"You have a brochure?" I whistled. "Fancy."
"Anyway," Charles put in, tapping his finger on the table. "He talked to a few of us about hiring on to provide security at the job site. Excavation already started, I guess."
I glanced around the table. "Are you going to do it?"
Darius shrugged. "Maybe. They're paying top dollar, and we could do it when we're not on shift here. He mostly wants us at night. Apparently, they sometimes get sabotage when they're breaking ground on a new site. Angry townspeople and whatnot."
Austin wrapped up his sandwich paper and tossed it into one of the tote bags. "I'm doing some research on UltraShopMart. See what they've done in other communities. I've just started, but so far, it's looking like they have a 'burn down the opposition' strategy when opening new stores."
"I don't like the sound of that," I said, frowning. "If they even think of coming after Tess …"
"Let us know if you need us," Mateo said, flashing a wicked grin. "It's getting kind of dull being all upstanding and stuff."
"Oh, boy," Lucky groaned. "The old dude is back."
I glanced over at the parking lot and then realized everybody else was looking at the water, where a gator who had to be twelve feet long was waddling up onto the shore.
"That thing has got to weigh seven hundred pounds," I said.
"Closer to eight," Mickey told me. "We saw one that was nearly fifteen feet once, but I haven't come across him again."
I raised an eyebrow, watching the gator. "Is anybody else concerned that he's walking right toward us?"
"Nah," Fireworks said. "He likes people food."
"He likes to eat people?"
They all burst out laughing.
"No, at least not as far as we know," Lucky said, still chuckling. "He likes to eat whatever we're having for lunch."
"He really, really likes ribs," Charles said, shoving his long black hair away from his face. Charles, who was tall, heavily muscled, and had bronze skin and a strong face, was a member of the Seminole Native American tribe and spent a lot of time posing for pictures with tourists. I'd asked him once if it bothered him, and he'd just laughed.
"I can't help it if they think I'm pretty," he'd told me, winking at a college girl in a Notre Dame T-shirt who'd blushed and giggled.
Austin stood and tossed the gator half of a roast beef sandwich, and the giant lizard opened cavernous jaws and snapped it out of the air. I just shook my head.
Waste of a perfectly good sandwich.
"Have you ever wrestled a gator?" Darius asked. "You know, when you're a tiger."
"Nope. Although I had to rescue Tess once when somebody put a gator in her house."
Eyebrows raised around the table.
Fireworks shot me a sly grin. "Do you wanna wrestle one now? I'm sure we could work something out."
"Ten bucks on the gator," Mickey said.
Lucky shook his head. "That's a sucker's bet. Jack would have that gator running for his mama. Gators have no idea what a tiger even is, other than scary."
"Maybe another time," I drawled, standing and gathering the trash to pack out with me. "Later, boys. Let me know what you hear, okay? And keep an eye out. Let me know what you discover if you take that job at the UltraShopMart site, too, would you? I'm very curious about that company, suddenly."
Dallas nodded. "Got it."
Fireworks walked over and gave me a friendly punch on the arm. "Thanks for lunch, dude."
A chorus of thanks from everybody had me nodding. "You're welcome. Next time I'll remember the beer."
