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“What’re you gonna do?” she asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Find Dad first. Find out what this is all about. Then take it from there.”
Immediately she replied, “I’ll go with you.”
No.
No, no, no.
I couldn’t have Indy coming with me. If something happened to her, both Lee and Eddie would be pissed at me, not to mention Duke, Tex and the entirety of the Denver Police Department (Indy’s dad was a cop, as was Lee’s dadandhis brother, Hank).
“I don’t think—” I started to say, but then Tex was there.
“I’m comin’ too,” he announced.
I closed my eyes. This was spiraling out of control.
I opened them again. “Please listen to me—”
“No way, Loopy Loo. You aren’t hoardin’ all the action.” He turned to Indy, “You’re drivin’ because we can all fit in your silly-ass car. When we see a break in the coffee action, I’ll go home and get my shotgun.”
My mouth dropped open and I was pretty sure my eyes bugged out of my head.
“Don’t worry, Jet. Just as long as we don’t get into any situations that require grenades, we’ll be fine.” Indy said this like she wasn’t joking.
Tex looked at Indy for a beat. “I’ll pack a few, just in case,” he said. Then Tex lumbered away and I stared at him, mouth still open.
Indy looked at me and, bizarrely (I thought), she laughed.
* * *
We leftDuke and Jane in command of the bookstore after the post-lunch caffeine rush and we all climbed into Indy’s dark-blue VW Beetle.
We swung by the hotel where Dad stayed, but they hadn’t seen him. We also swung by a couple of bars Dad went to when he was in town and asked around. No one at the bars had seen him either. Then we headed out to Lakewood, a suburb to the west of Denver, to visit my dad’s friend, Bear.
Bear was nicknamed Bear for obvious reasons. He was nearly as big as Tex, who was incredibly tall, and hairier than Tex, who looked like a demented, gray-blond Santa Claus with a russet beard. Bear looked like he’d been asleep for one hundred years and hadn’t had a shave when he woke up. Both were built to last, as in solid.
Bear was a sometimes-plumber but most-of-the-time-bum. He was just as fun and crazy as Dad but had more staying power. He’d been married for over thirty years to the long-suffering Lavonne.
Lavonne, on the other hand, didn’t have staying power.
She left Bear at least once a year. However, for reasons known only to Lavonne, she always came back.
I hadn’t seen Bear in over a year, back when times were better and he and Lavonne had come to a big picnic in Washington Park that I had for Lottie when she came to visit.
Tex, Indy and I walked up to Bear’s house, which was a one-story, cracker box house that had yellow aluminum siding and a mess of kid’s toys in the front yard. This was telling, because Bear and Lavonne’s two kids were the same age as me and Lottie and had moved out of the house nearly a decade before.
I knocked on the door and Bear answered. His eyes got big, then they got panicked, then they settled on cagey.
Not good.
“Jet! Shit! Haven’t seen you in ages, girl. How’re you keepin’?” Bear greeted.
“Hey, Bear.”
He pulled me into (you guessed it) a bear hug and then let me go. His eyes moved to Indy briefly and then stayed on Tex.
I introduced everyone. Throughout the introductions, Bear pretended to be cordial, but he was anything but relaxed.
