Shortly after exiting the diner, Spinoza questioned Vera with a sharp note of concern in his voice. "You're not worried about walking out on your employer during your shift? Now's not exactly the best time to bet on continued employment."
"No, I'm not worried." She kept pace three feet in front of him without looking back to explain further.
"Care to elaborate?"
She stopped and squared to face him, "the blackmail scheme I've enmeshed them in runs so deep that if you pulled any thread of it, the entire city would fall apart."
"Doubtful. Especially not this city."
"Right, I forgot," she started walking again, "You're the city's premier crime reporter. Well, the real answer is more mundane. In addition to simply serving customers, many of whom are creepy, middle-aged men who come in simply to ogle me, present company excluded..."
Spinoza harumphed something along the lines of "not being middle-aged" before Vera continued.
"...I also handle the books, manage the schedules, and provide recipes," and now she took her own turn to mutter under her breath "even though they butcher them." She returned to normal volume, "I also provide them with the location of the latest hotspots for jazz when they want to try something new. And, to be clear, I wouldn't walk out on Happy if I were worried he'd get buried during a rush. He's good people."
"Wait, the owner's name actually is Happy? So it's his Hour?"
"Well, Stanislaw, but no one ever calls him that, just like no one apparently refers to your or your gumshoe friend by their proper, Christian names."
"I'm Jewish. You do accounting?"
"I dabble."
On the jaunt over, they continued to chat and found commonality in the novels they read in recent years and a shared appreciation of jazz. They reached the door of Loving's in a vanishingly short time.
"What do you think their specialty was, savory or sweet goods?" Spinoza asked distractedly.
"More like savory or sweet rodent," Vera crinkled her nose, perceiving movement deep in the bakery's kitchen.
"Well, let's take a look around inside, shall we?" Spinoza inched nearer toward the guillotine ledge.
"No thanks, I've already been on the tour once, I'll wait until your sojourn is over." There was no more movement in the kitchen - if there ever was - but she had no desire to buy into the betrayal of her lying eyes.
"Ok, I'll be back momentarily," he stepped on the ledge and was quickly swallowed in the semi-darkness of the store. Vera watched eagerly as he waded through the shambles and exhaled a disinterested "huh" here and a half-hearted "hmm," there. She lost sight of him momentarily as disappeared into the kitchen, listening intently for a blood-curdling scream or shout of pained surprise upon discovering a rat the size of a toy poodle. No scream or shout issued forth.
"Confirmed. There's nothing of value inside the joint," Spinoza exclaimed clambering back over the guillotine ledge into daylight.
"I think a cursory inspection of the outside would have clued anyone into that conclusion," Vera quipped. "So, what now?"
"We're at the waterfront. This is, quite literally, where everything entering the West Coast of the United States gets its ingress papers. I think we have a few more leads we can chase down."
They walked around the side of the building to the splintered door in the back and surveyed the landscape from a vantage point near the heat-shrunk stagnant pool of water that so prominently warned off the adventurers the day before.
In front of them stood an imposing two-story gallery of wrought iron fencing and dark gray doors upon light gray cinder block, serving as a depressing motel structure for forgotten items. Even the bright day permitted brief passage to a cloud scored black on its undercarriage as a foreshadowing acknowledgment of their discovery. The gentle lapping of the ocean waves just behind the structure echoed quietly throughout the gallery, but the building's bleak design offered no evidence that just beyond it lay thousands of miles of sunlit expanse.
"Up or down?" Spinoza grunted matter-of-factly pointing to the gallery's bi-levels.
Vera glanced to her left at the winding spiral staircase beginning to rust in its near-marine environs. Though the structure looked solid enough, a few tell-tale brown spots along the column urged her to take the safer bet. "Down."
They wandered to the left, near the stairwell and climbed the three feet to platform, examining the first door the encountered. Spinoza wiped some of the grime from the facade and examined the stenciling. Though the salt air had taken its toll, they could clearly make out the back half of a crescent illuminating the lettering of niture.
"Unless Loving's had a side business, we probably want to keep moving on." Spinoza wiped the grime on a nearby column and gestured for Vera to continue walking.
They passed the next four doors with no lettering, aware that they may be embarking on a fool's errand of looking for the proverbial needle. The fifth door had no lock, so they pressed their luck. Vera opened the door and spotted two rats in an otherwise empty 10x12 space. The rats squeaked in warning that they had sublet this particular unit first and Vera screamed in agreement, slammed the door with near-supernatural strength and kicked it twice as hard for emphasis.
"That could've been Loving's. It had the same demographic make-up I saw during my assessment of the bakery," Spinoza informed his wild-eyed, red-faced companion with a bemused twinkle in his eyes. He could only make out her "...off" as she turned and began examining the other doors.
They turned the corner of the gallery and now faced a row of doors opposite the back entrance of Loving's but separated by an imposing distance of about 30 yards.
They followed along this row of doors until finding another one with a hollowed-out lock. Vera sighed, gulped, and tried the doorknob. The door swung inward with little fanfare illuminating row upon row of poorly made fedoras stacked from floor to ceiling.
One row contained solid-colored water-stained hats for the large gentleman. Others contained garish technicolor combinations for fashion trends yet to be. Back rows leaned heavily on other back rows ashamed of the sartorial sins they represented en masse.
"Well, let's see," Spinoza chuckled, "We've got rats and hats. If the next unlocked door contains cats, then our first unlocked door problem will be solved."
"If you're going to make a joke, at least give it some effort," she exhaled.
"Could be bats," he continued ignoring her advice.
"Anyway, not Loving's" she responded, ignoring him in turn and continuing down the center walkway.
A few doors further, directly across from the battered back door of the bakery, they spotted "Loving's Bakery" in the typical semi-circle underlined with "Storage" to ensure that any confused would-be customers could discern the difference between the bakery behind them and the storage unit in front of them.
Vera held out her hand. "Key."
"I don't have it." Vera pursed her lips and frowned at the man. "What? I was supposed to meet Tannehill at the diner. He's got the key," he sniffed indignantly.
Vera muttered something else under her breath approximating "...a fine pair." Slowly she reached into her hair and produced two bobby pins, letting her hair fall forward briefly and annoyingly in front of her eyes before pushing it back behind her ears. She inched her skirt up above the knee to keep it from getting soiled and knelt down in front of the door. She carefully straightened the pins and inserted them into the lock, beginning to work the tumblers.
"Where'd you learn to do that?!" Spinoza couldn't tell if he was impressed, horrified, jealous or some combination of the three.
"Well, when the lord of the manor's away, one needs to be able to manipulate one's chastity belt for one's own needs and desires."
Vera could feel Spinoza's shocked response to her comment and her newly unearthed talent roll off her shoulders, but ignored him and continued her lock picking in earnest.
[Author's Note: At some point that door's going to open, but not in today's 1401 word edition. After 32 chapters we're now at 35296 words. I feel pretty confident I can hit 40000 words, but 50? We'll see...Then again I didn't know I'd be able to get this far. If I fall short, I've always got a few Quixotic tricks up my sleeve.]
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