Fipps looked sideways at Jackson as they strode down a long hallway, and his lips curled like he smelled something foul. Fipps wasn’t exactly free and clear in the sin department but he’d never hurt anyone for no reason; he suspected the same could not be said of Jackson. Fipps wanted to punch him, the way he looked at that little redheaded girl. At the moment, Jackson was busy leering at everything with breasts, and using their search for Junie as an excuse to talk to them. The breasts, not the actual people, Fipps noted sourly.
Jackson stopped a tall brunette who barely looked old enough to be at a beer festival. They were scouring the upper floors, peeking into open conference rooms and canvassing the halls. It was much quieter here than it was downstairs, where the din was so loud he couldn’thear himself think, but that didn’t make the search any easier or more fruitful: so far they’d come up short.
“Pardon me, sweetheart,” Jackson oozed, not realizing he made it sound completely repulsive. “Have you seen a nutty bitch around here with long blonde hair and a vacant expression?”
Fipps rolled his eyes disgustedly. Jackson used this same description with everyone he stopped (after the third one, anyway, when he finally remembered Junie was blonde without Fipps having to tell him) and it was starting to irritate. He hadn’t been around her long at all, but Fipps kind of liked Junie. Oh, she was a crow short of the murder alright, but there was just something about her. Her expression wasn’t vacant, it was just… elsewhere. And he was sort of interested in finding out where.
Distracted by his own thoughts,Fipps didn’t hear the brunette’s answer, but he did see her scamper away like all the others had, throwing a look over her shoulder to make sure she wasn’t being tailed.
Good girl, Fipps thought approvingly.
“No one knows nothing around here,” Jackson said, disgruntled. “Everyone just keeps sayin’ to ask some damned brew guy. I don’t know why we’re looking for this nutty bitch anyway. Why don’t we just get some damned beers and forget her?”
Fipps took a deep breath to keep from knifing him. “It’s called decency, Jackson. They got us out of that lockup; we would be dead if not them. Some honor, maybe you’ve heard of it?” Jackson stared at him blankly. “Or maybe not.” Fipps gave up, shook his head and moved on back down the hall, fingering the knife in his pocket. It made him feel better to remind himself it was there, especially with Jackson at his back.
Fipps grimaced when he glanced at his watch; it was almost time for them to meet up back downstairs by the giant beer fountain that formed the centerpiece of the show floor. Turning away so that he was sure the callous Jackson wouldn’t hear him, he murmured to himself, “We’ll find you, Blondie.”