Right from the Gecko by Cynthia Baxter Page B

Bodies!
the subheading read. But I was much more interested in Ace’s address, which was printed below the drawing of a sleek automobile with an even sleeker woman draped across it. She had more curves than a Rolls Royce.
    Ace’s Auto Artists was located near the airport. In fact, as I drove toward it with my trusty map in tow, I passed the Purple Mango, the bar I remembered Detective Paleka mentioning as the place where Marnie was last seen. Startled, I stepped on the brake to get a better look. I don’t know what I hoped to find out, but I didn’t learn anything besides the fact that the Purple Mango looked like a seedy bar that I, for one, would be nervous about patronizing. Just riding past it gave me the creeps. It was a terrific reminder of why I was pursuing this investigation with such determination—as if I needed one.
    Compared to the Purple Mango, Ace’s establishment, two blocks away, was a breath of fresh air. It looked positively ordinary: a low concrete-block building with a black and white sign informing me that this was the place. Through the open garage doors I could see a couple of car-filled bays.
    In fact, as I strode inside with a confidence I didn’t actually feel, I saw that everything at Ace’s was related to cars. Big metal tools, paint, oil, noise, brawny men. The place practically reeked of testosterone. The only reminder that the planet was also inhabited by women came in the form of the Babes of Hawaii calendar hanging over a cluttered desk.
    I spotted the man himself as he strutted into the office from the back, wiping his hands on a greasy towel and thrusting his pelvis out as if he was cruisin’ for chicks. Given the way he’d billed himself in the yellow pages, I half-expected him to be wearing scrubs and a surgical mask. Instead, he was dressed in tight jeans and a navy blue T-shirt with the name
Ace
printed in white on the front and
Ace’s Auto Artists
across the back. The shirt looked as if it was at least one size too small, given the way the stretchy fabric pulled against his exaggerated muscles.
    He stopped abruptly in front of a small plastic-framed mirror that hung on the side of a tall metal file cabinet. It looked like one of those mirrors designed for hormonally challenged high-school students to stick inside their lockers to facilitate frequent zit counts. Even though Ace was well past the bad skin years, he stopped and peered into it, taking a comb out of his pocket and running it through his straight black hair. It was already perfectly styled, thanks to a shiny substance that looked as greasy as the tattered rag he’d stuck in his belt.
    But I was looking for something beyond the obvious. I was trying to evaluate his attractiveness to the opposite sex. Frankly, at first glance I couldn’t figure out what Marnie had seen in him. His preening aside, his face had the leathery look of someone who’d spent too much time in the sun as a young man and, as a middle-aged man, discovered it was prematurely turning him into an old man.
    But one thing that was definitely in his favor was that he had the bluest eyes I’d ever seen. In fact, they were as blue as the Pacific Ocean. I could see how a young woman who wasn’t a very seasoned swimmer could drown in them.
    I was still studying him when he suddenly flashed a grin at the mirror. At first, I gave him the benefit of the doubt, assuming he was checking his teeth for sesame seeds or taking care of some other form of personal housecleaning. Then I realized he was simply admiring his own reflection.
    Overcome with embarrassment, I cleared my throat loudly.
    He snapped his head in my direction. “Hey, how ya doing?” he called, looking completely unfazed. He swaggered toward me, still carrying himself as if he was king of the hill—or cock of the walk. “Drive around the side so I can take a look.”
    â€œActually, I’m not here about my car,” I