“All right.” The old woman took another drag from her cigarette, then stood up and walked over to the counter, moving at an excruciatingly slow pace. George wanted to ask her to speed it up, since people might be horribly mutilated while she ambled over there, but figured that wasn’t such a good idea.
“Do you have a restroom?” Michele asked.
“No.”
George gave her a dirty look. She probably assumed that George and Lou wouldn’t prevent her from going to the bathroom when this old lady was around to hear their conversation. She really was going to end up in the cage if she wasn’t careful.
The old woman hobbled behind the counter, then ducked out of sight. A few moments later, she stood back up and set a wooden box on the counter. She raised the lid, revealing dozens of rings.
“Great, great,” said George. “Which ones are silver?”
“The ones colored silver.”
As a rule, George didn’t hit old ladies, though it was a rule for which he was momentarily inclined to try to find a loophole. He quickly went through the selection, plucking out ten or eleven of the rings.
“By the way, I don’t take credit cards,” the old lady said.
“You don’t?”
“Nope.”
“In the twenty-first century, in a store full of high-ticket items, you don’t take credit cards?”
“The credit card companies charge me service fees. Nobody ever got charged a service fee for cash.”
“Actually, ATM’s do usually charge a service fee for cash withdrawals. But that’s fine. I’m not going to tell you how to run your place.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that.”
“What else do you have in silver?”
The old woman looked around. “Over against that wall, there’s a silver mirror.”
“Good. Lou, go get that.” Lou nodded and went over to retrieve the mirror. “What else?”
“Well, let me see...are you Catholic?”
“We’re whatever religion worships silver.”
“I’ve got this,” said the woman, taking out a silver crucifix that was about six inches long.
George picked it up and examined it. “This Jesus kind of looks like Kenny Rogers.”
“Don’t blaspheme in my shop, please.”
“I apologize. I was just commenting on the fine production values here. How much?”
The lady thought for a moment. “Two hundred dollars.”
George looked at Michele. “Is that a good deal?”
“How should I know?”
“Don’t women know standard pricing on all precious metals?”
“Sorry, I don’t buy a lot of silver crucifixes.”
“Two hundred, deal,” said George, “under the condition that you never saw us. Plus we’ll take the mirror and all of the rings.”
“This mirror isn’t silver,” said Lou, scraping his fingernail along the edge. “It’s just painted.”
“Stop scraping my merchandise.”
“Forget the mirror,” said George. “But we’ll take all of the rings.”
“Must be one big wedding.”
“It is.”
“Is that thing real silver?” asked Lou, gesturing to a very small cross that dangled from a chain bracelet on her wrist. “I mean, more real than the mirror?”
“Yes, but it’s not for sale.”
George snorted. “It’s not for sale, or you’re going to charge us a lot for it?”
“Five hundred dollars.”
“We’ll stick with the rest of the stuff, thanks.”
“No,” said Lou. “We’ll take it.”
The old woman shrugged, removed the bracelet, and handed it to Lou. Lou put it around his own wrist. George rolled his eyes.
“All right. Anything else you’re looking for?”
“Do you sell nets?”
“You mean like fishnet stockings?”
“No. God no. Like a big net that you could use to catch a...bear.”
“Sorry. There’s not a huge market for antique netting.”
“Thanks. Pay her, Lou.”
Lou held the briefcase with the sixty-three thousand dollars they’d taken from Douglas that morning. They’d decided that leaving it unattended in a van with a broken-out windshield was not the wisest course of action. Stealing from it was probably not the best way to keep their own thumbs unbroken, but they could replace the missing money before they handed over the briefcase, and considering the extreme circumstances it seemed perfectly justified.
Lou popped open the top of the briefcase, keeping the contents hidden from the old woman’s view. He snatched out a few bills then closed the briefcase.
“Are you involved in organized crime?” the old woman asked.
George nodded. “Knock twenty bucks off the price of the crucifix, and nothing happens to your business.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
More Prey
“Why’d you do that?” George asked, starting up the van.
Michele was relatively certain that she knew what he was talking about. However, she didn’t want to accidentally confess to something else, so she feigned ignorance. “What?”
“You know.”
“Really, I don’t. And do we have time for guessing games?”
“You asked the old woman about the bathroom.”
“So? Am I not allowed to pee?”
George cracked his knuckles, one at a time. Next to her, Michele felt Lou’s leg muscles tighten, as if he were cringing. George drove away from the antique shop, looking extremely stern. He was good at it. “You were trying to escape.”
“Did you see the place we were in? Did it look like the kind of place to have a secret rear entrance? Let me give you Women 101, George: when we go into a store, we usually have to pee.”
“This guy Ricky, who sets up our jobs--he told me to lock you in the cage. I don’t want to do that. Right now, we can pretend that we’re business partners, but when you try something sneaky, it makes me feel that I need to take an extra level of precaution.”
“You don’t.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. Just needed to pee. I had to go before the dogs attacked.”
She was, of course, lying. The antique store might have had a back exit. If not, she would’ve used the opportunity to steal some kind of weapon. Unfortunately, George had kept her close during the shopping adventure, and she hadn’t been given the chance.
To be perfectly honest, the cage seemed like the safest place to be. If Ivan couldn’t get out, he probably couldn’t get back in, and Michele was very close to raising her hand and politely volunteering to be locked in there. It wouldn’t be that uncomfortable.
The problem, of course, would come when they met up with the other bad guys. If she seemed to be on relatively even ground with George and Lou, she might be able to still talk her way out of this. If she was locked in a cage while George and Lou introduced her...well, it was going to be difficult to sell the idea of them being newfound business associates.
She really did have to pee, though.
The positive side to this whole thing, and she did indeed feel that it was a positive side and not merely self-delusion, was that there was an incredible story here. If she survived the werewolf ordeal, she’d be on television twenty-four hours a day for at least the next week. Book rights. Movie rights. She’d donate a generous portion of her proceeds to the gas station attendant’s family, and perhaps to the families who’d tragically lost their household pets in the dog attack, but as long as she didn’t get killed and her injuries didn’t go much further than the slashed-up shoulder, the danger would be worth it.
That said, she’d still try to get the hell away from George and Lou, given the opportunity. She wasn’t crazy.
“We have a lot of problems right now,” said George. “Please don’t cause more for us.”