It’s a small store, no cameras or security of any kind. There’s a credit card reader next to a register manned by a bored-looking teenage clerk.
I motion to Howard and Tanya, and they follow me through the front door.
I gesture to the credit card reader by the register. The clerk is standing practically on top of it.
“Will something like that work for you?” I ask Howard.
“Maybe. But how can I use it with the guy standing there?”
“I’ve got this,” Tanya says.
She smiles and walks toward the counter. I notice a flirtatious sway in her hips that wasn’t there before.
“Holy crap,” Howard says. “What happened to Tanya?”
Obviously, he notices, too.
“Can you help me find something?” Tanya says to the clerk. His eyes almost pop out of his head when he sees her.
“S-s-sure,” he stammers.
A few seconds later, she has him all the way in the back of the store, combing through a high shelf that looks like it hasn’t been touched in half a century.
“Go,” I say to Howard, urging him toward the register.
I stand between Tanya and the register, using my body to screen whatever Howard is doing behind me. I hear beeps from the credit card reader, Howard cursing under his breath, and the sound of things being plugged and unplugged followed by more beeping.
In the back of the store, the clerk is taking down a box of cereal for Tanya.
“How much longer?” I say over my shoulder.
“Thirty seconds,” Howard says.
“Hurry,” I say.
Tanya glances at me and I give her the sign to keep the conversation going.
She acknowledges silently, then thrusts out a hip and starts asking the clerk questions that have him shuffling nervously in front of her.
“Almost there,” Howard says. “I just need a pen.”
“Is there one on the register?”
“Oh yeah, I found one.”
I hear him scribbling on a piece of paper, then he comes bounding out from behind the counter just as Tanya and the clerk come walking back up the aisle.
“Who’s this?” the clerk says, surprised to see us there.
“These are my brothers,” Tanya says.
“You guys live around here?” he says.
“Upstate,” I say. “We’re just passing through.”
“Too bad,” he says. “It’s good to meet new folks. It’s kind of a small town, you know. It gets boring. My mom would probably invite you over to dinner.”
“That would be nice,” Tanya says. “If we come back this way, I’ll drop by and say hi.”
“Great!” he says.
I palm out cash for the food, and we get out of there fast.
“What did you get, Howard?”
“An address,” he says.
“I got crunchy granola,” Tanya says. “And a guy’s phone number.”
“We’ll get to you in a second,” I say.
Howard passes me a sheet of paper with a name and a Corning address on it. Some place called the Mercurio Institute.
“Have you heard of it before?” he asks me.
“Never,” I say. “But I have a feeling I’ll recognize it when we get close.”
“How did you get that info from a credit card reader?” Tanya says.
“Creativity,” Howard says with a grin. “How did you get that guy to leave his register unattended?”
“The same,” Tanya says.
“If you two are done high-fiving each other, I’d like to get on the road.”