Chapter 14

"That can't be right. My truck is in lot 369," Case told the parking garage attendant.

"I'm sorry, Ma'am. There's no SUV in that spot. It's a jag. You sure you left it with us?" the teenage boy asked again.

"Look, you little fuck. I know where I left my truck."

Case shook her head. The kid looked like he was about to piss himself.

"Who's your boss? Get him out here," Case ordered.

"Yes, Ma'am," the attendant quickly replied and ran off, grateful to be off the hook.

"I don't fucking believe this," Case whispered to herself, but Rain still heard her.

"Are you sure this is the right place? You said you left it in kind of a hurry," Rain said.

"Yes, I'm sure. I always leave my truck at this garage, if I have to leave from New York. I know the owner. He owes me," Case said quietly.

The short blonde turned when she heard footsteps echoing off the cement walls of the parking garage. Case's face broke into a smile and her whole demeanor changed when she saw a fat man, wearing a business suit about two sizes too small for his considerably large girth, walking towards them. He grinned when he recognized Case in return.

The young parking attendant jogged up behind the older man and seemed to use him as a shield from the previously irate woman. But now that his boss knew who the customer was, the boy was shooed back to work.

"Hey, what are you doing here? I thought you paid these grunts to run the place for you," Case said in a much better mood, as the portly man came up to her and Rain.

"Well, you know how it is. Gotta make surprise inspections or they might think they could get away with somethin'. How you doin', Case?"

"Not bad. Hey, Big Gus, this is Erica Raineri, Rain for short. Rain, this is Gustavo Bigarelli, Big Gus for short."

"And what is Case short for? You've never told me," Gus asked.

"It's a long story," Case replied, in an attempt to steer the conversation to more important matters, like where her truck was, but Gus didn't let it go that easily.

"I have time. Do you have time?" Gus asked Rain and answered for her before she could even register the question. "Of course you have time. We all have time for a story. Tell me the story," Gus said very seriously.

Case looked at Rain, and then back to Gus, and then finally sighed in resignation. It would be a lot faster to just tell him the story. She'd never get him to focus on her missing truck, otherwise.

"All right. I tell you the story and you'll find my truck?"

Gus nodded.

"You tell us the story and I'll find your truck," Gus sealed the deal.

"All right. When I was a kid, about eight or nine, I had this friend, named Casey, and she had a little sister, named Janie. Janie always shortened Casey's name to Case. I guess it was easier or something; she was only three. My mom had named me Cassandra, but she always called me Cassy, even though I hated it. So, when Janie started calling me Case, just like her sister, because Cassy sounded like Casey to her, well, I had no problem with it. Then Casey started calling me Case too, as a joke, and her mom played along, to make Janie laugh."

Case smiled at the memory of a little brown-haired girl laughing herself into hysterics from the game of "Which Case is Case?"

"Is that Case? Oh no, that's Case. Wait, no, that must be Case!" Casey's mom said, as she pointed back and forth between her older daughter and her daughter's best friend.

Janie giggled and screamed, and ran forward to her sister to tag her as the 'real' Case, and then she went back to her mother, before she turned around and ran forward again to tag the other Case as the 'real' one. The two young girls ran around the living room with the little three-year-old chasing after them to tag the right Case.

Case shook her head at the memory. It all seemed kind of stupid now, but Casey and Janie had been one of the few bright spots in her childhood. Case's smile changed to no expression at all as she remembered what had happened next.

"Then Casey got hit by a car and died. Janie accidentally called me Case at the funeral and her mom started crying and apologized for it, but I said it was okay if they kept calling me Case. After that, it kind of stuck. And I never liked Cassandra anyway. It sounds so damn pretentious on me. I think my mom did it just to piss me off. So, that's the story. Now, where's my truck?" Case asked threateningly.

Gus started laughing to break the somber mood and held up his hands against the little woman's mock threat.

"Okay, okay. It's in lot 509. I sent it out for a wash and wax when I heard it was yours. And let me tell you, it really needed it. What have you been doing? Running through every mud puddle you could find? Wait, no, don't tell me. Antonio would have my ears. He'd take my tongue if he knew I even asked," Gus said, and Case could hear the slight question in the older man's tone.

"Like he'd ever find out," Case reassured him.

They started walking towards the elevators to get to the fifth level.

"So, how clean is it?" Case asked.

"Very clean. They even vacuumed and bagged up the trash," Gus replied.

"Thanks, Big Gus."

They stepped onto the elevator and Rain pushed the button for the fifth floor.

"So, where did they put all the trash?" Rain asked nonchalantly.

Gus smiled at Case, who was smiling at Rain in appreciation.

"She your partner now?" Case nodded. "She learns quick," Gus commented, as they stepped out of the elevator and onto the fifth level, before he went on to answer the tall woman's question. "The trash is in a garbage bag in the back of her truck. I would never deprive Case of the honor of taking out her own trash, or she might deprive me of my life," Gus said reasonably.

"Nah, I wouldn't kill you. I'd probably just take a few things in payment. Like your legs, your eyes, maybe some teeth."

Rain looked at Case to try and gauge whether the small woman was kidding or not. From what Case had told her, the young blonde had never done any kind of work like that, but the look on Gus's face showed he probably wasn't aware of that fact.

"Hey, Case, you know me. I would never mess with anything work-related. It's just, Antonio said you'd been working really hard lately and he thought it would be a nice idea to clean out your truck and have it all neat and polished for you when you came back to pick it up, that's all."

Case almost stopped walking, but she kept her pace steady as they made their way down the rows of cars to the black Ford Expedition.

"He said that?" Case asked.

"Yeah."

"That was nice of him. Hey, listen. Why don't you go back to work? I've got some errands to run with Rain here, so I'll see ya later. Okay?"

"Yeah, sure. You take it easy."

"Yeah, you too."

Case watched Gus disappear around the last cars in the row to head back to the elevators and then she turned to Rain.

"What's wrong?" Rain asked before Case could say anything.

"I don't know, but Antonio never does anything to be nice."

Case pulled out her keys and unlocked the doors. Then she threw her shoulder bag into the back of the truck, next to the black-green garbage bag, and motioned for Rain to toss in her own small bags.

"Come on. There's a few places we need to go," Case told Rain.

And then I need to figure out what the hell Antonio's pulling.