Page 66 - Labelle Gramercy, On the Case

Thrown for a Loss

“Interesting,” said the lady cop, again without much conviction in
her voice. “Why would Cal walk away because a message came in on
his pager? Couldn’t he use one of the cell phones in the group?”
Newt snorted. “Haven’t you noticed? We don’t have phones.
Can’t afford them. Pagers are really cheap now, five bucks a month.”
He took his out of its holster on his belt and waved it at her. It
was a bright green old-style one-way text pager, looking like it had
been dropped on concrete several times. These kids must hate to be
stuck with last year’s communications technology—but in my
opinion, it was a good sign. It meant they weren’t stealing or dealing
to pay for expensive gear.
“So he was going to use a pay phone? Isn’t the nearest one down
the same hallway as the bathrooms?”
Newt looked around to be certain. On simple matters of fact he
was determined not be confused. “I guess so,” he grudgingly
admitted. “Maybe he didn’t have to make a call.”
“Then why leave the rest of you?” She was really harping on this,
forcing him to speculate. But he knew a lot more about his pals than
she did—just how much more he could no longer be sure of.
“I don’t know. We had been kidding him about that girl working
over there in Go Nuts for Donuts, that she had the hots for him, and
he was getting embarrassed about it, so we kept at it. Maybe he just
used that page as an excuse to get away from us for a while.”
We looked at the doughnut shop counter. One girl was working it.
I didn’t know her name, but she looked familiar. I don’t eat that stuff.
Goes right to the hips.
“Thank you, Newt. That will be all for now. You may go back to
your table.”
With an act of will dictated by the need to look cool, the youth
looked slowly in both directions as if about to cross the street, then
slowly got up, brushed off whatever invisible pollutants we had
transferred to his person, and sauntered off in a less than direct path
to his fellow idlers. They participated in the act by putting on an air
of total unconcern as he approached, then boisterously greeting him
with high-fives and loud but sarcastic tokens of respect.
I wanted to ask Labelle what she concluded from the mall rats’
remarks, but she was already up and moving again. I hustled to join
her: I had my own need to appear an important part of the

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