Around six o'clock, though, I got the first of what would turn out to be many nasty little surprises during the night-when Ruth Gentry and Sydney strolled into the Pork Pit.
The door opened, making the bell chime, and I looked up from my paperback copy of Medea. The two of them stepped inside, and Sydney pulled the door shut behind them, cutting off the cold air that blasted into the restaurant. How polite of her.
While the girl fiddled with the door, Gentry's pale blue eyes scanned the Pit, taking in everything from the clean, worn booths to the blue and pink pig tracks that covered the shiny floor. There was nothing overtly threatening in Gentry's gaze, but I got the sense that she was making a mental checklist. Doors, windows, number of people inside, who might make trouble, who might make a good meat shield. It was probably the same little ritual that she did whenever she went somewhere new. Just like I did.
Gentry was the only one of the bounty hunters who'd seen me and lived to tell the tale, but I wasn't worried about being recognized or Gentry identifying my voice. I'd been wearing a ski mask the last time we'd met in the dark, snowy woods that ringed Mab's mansion, and we'd spent more time fighting than talking. Hell, if Gentry could somehow connect that person to Gin Blanco as I was now in my jeans, long-sleeved T-shirt, and blue work apron, then the bounty hunter deserved to nab me. Still, I wasn't going to be so foolish as to not keep an eye on her.
"Code red," I murmured to Sophia, walking past her to get some menus. "Bounty hunters at two o'clock. The ones who winged me the other night."
Sophia grunted, and her black eyes cut in their direction, but the dwarf didn't stop ladling up bowls full of baked beans for the current crop of customers. Still, I knew that Sophia had my back. If Gentry had come here looking for trouble, then the bounty hunter was going to get more of it than she'd ever dreamed of.
Menus in hand, I plastered my best, biggest, friendliest, most charming southern smile on my face and headed toward them. "Hi, there. Y'all want something good and hot to eat?"
Gentry looked at me and the menus in my hand, sizing me up just the way she had the other folks in the Pit. "Sure."
I led the two of them over to one of the booths that looked out through the storefront windows, put the menus down on the table, and stepped back, taking my order pad and pen out of the back pocket of my jeans.
"So, what'll it be?" I asked, as if they were just another pair of anonymous customers who'd walked in off the street instead of a couple of bounty hunters who'd love nothing more than to drag me off by my hair and dump me at Mab's feet.
"I'll have a cheeseburger, fries, and a raspberry lemonade," Gentry said, glancing over the menu.
"The same," the girl said in a soft voice.
I scribbled down their orders, collected the menus, and went to the back counter where Sophia was dishing up the latest order of baked beans.
"Trouble?" the Goth dwarf asked in her raspy, broken voice.
"We'll see. I can handle those two. You keep an eye out for any others who might come strolling in."
She nodded. We fixed their food, and ten minutes later, I put everything on the table in front of them.
Sydney immediately reached for her cheeseburger and sank her teeth into it. She chewed, swallowed, and let out a little sigh of happiness. Despite the bulky sweater that covered her frame, I could see how painfully thin she was. Her big, hazel eyes were sunken into her face, and the high, sharp edges of her cheekbones would have made a model jealous. The girl put down her burger long enough to push her sleeves back, revealing wrist bones that stuck out like doorknobs.
I knew the look and what it meant-that Sydney hadn't been eating well lately. For a while, probably. I wondered exactly what she was doing with Gentry and why the two of them were here in the Pork Pit to start with. I had a feeling that it just wasn't for the food, no matter how much the girl seemed to be enjoying hers.
"Can I ask you a question?" Gentry said, looking up at me instead of digging into her food.
"Sure."
She reached into the pocket of her quilted jacket, which looked just as old and well worn as the dress she'd sported at Mab's dinner party. A lesser woman, a lesser assassin, would have tensed at the suspicious movement, but not me.
Instead of that pearl-handled revolver that I'd seen her with before, Gentry drew a slim piece of paper out of her pocket. She held it out to me, and I took it from her. I wasn't too surprised to see that it was a head-and-shoulders shot of Detective Bria Coolidge, probably taken off the Ashland Police Department's website. So that's what Gentry was doing here, trolling for clues as to Bria's whereabouts. Smart, very, very smart.
"You ever seen that woman in here before?" she asked. "She's a detective. Name's Bria Coolidge. I hear that she likes to come in here with her partner, a giant named Xavier. The two of them usually eat lunch over at the counter, right next to that old cash register of yours."
Damn and double damn. Not only did Gentry know that Bria came in here on a regular basis, but she also knew where my baby sister liked to sit. The bounty hunter had done her homework. So much so that I wondered how much trouble it would be to lure Gentry into the alley behind the restaurant and introduce her to the sharp ends of my silverstone knives. My eyes cut to Sydney, who was still eating her cheeseburger. But then, I'd have the girl to deal with, and that was a line even I wouldn't cross.
I shrugged and handed the photo back to her. "Yeah, she comes in here-her and half the cops on the force. The food happens to be excellent. At least she's a better tipper than most of those other crooked, black-hearted sons of bitches. So what?"
"Has she been in here today?" Gentry asked, her pale blue eyes locked onto my face. "Will she be in tomorrow?"
I arched an eyebrow and gave her an amused look. "Sugar, I've got too many people wanting barbecue on a daily basis to keep up with one person's schedule. But no, I don't think that she's been in here today, and she probably won't be because we're going to close a little early because of the weather. What's your interest in her, anyway?"
Gentry tucked the picture back into her coat pocket. "No reason."
I gave her a bored look, as though I couldn't have cared less about whatever she was up to, and went back behind the counter. For the next thirty minutes, I went through the motions, seeing to my other customers, refilling drinks, swiping credit cards, giving change. But I kept one eye on Gentry and Sydney.
The bounty hunter looked over everyone in the restaurant in between bites, her eyes moving from one face, one body, to the next in a slow, deliberate way. Sydney was much more interested in her food. The girl wolfed down her cheeseburger and fries in three minutes flat, so Gentry had me bring her another plate of food. Sydney might have gone hungry, but I didn't think that Gentry was the one who had starved her. The girl gave the bounty hunter an adoring, grateful look for ordering her the second burger and made a visible effort to eat it a little slower than she had the first one. A sad, weary smile creased Gentry's face at Sydney's obvious efforts to please her.