Malevolent by David Searls Page B

early, mostly neighborhood people. Then, later, the middle-aged men with out-of-town wives and DVDs programmed for smut. The typical married guy’s idea of a wild time.
    Griffin knew things would pick up once the bars closed, but this was the lull. He made good use of it by straightening display boxes and checking in the few returns he’d gotten in the last hour. It was while crouching and sorting at a display case that he caught a quick peek at the blonde behind the black curtain.
    Griffin wrinkled his brow. He’d definitely seen an eye-catching fluff of platinum hair in motion beyond the narrow vertical crack where the single felt curtain failed to meet the doorway. Knees crackling painfully, he stood and hobbled to the end of the aisle for a closer look. Fifteen feet from the adult room, he could say for sure—definitely someone back there.
    He moved to the front door and ran a hand by the electric eye. It buzzed, proving that it worked. He frowned again. Even if he’d been so immersed in his work that he’d neglected to notice a new arrival, wouldn’t he have heard the door banging open, footsteps? Seen the girl? It wasn’t like he was so used to foot traffic at that hour that it wouldn’t have made an impression.
    The blonde chuckled. It was a deep, throaty sound that made his groin stir.
    Hot women, they never went in there alone. Only in his fantasies.
    Griffin returned to his display case, slapping one cover against another for no reason except to look and sound busy. Occasionally he’d glance over his shoulder at the window overlooking the dark parking lot, hoping for a car, a bike, a pedestrian, someone .
    At twelve twenty-four, his cell phone rang.
    “How are we doing?” Polly demanded.
    “Not bad, Ma. It’s a little slow right now, though. Lotsa folks looking for the new stuff we don’t have. Let’s place another order.”
    “And the money’s coming from where?”
    “Ma.”
    Polly Solloway didn’t like to rove far from home, which fit Griffin just fine. The insurance money from his father’s death belonged to her, but AfterHours had been his idea. It hadn’t been an easy sell. Polly did the advertising, she paid the bills and handled most of the ordering. Fine with him. By doing all of that from her Parma home and never driving the ten minutes it would take her to come to Old Brooklyn, it kept her from knowing—or at least acknowledging—the kind of business that went on behind that black curtain.
    “Griffin? Griffin, are you still there?”
    Just barely. He was staring at that curtain that wouldn’t leave his mind. He’d heard another sharp sound from back there. Like a single staccato sting of heel on the uncarpeted patch of floor. Now he caught a quick peek at black hosiery as a slender leg flashed into and out of view where the two curtains refused to meet.
    “Yeah, Ma,” he said dully. “I got a customer. Let me call you back.”
    What were the odds that he would have missed the entrance of a sleek blonde with black hose, stiletto heels and legs up to her neck? Man, he must be losing it.
    He’d had three customers in the store at about ten thirty, a regular logjam for AfterHours. One guy had complained about his late-return fine and the other couple had tried to pay with a maxed-out credit card. Thinking back, that was the only time since he’d reported in that day that he could have been distracted by someone looking anything like the little he’d seen of the girl behind the curtain.
    But that had been nearly two hours ago. Could she have been back there that whole time? If so, he could expect trouble. What if she was a radical feminist in the process of scratching all of his disks?
    Then that dry chuckle came back to mind, and it didn’t sound like anyone displeased with what she was finding.
    Maybe she was crazy.
    Oh shit. He had to do something. Either throw her out or ask her out. He cleared his throat loudly in the hope that it would help make him sound manly and