last week.” Reyna gave him the same description she’d given the woman upstairs.
“Oh! I remember her,” the man said. He moved a backgammon piece before turning back to them. “She came ’round asking the same questions as you.”
“Yes, we’re worried about our friend June.”
“June?” another man asked, glancing up. “She worked at the pie place. I go every week. Best pie in the city. Try the cherry cobbler.”
“Yes, the pie place,” Harold said with a smile.
Reyna sagged with relief. A lead.
They got instructions from the men, relieved to find it was only a few blocks away, and then hurried from the horrid apartment complex. She and Gabe didn’t speak as the anticipation coursed through both of them. After botched mission following botched mission, they needed this win. They needed to prove that they could get one person back. Because if they could get Jodie, then maybe they could save everyone else too.
She took a deep breath and pushed forward. This pie place would have answers. She was sure of it.
The pie place was actually named Pie Place. It was a simple diner. Not exactly clean, but it had waitresses in vintage yellow dresses with white aprons over them. None of them looked too pleased to be there. But Reyna knew what it was like to not even have a job, so she could understand keeping one that you hated. She hadn’t exactly loved working for Visage.
She and Gabe pulled out red-cushioned stools and sat at the counter. A woman roller-skated up to them from behind the counter, holding a pen and notepad.
“Welcome to Pie Place, where we have the best pie in the city. Can I recommend the cherry cobbler?” she said with little enthusiasm.
The backgammon guys must come all the time. They even had the spiel down.
“Cherry cobbler would be great,” Gabe said. Reyna shot him a look. He shrugged. “Who turns down pie?”
Gabe waited until he had his pie in front of him before grinning wickedly at the waitress. Reyna watched with admiration and disgust as he charmed his way into conversation with this woman who clearly hated her job. She giggled and flirted, came back twice for drink refills, and ignored her other tables to talk to Gabe.
“Be right back,” he said with a wink and then followed the waitress through to the kitchen.
Reyna huffed in frustration. This was not helping them at all. What a pig!
She finished off the rest of his second helping of cherry cobbler. She had to admit it was really good. Damn. She’d been hoping it was an exaggeration.