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spine manipulation.”
Roxanne cracked her knuckles again, inspected her nails, and held out a hand
for me to shake. “You must be Cleopatra Giancarlo. How’s your back?”
    I accepted it. It seemed rude not
to. She had a grip like iron and her palm warmed my hand like a cup of hot
coffee.
    “Just Cleo, please. My back is
fine.” Why did she know who I was, and why was she so toasty? If she had a
power, she ought to turn it off when she touched people. If she could.
    “This job’ll tense you up and
knock your lumbar out of whack.” The warmth from her grip extended to my wrist.
“You come see me.”
    “You bet.” If “you bet” meant “no
way”.
    I jiggled my hand as we picked
our way down the sidewalk to the pizza place, creatively titled, “Pizza Man”.
In the short time we were outside, sweat beaded along my hairline.
    I wiped, but the sweat returned
undaunted.
    Alfonso noticed my gesture.
“Welcome to Tennessee. They recruited me from Canada. It takes some getting
used to. Just wait until this summer.”
    “Definitely not a dry heat.” The
air felt as moist as a dog’s mouth.
    Inside, the pizza place looked
like any take-out joint—several small cafe tables, a drink machine, and the
smell of grease and pepperoni. A teenager leaned on the counter, concentrating
on something beside the cash register that beeped.
    “Can I help...oh, hey.” He raised
a hand, tilting up the brim of his ball cap.
    “What can he do?” I asked John in
a whisper.
    “Nothing—he thinks the Pizza Man
national headquarters are in back.”
    “In the alley? Why would he
believe that?” I glanced over my shoulder at the boy, who returned his
attention to a small electronic game on the counter.
    “Because it’s true. Pizza Man
only has four locations, all ours. We also have an eraser on staff who helps
people forget things they shouldn’t know.”
    We crossed through the small
kitchen, waving at another boy, and out the back into the alley. Several blue
dumpsters lurked in the nondescript lane that had no graffiti to brighten it,
but then again, it didn’t have any bums in boxes, either. The strip mall lined
one side. Weeds and a metal warehouse lined the other. The sounds of the
not-very-busy road in front of the strip mall barely penetrated here.
    “Where is it?” I asked. The smell
of hot garbage wrinkled my nose.
    John indicated the dumpsters.
“You can come through any of the stores or the warehouse. Most of us rideshare
so there isn’t an imbalance of cars, but there’s more parking on the other side
of the warehouse.”
    Alfonso inserted a keycard into
what appeared to be the side of the dumpster. The blue metal bin, nearly as
tall as John, clanked and rolled aside to reveal a dark, concrete stairway. The
RC Cola machine people had obviously had a hand in its creation.
    I rocked back on my frumpy heels.
“Your secret hideout is beneath the trash? This doesn’t bode well.” I covered
my mouth and nose. It wasn’t the pukiest garbage I’d ever smelled, but I wanted
to hide my smirk.
    “It’s the easiest access point,”
John said defensively. “No one suspects.”
    Gingerly, I followed him down the
dank stairwell, Alfonso bringing up the rear. My heels scraped the concrete,
and I held onto a cool metal rail as we descended. Paint flecked onto my skin.
    The thud of the dumpster closing
sounded uncomfortably final. A drippy hallway with a few bare bulbs led
straight ahead. Our direction seemed to lead beneath the large metal building.
How could there be a secret underground hideaway when you had public gas lines
and sewers and utility wires to be considered?
    And what did I think I was? A
civil engineer?
    We traipsed up a set of stairs
that ended at a metal door with an obvious key slot, which Alfonso activated. I
dropped back so I was third through the doorway.
    I didn’t know what to expect
inside. Sterile white? Army bunker? Pizza place?
    It was nothing close to what I’d
imagined. It appeared to be,