By noon the next day we had a lead. A horrible time consuming lead that I wanted no part of. However Amy hadn't seen Michal in a week, and the task seemed easy enough to do without her, so it was Scud and I that were elected to go look for the clue.
"How in God's name did he find out about this place?" Max asked as she briefed us at her hotel room.
"He said his grandma used to buy all her furniture there," Scud shrugged. "God knows why."
"Well whatever, it's the best idea we have so far, I've got Janet and Dom out checking petting zoos." Max sighed. "If he's right about this I might have to stop treating him like crap. You guys are going to take the train out to Jersey, I got a guy who will meet you at the station near the warehouse. I'm guessing look for chairs."
"Too bad the whole place in chairs," I commented with a shake of my head."
"Well just see what you can find," Max sighed. "This is getting too fucking ridiculous."
The ride to the dump seemed like the longest of my life, but finally we were standing at the gates to "Three French Hens Used and Loved Chairs". I paid the driver what Max had said to, and he promised to meet us at the gate again at dark.
I gave Scud a tired look and we stepped through the gates out of the cold into the only slightly warmer warehouse. Immediately we were surrounded by stacks of chairs in all shapes, sizes and colors, none of them looking less than a hundred years old.
"Holy shit," Scud muttered.
"It's chair hell," I nodded. "We are never going to find the right chair, if we're even in the right place.
"I'll take the four thousand on the left," Scud smiled. "You got the others four thousand?"
"I guess," I sighed. "If I'm not back here in time to meet the cab it's because I'm lost in the chairs."
"I am not waiting for you, just so you know," Scud hurried off into his side of the room.
Now, up until this particular day I had a fairly normal opinion of chairs. Their great to sit on, I prefer one with a cushion, preferably not in baby puke yellow. After only an hour of looking at chairs, on chairs and under chairs I had come to the decision that I no longer saw a need for any sort of chair.
"Can I help you?" Asked the third way too chipper employee.
"No, I'm good," I sighed, pushing myself up from where I had been examining the underside of a blue lay-z-boy.
"You seem to have been looking awhile," the woman persisted, her bleach blonde hair almost blinding me. I gave her what I hoped what a go the fuck away look, but she only smiled widely.
"I just haven't found what I'm looking for yet," I explained.
"Oh, that's too bad, it seems like so many people don't find what they want at the holidays, don't you agree?"
"Yeah," I answered absently, inspecting a new chair.
"Sometimes it helps to look at things differently I've found," she rambled on. "A new perspective on how you were reading into something." That got my attention for some reason. I glanced back at her, eyes narrowed.
"What do you mean?" I asked warily.
"I'm just saying one needs to read the clues for what they are and not what they aren't."
"Faire?" I asked, taking a step toward her. Before I could take another one she darted in between two chairs and dodged and maneuvered away so fast that by the time I reached the next aisle over she was nowhere to be seen.
I dug in my pocket for my phone and quickly dialed Scud, glancing around for any sign of Faire. After the fourth ring he answered.
"Please tell me you found it."
"No such luck," I frowned. "Found Faire though."
"Huh?" Scud asked.
"Come meet me at the door I'll explain." I snapped the phone shut and hurried to where I thought the front door was. I must have been turned around because I only ran into the back of the store and had to find a real employee to help me find the front again. Scud was already there waiting impatiently.
"What the fuck happened?" He asked. "Faire was here?"
"In the crazy flesh," I nodded. "Woman is freaky."
"So I'd heard." Scud nodded.
"Whatever you've heard can't even compare," I assured him. "She said we need to look at the clue differently."
"Why is she helping us solve her riddle?" Scud asked, looking less then convinced that anything she said was real.
"I don't know," I shrugged. "Maybe because it's Christmas?"
"Okay so what are you thinking about the clue?" Scud asked. I thought about it, I had been thinking about it since I lost her, but really I could come up with no other way to read the clue. Sit on three French hens, there seemed nothing better then a chair store named that to be the right place.
"I don't know," I finally admitted.
"Well the cabs going to be here pretty soon, so we better figure it out," Scud frowned. "If she was here this must be the right place."
"Yeah," I nodded. "Let's go outside a minute and see if there's anything there to help.
We stepped cautiously back into the cold day, glancing at the setting sun as we looked around the yard for any other clues. We stayed pressed against the building, hoping to avoid the harsh wind as best we could. As I looked around a drop of cold water landed on the back of my neck.
"Jesus," I cried, wiping away the offending spot before it could freeze its way down my spine. I looked up reproachfully at the icicle that had shed this small tear on me, and an idea dawned on me.
"Scud!" I slapped him on the arm.
"Ow! What?" He asked in surprise.
"Climb up on the roof! Sit on three French hens!" Scud grinned at me and we hurried around the building looking for a good place to climb up. It was only a one floor building and around in back there was a dumpster that would make it easy enough for Scud to climb up.
I stood watch as he disappeared onto the roof. Of course no one came out to see what was going on and soon Scud was jumping back down beside me, envelope held triumphantly in his hand.
"Jackpot baby."
I grabbed his arm and we hurried around to the front of the store where our cab was already waiting in the early darkness. I smiled thinking of how Max would hate having to be nice to Billy for helping out.
"I can't believe that little shit was right," Max shook her head in awe when I handed her the envelope.
"Yeah, wait till you read the clue," I rolled my eyes, it was the most useless clue we'd gotten to date, I was glad Amy was out with the family instead of wasting her time here.
"And Faire actually spoke to you?" Max asked as she pulled out the note.
"In a crazy sort of way, yeah," I nodded, sitting down and kicking my feet up on the table. "You've never ran into her?" I asked nonchalantly.
"No," Janet answered wide-eyed. "Not even when we recovered the protein bars."
"Does this woman ever take anything worth anything?" I asked stunned. "I always assumed she was into weapon dealing."
"Those bars were worth plenty to the relief workers she was offering them to, watching people starve to death when your shipments taken is great motivation to pay triple what its worth."
"Okay even then those bars couldn't have been worth much." I assured Max.
"She always takes stuff like this," Janet nodded. "The government is just worried she's working her way up to gun deals and that sort of thing, plus as you've said the woman is obviously crazy."
"Which would make stopping her from graduating to weapons a high priority, got it." I nodded. "So you gonna share the clue with them or what, Max?"
"Sorry just waiting for you to stop talking for half a second," she countered. "Though you're right it's going to be pretty useless."
"What is the clue," Dominique asked before lighting the third cigarette she had smoked since Scud and I arrived.
"Four calling birds in a pet shop," Max read in a bored voice.
"There's got to be like a hundred pet shops in New York City," Scud shook his head. "I can't believe we are wasting Christmas vacation in New York chasing this wack job."
"Well I'm done wasting my time for the night," I announced standing. "It's barely seven; if I hurry I may even make it back in time for dinner with Amy and the family."
"Yeah, go ahead," Max waved me away. "I guess there's no reason for everyone to be stuck here."
"No reason for any of us," Scud mumbled crossing his arms.
"Scud," Janet said in a warning tone. "We could really use your help checking out some of the pet shops."
"Yeah, sure," he nodded, obviously resolved to his fate. I waved to him as I slipped out of the door, just as I closed it I heard him add. "But I'm calling Billy."
I changed into nice pants and the black tank top with my favorite jacket and made it down to the hotel restaurant in time to get my order in just after everyone else had. The waiter thankfully was prompt in bringing my glass of wine. I sipped casually; glad to be away from the DEBS and their chaos for an evening.
"Why don't you tell Lucy what we did today, Michal?" Amy prodded. He grinned more than happy to tell me about the central park zoo, and how they had gone all the way to the top of the statue of liberty.
"But then Papa wanted us to come down because he didn't feel good," Michal ended. I glanced worriedly at Tommy who shook his head.
"It heights, I've never been good with them."
"Really?" I was surprised; he had always struck me as a pretty fearless guy. "How do you do with flying?"
"He takes a pill and sleeps through the whole thing," Ruth smiled patting Tommy's hand lovingly. I gave Amy a happy smile and reached over to squeeze her hand.
"So all around it was a fun day?" I asked.
"Yes very," she nodded. "Did you and Scud have any luck?"
"Of course, even ran into Faire."
"Wow," Amy answered. "You'll have to fill me in later." I nodded.
"So what does that Billy man do?" Her father asked unexpectedly, "seems to be pretty well off for such a young man."
"Oh," I fumbled. "His parents are into weapons."
"Weapons?" Ruth looked worried.
"You know, design and such," I added. "For the government."
"Oh," Tommy smiled again. "Well that's nice. Maybe things will work out with him and your friend Max. Such a pretty girl."
"Maybe," Amy smirked.
"I hope so," I agreed.
The food came before we could delve any deeper into that discussion thankfully, and soon we were all occupied in normal discussions of life and leisure. It was the kind of conversation that made it almost too obvious how much my life had changed since Amy, not to mention how different our youth had been.
I settled back to listen to stories from when Amy was little, laughing along with everyone else, and welcoming Michal into my lap when he was done with his dessert. As the night drew on and the restaurant emptied we sat, talking on and on making the kind of Christmas memories I didn't have.
