Shrink

26

One day when Sweets is napping, I decide to go for an adventure. My stitches have been removed by now, so I don't have to worry about overexertion much anymore.
I plug the address into my phone's GPS before borrowing Sweets' car and going for a drive. The landscape of mostly squat houses and buildings is snatched out of my windows almost immediately as I exit the small town, and a flat landscape that stretches for miles glides beside me.
I arrive in under an hour, and park my car by the boardwalk. Shoving my hands in my sweater pockets, I feel the saltiness of the windy air against my skin before closing and locking the car doors. Making my way up the pier, I watch some vendors batten down the hatches of their stands and retreat back to their pickups to wait for the gale to abate. The wind whips my hair, snatching it and throwing it back sharply into my face. The instrumentalists who I'm assuming usually frequent this stretch are also packing up, carrying away cases, hats and jars, mostly empty from the bad weather.
The sky is the kind of metallic shade you can taste in the air.
Finally, I reach the arcade, a squat, wide hut on the end of the pier.
I push open the door and welcome the warmth and light.
There's a merry-go-round, ancient horses worn and disfigured from age spinning slowly as they bob up and down. A few old-fashioned arcade machines are heaped in an opposite corner, and finally, a small snack bar is built behind a counter in the back. The permeating smell is popcorn and plastic.
A few street performers sit huddled by the windows, nursing meals and drinks. All signs of conversation halt when I enter, and they seem to hunch their shoulders forward and wall themselves off from me.
Out of curiosity, I decide to make my way over to a smaller group of women and one man.
"Hi," I say, attempting cheeriness.
They all glance up at me and wait for me to say more.
"I'm new in town," I offer. "I came to explore the pier. Seems kinda dead today, though."
A woman wearing a shawl and a lot of bangles laughs drily.
"Silly of you," she sneers.
I don't take offense. I know life here isn't ideal.
The other woman, who I've noticed has a lot of clunky jewelry hanging from her ears and neck like wind chimes, stares at me warily, while the man just looks bored.
"I was wondering," I try again, in a last-ditch effort before going back. "where I could use these?"
I proffer my bag of tokens, and hold one up to show them.
The lady with the bangles that clink like tin cans stares for a moment before once again hiding behind a facade of indifference. The younger one who wears the chunkier jewelry gapes like a fish. The man has gotten up and left.
"Those are Callie's!" the young woman exclaims.
The other one shoots her a deadly glare.
"Who's Callie?" I ask tentatively, startled by the revelation.
"None of your business!" snaps the older one.
I can tell something about the tokens is off-putting to her, because she keeps staring at the bag and clenching a rosary that's tangled in her bangles.
"Well I mean, aren't tokens pretty common at an arcade?" I ask.
"Yeah," begins the chattier one. "but they're plastic. Callie made these from gold."
"Oh, that's just something she'd say," growls the older one. "if they really were gold, she'd have sold them a while ago."
These are gold?!
"Wow, okay, well where is Callie? Maybe I can return these to her?"
The older one shuts down immediately. She even gets her things together and marches away.
"I should follow her," the younger one says fearfully.
"Wait! I'm going to give you my number to call. I..."
You can't say you work for the FBI!
"I would really like to hear more about her metalwork, it's really interesting," I say, glossing the whole lie over with a pretty smile.
"Okay," she says hesitantly.
I scribble my phone number onto a slip of paper and leave.
On the drive back, Sweets calls.
I recount my afternoon, and wait as he mulls over what I said in silence.
"That's certainly interesting," he muses. "a good lead. I'll tell Booth about it. We can talk about it when you get back."
I hang up using voice command, (because what kind of idiot drives and uses a phone after nearly being flattened by a negligent driver?) and make the drive home through the heavy onslaught of rain.
When I've run back into the hotel after having a nightmare of a time finding parking, I'm soaked to the bone. Sweets is sitting up once again on the couch in the drawing room, reading.
As I walk in, dreaming of the warm shower I'll soon take, there's a crack of thunder, an ear-splitting explosion, and the lights all cut out.