Tracy Hayes, Apprentice PI

Chapter Fifteen

Heart thudding in my throat, I paused. The man was young, tall, and lanky, wearing a dirty T-shirt and frayed jeans; his hair was a shaggy mop that hadn't been washed in ages. He had a black, tattered guitar case leaning against his legs, and he smelled so pungently of weed that my eyes started to water.

He didn't strike me as someone working for Douglas, but that didn't mean he wouldn't be.

Then again, he looked rather mellow as he slouched against the wall.

Gathering up my courage, I rummaged through my bag for the pepper spray and kept my line clear for Mrs. Pasternak's apartment. I'd seek shelter there if necessary. Then I walked closer and addressed him.

"What are you doing here?" I was proud of how demanding I sounded, almost like Dad. "How did you get past Mr. Chlebek?" The janitor kept an eye on people coming and going; he would have stopped this guy.

He lifted his head and his gaze focused slowly on me. "Hey. Wow. Yeah." It took a while longer for him to get his brain to focus. "I came, like, to check out this room?"

My heart missed a beat. "What room?"

He dug into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a badly crumpled paper and showed it to me. It was my ad for the room. My hand turned clammy and I was having trouble breathing. I had faced violence today, but this casual invasion of my home base felt infinitely worse.

"How did you know it would be here?" I wasn't so stupid that I'd put my address in the ad.

"I, like, checked the address from the e-mail address?"

"You can do that?" I didn't like the sound of it.

"Yeah."

"Legally?"

That got him thinking. "I don't know."

He didn't exactly look like he was capable of any complicated tasks, so I had to wonder how he'd achieved it.

"Well, I can't rent the room to you."

"Aww, man, don't say that. I need a place to stay."

"And I need someone who's good for the rent and doesn't smoke weed."

Dad had the strictest policy against drugs, and the nose of a bloodhound to enforce it. He had made me change rooms in college when he smelled the pot my roommate had smoked. Luckily for me I'd been clean, or I don't know what would've happened. Not that I was entirely blameless during my college year, Dad just hadn't caught me.

"I only smoke, like, recreationally."

"Yeah, well, my brother arrests people professionally, and he doesn't like drugs."

"That's harsh."

"Besides, I don't like guitar players." Not anymore anyway. One colossally failed marriage to a band leader had cured me of that tendency.

"That's cool. This isn't a guitar." He flicked the clasps of the case open and dirty clothes tumbled out. I tried not to gag at the smell.

"I don't think we'd suit. I want a woman as a roommate." Preferably one who liked cleaning.

"Man, that's, like, sexist. I could sue you."

I gave him a slow look. "No, you couldn't."

"Really?"

I had no idea, but I wasn't about to admit it. "It's best you go, before Mrs. Pasternak sees you." She was a formidable woman and would get rid of him in no time.