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“Good advice,” I said.
He looked at Matt. “Let me guess, trainee PIs.”
“No,” I said.
Grizzly swung his big head to me. “Bounty hunters?”
“Nope.”
“Not cops,” he said with derision.
“Un-unh.”
“Feds?” This was said with incredulity.
“I own a bookstore.”
Grizzly didn’t answer. Grizzly was staring at me as if a second head decided to sprout out of my neck at that moment.
“I’m a bartender and back-up barista,” Ally put in.
Grizzly still didn’t answer. I noticed he had a cat in his lap and was stroking it. Two more cats sat on the cement railings of his porch and another one was curled up on his welcome mat, a welcome mat that had kitty-cat footprints printed on it.
“You like cats?” I asked.
“Who doesn’t like cats?” Grizzly returned.
“I like cats,” I assured him, and it was no lie, but I would have said it anyway because he also had a shotgun sitting across his lap.
“Me too,” Ally said.
Grizzly looked at Matt then back to us. “Who’s the guy?”
“Just ignore him, we are,” I told him.
Grizzly shrugged as if it was all the same to him then said, “Good thing you did for Mr. Kumar. He has it rough. Told me you were the biggest score he had all day with your cupcakes.”
I looked down the street to the corner store. Mr. Kumar was standing outside it waving at us.
We waved back.
“We gotta take care of the little guy, you know? Franchises are takin’ over the fuckin’ world. In ten years this great nation is gonna be wall-to-wall franchise and every mom and pop shop is gonna be out of business. The franchise was the beginnin’ of the fuckin’ end for America. That, and being able to turn on red. It’s red, man, don’t turn on red. Fuckin’ Nixon.”
I wasn’t sure what Nixon had to do with franchises and traffic lights, but I wasn’t going to disagree with a guy who had a shotgun on his lap and weird goggles on his head.
“We’re looking for a friend of Tim Shubert’s. Tim lives across the road.”
“I know Tim. I know who you’re lookin’ for too. Mr. Kumar told me. Tim’s had lots of visitors the last couple of days. Seen him before,” he nodded at Matt then looked to us, “seen you before, too.”
“His friend’s name is Rosie, little wiry guy, dirty-blond hair?” Ally put in.
“The Coffee Man?” he asked then didn’t wait for an answer. “Yeah, Tim brings back coffees for me. That guy is a genius.”
“Well, Rosie ismycoffee man, he works at my bookstore.” I told him.
“No shit?”
“No shit,” I confirmed.
