I nodded and watched Neil ease into the foot traffic, but I quickly lost sight of him in the blurry sea of gray faces. I went ahead and finished walking toward Greg, dragging my fingertips along the rope so as not to lose my sense of direction. Greg’s table was still close enough to where I’d been told not to move from that Neil would easily find me upon his return.
“Greg,” I called.
“Sebastian,” he said coolly, leaving his setup and moving to stand in front of me.
“Look, let’s just pretend for one minute that we like each other, okay?”
Greg’s eyebrows rose, but he crossed his arms and leaned his weight to one side. “All right.”
“I heard you had a Colt Walker revolver stolen.”
“Yes, last Thursday. Should I also pretend you aren’t using your police contacts to your advantage?”
“Actually, I was contacted as a professional, to verify the value of the weapon. Don’t worry,” I continued, waving a hand. “I said it was wortha lot, even without having seen it for myself.”
“Warms my heart to hear you agree with my appraisal.”
“Do you know who took it? What I mean is, I’ve had a break-in this week too and lost something.”
“A pistol?” Greg asked, now curious.
“No, a movie from the 1890s.”
“Apples and oranges.”
“True, but I think it may be the same person. Or people. Have you had any teenagers hanging around your place the last week or two? Their names are Casey Robert and JD Malory.”
“Teenagers? No, not that I remember.”
“What about a guy named Lee Straus?”
“I’m not on a first-name basis with lookie-loos,” Greg retorted.
I rolled my eyes behind my sunglasses, removed my phone, and did a quick and hopeful search of Sunrise Film Academy’s website. Sure enough, there was Lee on the faculty page. He’d begun teaching at the Academy this year, had a diploma from NYU’s continuing education school, and a few production crew credits on some indie-as-fuck-sounding projects.
“Well?” Greg asked, a touch of impatience in his tone.
I turned the phone around. “This guy. Do you remember him?” I squinted and studied Greg’s face.
He reached back and ran his fingers through his ponytail while staring at the screen. “Actually… yes. He was in my store last week. He bought a Bolex camera and told me something about teaching his students to load film rolls in the dark.”
“Did you realize the revolver was missing by the weekend?”
“I realized the next day—Friday,” Greg corrected. “I guess I was too busy prepping for the fair to notice it’d been missing the same day.” He looked embarrassed to have admitted such a fault and cast his eyes downward.
I furrowed my brow and tucked the phone into my back pocket again. “What day did Pete come by Oddities to pick up your things for the fair?”
“Thursday,” Greg confirmed.
We were both quiet. After a moment of thought, if I didn’t know better, I’d have said the color had drained from Greg’s face. He opened his mouth the same time my phone jingled, which I was barely able to hear over the noise of the hall.
“Sebastian… you don’t think…?” Greg murmured.
“I’m getting whiplash from how quickly this is all changing,” I said, retrieving my phone. I answered the call, put the cell to my ear, and covered my other to block out the commotion. “Cal? Hang on a minute. I can’t hear you.” I looked at Greg. “Do you know where the bathrooms are?”
He turned to the left and pointed. “All the way at the end. They’re not hardly as busy as the ones near the escalator.”
“Thanks,” I replied. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
