Hawk Channel Chase by Tom Corcoran

“Glad I didn’t pay for them.”
    “So why be depressed?”
    Polan admired his Lexus then shook his head. “I guess I’m happy, now that you mention it. Very happy.”
    If this is joy, I thought, please don’t show me your flip side. “You know the owner of this place?”
    “No,” he said. “This is where Monte’s Restaurant used to be, where I ate lunch a few times a week. The county wouldn’t let him expand or some shit. I can’t remember. He must have pissed off a commissioner. They leveled Monte’s and built this place two years ago.”
    “Good to see you, Frank.”
    “Come on by sometime. Call me. I’ll take you out on one of my boats. You can bring some of those models you’re always meeting. I’d rather see no boobs than store-bought boobs, you follow?” He winked. “Plus those models, I’m sure you know. They hate the tan lines.”
    “One of them might like you,” I said.
    “Too much to ask.”
     
    I removed my shades. It still took a half-minute for my eyes to adjust to the grocery. The place smelled of coffee, peach pies, laundry soap, and sausage spices. A store I would love to enter some other day, to inhale, inhabit and sample. One bored young woman sat on a stool at a front register. Her name tag said ALYSSA . She wore a gray DKNY T-shirt, perused a National Enquirer and ignored me. A girl in a pink top and beige Bermuda shorts was stocking shelves. A slightly older woman at the deli counter along the rear wall was mass-assembling sandwiches. Her tag read: HONEY WEISS . I asked her if Cecil was in the building. With a sneer disguised as a grin, Honey pointed at a closet-width unmarked door. “Go on in,” she said. “He ignores knocks.”
    The reader at the register whispered, “But not knockers.”
    Cecil Colding half-stood when I entered, looked as if he was expecting me. He was an ad agency’s ideal grocer. Male-pattern baldness, round head, trimmed moustache and a white polyester blend short-sleeve shirt. The only missing piece was the pen protector. His office smelled musty though two-thirds of it was filled with cartons of store stock.
    I introduced myself and explained my visit. Cecil pushed himself to the full vertical, walked halfway around his desk, crossed his arms and leaned against a steel file cabinet. He didn’t offer me the chair next to my left leg.
    “We were hoping you could provide some insight,” I said.
    He swiveled his head to one side, lifted his chin, perhaps trying to stretch a neck muscle kink. “I told the father I would do what I could. Mostly, I wanted to quiet him down. His stress level was fouling my sales atmosphere.”
    “How many customers did he drive away?” I said.
    “Zip, nada. Thank God I cut it short. The chickadees were another story. They were starting to look frantic and I just can’t have it.”
    Cecil’s nasal voice carried no accent but he’d mastered a demeaning tone. I imagined he could say, “Nice day,” and make it sound like someone’s fault.
    “You really aren’t too worried about Sally’s absence,” I said.
    He turned his head again as if trying to release a muscle spasm. “She wants her papa to think she’s this pure little thing. Or at least give him room to believe it. Maybe you’ve seen the web statistics on virginity after, say, tenth grade. These days, after high school, the only thing pure with these girls is the line of crap they give their parents and boyfriends.”
    “Do you have any idea where Sally’s basic impurities may have taken her?”
    “Not a fucking one, but don’t get me wrong. I wish you the best of luck. If you find her today or tomorrow, tell her she’s suspended from the schedule, two days for every shift she missed so far. Tomorrow afternoon I got three interviews for replacement help.”
    “I’ll make sure she understands that. If, say, she’s anxious to return. And if she hasn’t fallen victim to, say, foul play.”
    “What’s foul play, dirty underpants?” Cecil laughed