Rarities Unlimited 03 - Die in Plain Sight

unframed finished canvases—hers, not her grandfather’s. When the paintings started to slide, she stopped them with one of the big fire extinguishers she kept in her upstairs apartment.
    The shop door chimed cheerfully.
    “My public calls,” Shayla said, heading for the stairway.
    “I’ll take it,” Lacey said, talking as she raced out and down the stairs. “You deserve a break after the inventory stuff. There’s some fresh orange juice in the fridge. Or beer, since it’s been that kind of day already.”
    She was going so fast that most of what she said was overheard by Ian Lapstrake, who was browsing downstairs. He voted in silent sympathy for the beer and that kind of day. Then he went back to cruising the shop for his own personal idea of treasure: Western movie posters from the time before southern California and the Southwest was paved over, smogged out, and generally screwed up by growth.
    That was why he’d left L.A. early and cut over to Pacific Coast Highway before going to the John Wayne airport to pick up Susa Donovan—if you looked fast and not too hard, there were glimpses of the old California just off the coast highway. That was how he’d discovered Lost Treasures Found, a twenties bungalow wedged between a fast-food business and a con artist selling control of your own karma through the shop called Cosmic Energy. As far as Ian was concerned, it was earthly bullshit. But then, people had accused him of being a cynic in the past.
    Lacey spotted her new customer before she reached the bottom of the stairs. Uneasiness flared in her. Though his back was to her, it was clear that he was at least six feet tall, with shoulders wide enough to fill out his black denim jacket. She was suddenly glad that Shayla was upstairs. Most of her customers were women alone or dragging a bored and boring husband along. Whatever this man was, he wasn’t boring.
    “May I help you?” she asked professionally.
    “Just looking for old movie posters,” Ian said, turning around.
    At first glance the girl standing a cautious five yards from him didn’t look old enough to work. A second glance told him what he already knew—looks were deceiving. Beneath the mop of loose curls were measuring cinnamon-brown eyes and a mouth that waited to see whether it would smile. Not a girl at all. A woman dressed in paint-spattered shirt and jeans and totally unaware of it.
    “Old movies,” she said. “Film noir?”
    “Westerns.”
    “I should have guessed.”
    He looked at his feet. “How? No cowboy boots.”
    “Denim jacket.”
    He smiled and decided not to tell her it was great cover for his shoulder holster. “Dang, I keep forgetting about that.”
    Lacey absorbed the man’s slow smile and wondered why she’d ever been nervous. The smile she gave him in return was more appreciative than professional. Automatically she walked closer.
    “Most of the people around here still worship at the altar of film noir,” she said, waving to the three framed posters that hung over the cash register, protected from the sun by special glass.
    Ian glanced up at the posters. Though they depicted black-and-white movies, the cinema moguls had known that color sells. Most of the posters had been printed with at least some bright elements. For every man in dark hat and jacket—no tie—cigarette dangling at a just-so angle from his world-weary lips, there was a woman with smooth yellow hair, hourglass body, creamy skin, and wearing a cocktail dress that was as red and close-fitting as lipstick. Some kind of handgun—usually wrong for the period—smoked in the foreground. Everything but the babe’s dress and hair was in shades of darkness that owed more to philosophy than to the reality of shooting in black-and-white film.
    “I prefer my black-and-white with more color,” he said dryly.
    Lacey laughed. “So do I, but I’m in business and noir sells.” She pointed toward the side of the store. “My Western and musical posters are in the bin just beyond the Deco-style vases. I’ll help you, but have to wash my hands first. I’ve been grubbing around in the storeroom.”
    “Pretty colorful storeroom.”
    She looked at her hands and then at her clothes. “Oops. I forgot. I was painting before I went through some canvases to choose three for a charity event and then I came back and—oh brother, talk about too much information. Go look in the bin. I’ll be right back.”
    Instead of telling her that she could keep talking