“Take what you want! I ain’t got much cause I already been t’the bank, but take it! Take it, just don’t kill me, man!”
“I’m not here for your money,” I say calmly. “Or your life, unless you tell me something I don’t want to hear. Is that clear?”
He nods frantically.
“What’s your name?”
“J-Jules!”
“I have one question for you, Jules.” Glancing around the store, I glimpse the shining lens of a security camera, partially hiddenbehind the mask of an old woman with crazy hair. “I’m looking for someone who purchased eight carnival masks. Do you think you can help me with that?”
“I-I don’t sell carnival masks!” Jules gasps, then he yelps as Frank presses the barrel of his gun harder against the back of Jules’s head.
“Don’t lie to me, Jules. You make them, don’t you? Custom.”
Jules is about to tremble apart from the looks of him, and after his eyes roll back to look at Frank, he nods. “Yeah. Sure. I make ‘em. You want ‘em? I can do it for free!”
“You already made eight. Six Volto masks. One Arlecchino mask and one Bauta mask with gold trimming and a white diamond in the center of the forehead. Who did you sell them to?”
Jules tries to shake his head. “I don’t know, man! I make and sell a lot of masks, okay? You think I keep track of them all? I got no idea, no idea at all!”
Frank shoves Jules harder against the counter and he whimpers.
“I swear! I don’t know! But-but I can look it up, okay? Just ’cause I don’t remember don’t mean I’m lying! I can look it up. I keep records, I swear!”
“That’s what I like to hear.” Leaning on the counter, I lightly drum my fingers against the glass. “Does your camera work?”
Jules follows my eyes to the mask in the corner and does his best to nod. “Yeah! Yeah!”
“Good. Find who you made those masks for, Jules, and show me on the CCTV. If your information leads me to what I want to know, I’ll come back and buy all of your masks.”
Frank steps back and Jules, despite the tremble in his lower lip, gives me a greedy look as he lifts himself up. “All of them?”
“All of them.Onlyif your information is good.”
“I’ll find it, I’ll find it! Just please…” He glances over his shoulder at Frank. “Keep him away from me.”
Twenty minutes later, I follow Frank back down the steps with a purchase order in hand and CCTV footage on a pen drive.
“Are you really going to buy all of his masks?” Franks ask as we reach the car.
“Sure. We can hand them out at a children’s hospital and let them have fun.”
“All of them?” He opens the door for me and our eyes meet.
“Maybe not the clown ones.” Entering the car with a smile, I hand the pen drive to Raven who immediately shoves it into her laptop and gets to work.
“Got a date?” she asks, not looking up.
“Here.” Passing her the purchase order with the date and time of the transactions, it’s mere minutes before she has all the answers we’re looking for. The idiot who purchased the mask used his credit card and once Raven has his address, Frank drives straight there.
As we drive, my mind wanders back to the woman, Zira. I left her in the store, utterly terrified of me, and my later conversation with Valentina about how she acted cemented our belief that she’s either being threatened or blackmailed into helping this group. There remains a small chance she’s part of this willingly,but if that’s the case, she has the nerves of a wet paper bag and really isn’t built for a world of crime.
Frank pulls up outside the apartment building listed on the credit card information and we climb from the car.
“Apartment four,” Raven calls from her seat, then she buries herself back in her laptop.
“You think they’re all in there?” Frank asks as we climb the steps with several guards at our back.
