Read Online Endangered Species by Barbara Block - Free Book Online Page B

one of our suppliers had just called to say that our shipment of crickets and mealworms would be delayed by a couple of days. Which wasn’t good because we were short as it was.
    â€œWho do you want me to call?” he asked.
    â€œCall Mike,” I suggested. “See if he’ll sell us some to tide us over.”
    â€œAre you coming in?” Tim asked.
    â€œDo you need me?”
    â€œNah. It looks like it’s going to be a slow day.” And he hung up.
    He was right. It did. Around twelve o’clock the weather had turned bad. The sky had gone from gray to black. The streedights had come on. It started sleeting. Last night the weather announcer had predicted we’d get a mix of sleet, freezing rain, and snow today, which would continue into the evening. Unfortunately, it looked as if he’d been right. Weather like this was not good for business. If we took in twenty dollars today we’d be lucky. People don’t come out when it gets like this, which made it a good day to see what I could do about finding Eli’s lost property.
    I finished off George’s article, penciled some questions in the margin, corrected a few typos, then went to get the envelope I’d found in Nestor’s room. The numbers turned out to be the phone numbers of a flower shop, a Kinko’s, a dry-cleaning store, two no-longer-in-services, and a Chinese restaurant down in New York City. Nobody there, naturally, had heard of a Nestor Chang or a Robert Chapman. I tried the travel agency next and got a recording telling me to leave a message and they’d get back to me as soon as possible. I looked at my watch. Two-thirty. I called the number Chapman had given me and left a message for him, after which I decided to take a ride over to Adelina’s house and see if she had come back home yet.
    According to the address Eli had given me, Adelina lived over by Thorden Park. The area had once been middle class. Not anymore. The houses looked wearier than I remembered them being, as if they’d given up the fight against the elements. Driveways buckled. Cars were parked on front lawns. Tipped, empty trash cans lolled around on their sides in front of houses. Sodden newspapers and beer cans lay on the grassy divides.
    Adelina’s house, a two-family, blue Colonial, still had Christmas decorations in the windows. I parked across the street in front of two, large, dead pine trees, stubbed out my cigarette, put the collar of my jacket up and ran for the house. The wind had picked up since I’d left work. The sleet stung my cheeks and numbed my hands. I blew on them after I rang the bell. A moment later, a woman who I assumed was Adelina’s mother opened the front door halfway and peered out at me.
    â€œYes?” she said. The woman was short and stocky. Her black hair was pulled back, but at some point in the day wisps had escaped and now floated across her lined forehead and her cheeks. Her dark-brown eyes were underscored by deep circles. Her skin was pale and blotchy. Large brown freckles were splattered over her chin and nose. She looked tired and harassed. One of her hands was clutching the collar of the old quilted coat she was wearing. Evidently I’d caught her on her way out, or she’d just come in.
    I introduced myself. “My name is Robin Light.” I had to raise my voice so I could be heard over the sounds of the TV and fighting children coming from inside the house. I handed her one of my pet store cards. “I run a pet store called Noah’s Ark and I’m talking to people in the neighborhood about my store. We have some specials this week you might be interested in.”
    She furrowed her brow as she read. Her mouth silently formed each word. When she was done, she handed my card back to me. “We don’t have any pets here.”
    â€œYou have children, don’t you?”
    She crossed her arms over her chest and stood square in the doorway, a