Leave Her Hanging: A Noir Thriller

Chapter Nineteen

The buzzer rang as I stepped through the door of Deepest Desires Adult Store. The faintly stale smell of the place filled my nostrils. It was light in here, too light. The shelves of porn DVDs and penis-shaped joke items should’ve been shrouded in gloom. There was a bald guy behind the counter, a little chubby but strongly-built, sitting on a stool staring at the computer screen. Other than him, the place was empty. Behind him was a wall covered in whips and handcuffs and riding crops and stuff I didn’t even recognise. The guy barely glanced up at me as I came in, gave the merest indication with his eyebrows that he was aware I existed, and returned his eyes to the computer screen. Then he looked up at me again, his eyebrows making it all the way into a frown this time.

“You eighteen, kid?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“You got ID?”

I went up to him and pulled out my fake ID. He stared at it with narrowed eyes, rubbing his bald head like it was a magic lamp, grunted, handed me back the driver’s licence. “Can I help you with anything?” He said it like he doubted it, and even if he could he wasn’t going to.

“Just having a look around,” I said as I returned the ID to my wallet and glanced at the cabinet full of condoms and lubricants. I made to turn away, then paused. “Hey, what time do you guys close on Friday nights?”

“One a.m.,” he said as he returned his gaze to the YouTube video he was watching on the computer. “You know today’s Sunday, right?”

“Just planning ahead. You guys do anything else here?”

He looked up at me again from the computer screen, his eyebrows forming that frown again. “What do you mean?”

“I dunno, like strippers or something?”

“Does this look like a strip club?”

“Not really,” I guessed, since I’d never seen one outside of the movies.

“We just sell what’s on the shelves. You sure you don’t want some help?” It was impressive how much he made the offer sound like a threat.

“I’ll call you if I need anything.” I put my hands in my pockets and turned away. The place was bigger than it looked from the outside, and nicer too, if I was being fair. I strolled away from the racks of DVDs, giving the porn magazines a brief glance. I wondered who still bothered to get their porn from magazines. The gay mags were on one shelf, straight ones on the other, with names like Hot Asian Babes and Anal Lovers. Next to the magazines were a couple of racks of lingerie and novelty costumes, and then the other whole wall was devoted to vibrators and dildos and butt plugs and Christ knows what else.

I took a slow circuit of the room, pretending to be interested in the blow-up dolls, but I kept an eye on the bald guy as I looked around, using the reflections of glass cabinets when I could. On my second go around the room, just as I was going past the shelf of penis pumps, I realised he was watching me closer than he was the rest of the time. I paused and inspected the shelf. Nothing seemed particularly strange about it, other than that it was a shelf full of penis pumps. Out of the corner of my eye I thought I could see the bald guy’s arm twitching slightly beneath the counter.

What was he so worked up about? There had to be something in this part of the store. It wasn’t shoplifting he was worried about; none of this stuff would fit under my shirt. So what, then?

I took another step along and caught sight of a nearly invisible crack in the wall behind the shelf. It ran vertically in line with the supports for the shelving unit, all the way to the low ceiling. Moving my head as little as possible, I found a similar crack a metre or so to the left, on the other side of the shelving unit. I took a step back and made like I was studying a vibrator display while I let my eyes drift down. The carpet near the cracks was scuffed a little, carving out an almost imperceptible arc across the floor. My gaze flicked back to the cracks on either side of the shelving unit.