CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“WE NEEDa plan.”
“We don’t need a plan.”
“Every movie with spies has a plan, Seb!”
“We’re not in a fucking movie, Max.”
“We’re still spies!”
“Oh God.”
“We can’t just go in there asking about Mar—Todd—the guy. It’s way too suspicious,” Max said.
“That’s why I alone will be asking.”
“If you go in without me, I’m calling Calvin.”
I swore and glanced back at Parker’s Pawn. From what I could see, it looked cramped and crowded inside. The glass door had a decade’s worth of old stickers and flyers taped to it. A guy stood outside the door, drinking from a paper bag.
“Go inside. I’ll follow.”
“When you leave, I’ll stick around for another minute,” Max said.
“Why?”
“If they think you’re suspicious or talk about you, I might be able to hear them.”
Huh. Okay, that was kind of smart.
“Be careful,” I said firmly.
Max smacked my shoulder in a friendly manner before walking to the front door and stepping into the shop. I waited a few minutes, just out of view. I didn’t expect the owners to be forthcoming with information about a patron who sold them expensive, stolen antiques, but hell, anything would be beneficial to our search.
The smell of stale cigarette smoke assaulted my nostrils as I stepped into the shop. No one around was smoking, so it had likely leeched into the walls over the years. There were some cheap heart streamers hanging haphazardly around the register. Nothing said true love like a shop full of art thieves.
Max was standing farther in the room, talking to a guy around my age about a guitar hanging on the wall behind the counter barrier. He didn’t glance my direction at all, and I had to hand it to the kid: he was really getting into this sneaking around stuff.
An old man—Parker Senior, I presumed—glanced up from his crossword puzzle behind the counter. He narrowed his eyes and sniffed. “What do you want?”
What customer service.
“Just had a quick question, sir,” I said, moving to the counter. “A while back, I was trying to do business with a fellow named Mark. I had a buyer lined up for a nice samurai sword he was looking to part with, but it fell through at the last minute.”
Parker Senior sniffed again and stared expectantly.
“Anyway, I was wondering if you might have known the guy’s family or friends?”
“Mark who?” Parker asked.
“Lewis, I think was his name.”
“Don’t know a Mark Lewis. And don’t know a Mark Lewis’s family.”
I bit my cheek to keep myself from frowning. It was hard to tell if Parker was being honest or being an asshole. I glanced to my left and noticed the younger man—perhaps Ben Parker—was staring at us and now ignoring Max. “A shame,” I replied.
“Why’s that?”
