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The pizza place "renowned for its cheap prices and not much else" is called Omino's. No one is quite sure how to pronounce it, but most force it to rhyme with "domino." Management, on the other hand, suggests staff pronounce the name as "oh-mee-nose," which is also what customers say when they open the box.

"This place sucks," Chad says from the front passenger seat of Ray's car. Bexley, wisely, refused to let him drive.

It does, but since it's so cheap, it'll be the last pizza place to close in Stevens Point.

The car comes to a stop in the strip mall parking lot outside Omino's. From the backseat, Zandra looks for the masked delivery driver's car. It's missing. Bexley notices that, too.

It's mid-afternoon. He won't start his evening shift for a few hours.

"Do we wait for him to show up?" Bexley says to Zandra.

Zandra opens her door and hobbles onto the parking lot.

"Guess not," Bexley says and follows Zandra.

It takes a minute for Chad to stumble out of the car and onto the pavement.

That's not going to work.

"Stay in the car," Zandra says to Chad.

Chad crawls back into the passenger seat.

Omino's grease-caked ovens fill Zandra's nostrils before they reach the restaurant's front door. A sign on the door reads, "Delivery/Carryout Only." After snuffing their cigarettes, they go inside. The menu boards, posters, and décor forgot to leave the 1990s.

No customers inside. The kitchen is one of those open concepts, so the customers can see the food being prepared when they walk in. There's just one employee here. Excellent. It's good we came during the dead zone between lunch and dinner.

"Welcome to Omino's," a man wearing a pit-stained polo shirt says from behind a grease-stained counter. Garlic and parmesan permeate the air. "You here to pick up?"

You could say that.

Bexley beats Zandra to the punch.

"We're looking for one of your delivery drivers. He wears a mask," Bexley says.

The man's posture straightens. "A mask? Did he rob you?"

"No, like a medical mask."

"Oh. I just work the kitchen and the orders. The drivers, that's the manager's deal," the man says.

"None of the drivers wears a mask?" Bexley says.

"I don't know. We go through drivers a lot. They're hard to find."

OK, that's enough, Bexley. You're not the "psychic detective" in this situation. You're 10 steps behind anyway.

Zandra takes a closer look at the name tag pinned to the man's shirt. Time faded the letters, and scratches covered them up.

He's worked here a long time. A trusted employee. That could be useful.

"I need to speak to the manager," Zandra says.

The man rolls his eyes. He places both hands on the counter, bends his elbows, leans in, squints, and says, "He ain't in."

Get a lot of customer complaints, do you?

Bexley tries to say something, but Zandra shushes her with a knee.

"Then I need to speak with the owner of this fine establishment," Zandra says.

"He ain't in neither," the man says.

"Call him."

"No."

"It's important I speak with him."

"About what?" the man says.

"Get him down here and find out, child," Zandra says.

The man steps out from behind the counter so that he's only a few feet away from Zandra. He points his meaty paw at the door and says, "I don't know what your problem is, but you need to take your Karen bullshit outside."

"Is the owner outside?"

"No."

"Then I'm staying here."

"Oh my gawd, is this a trick or something? I told you. The owner ain't here."

Then let's change that.

Zandra prods Bexley again, this time to get her attention. "Go lock the front door, Bexley, and flip that sign in the window to Closed."

"What?" both Bexley and the man say at the same time.

"Don't worry, child," Zandra says to the man. "This isn't a robbery. I don't want money. I just don't want any interruptions."

The man jerks his hands into his pockets.

Gun.

Or phone.

But probably gun.

Wisconsin is a shall-issue state when it comes to concealed carry permits. He's no dummy. I'd carry in a pocket holster, too, if I worked in a place like this.

Zandra isn't quick enough to stop the man from sticking his hands into his pockets, but she is fast enough to plant the tip of the lawnmower knife against the man's groin.

Holding a knife to someone's throat is for the movies. The dick is an easier target, and it gets right to the point.

The man freezes, hands still in pockets.

As I was saying.

Zandra stares into the man's face with a look that could boil water. She says, "Bexley. Lock the door."

Bexley follows directions. The lock on the door, as Zandra noticed when she walked in, is a simple deadbolt. No key required from the inside. Bexley flips the Open sign around to show Closed, too.

"Take all the money. You can have it. I won't tell anyone," the man says in a nervous whisper, hands still in pockets.

"I told you. This isn't a robbery. Relax and you'll be back to making midnight munchies in no time," Zandra says. "Now take your hands out of your pockets, child. Slowly."

The man obliges. He raises both hands in the air like he's surrendering to police.

He gave that up too easy. There's no gun. Must be a phone. It makes sense now. He stuck both hands in his pockets, probably because he forgot which pocket had the phone. If it was a gun, he'd have only stuck one hand in. You don't just switch sides of the body with concealed guns. It's always on the same side.

"Bexley," Zandra says. "Take the phone out of this guy's pocket."

Bexley tiptoes over from the door.

"Faster, Bexley. We don't have all day," Zandra says, eyes still fixed to the man an eighth of an inch away from castration.

Bexley reaches into the pocket of the man's jeans. The pants sag as she wiggles her fingers in. She pulls the phone out and tosses it a good 10 feet away onto the floor. The device lands with a slap.

For fuck's sake, Bexley, I didn't say anything about throwing the phone.

Zandra steals a glance at the man's shoes. They're dingy, white sneakers spotted with tomato sauce stains. Velcro straps.

No gun in the pocket doesn't mean no gun.

"You've got a gun in an ankle holster, don't you?" Zandra says.

The man's nose twitches.

Velcro shoes? Maybe he doesn't want to trip on shoelaces around hot pizza ovens. Seems reasonable. Or maybe he wants to reduce the risk of those laces getting tangled up when he draws a pistol out of an ankle holster. Also reasonable, especially given the way his right foot dragged just a little too much when he walked out from behind that counter. It's being weighed down by something. Throw in the baggy jeans and no belt—which runs counter to being safe around ovens—and I'm thinking, yeah, definitely a gun around that right ankle. He probably could get by with a pocket or hip holster instead, but there's too much customer interaction. His belly drapes over the waist, too. No judgement there, but it means the gun would be hard to access from that area. Ankle it is.

He did go for the phone first. I'll give him credit for that. His first instinct wasn't to start shooting. He can be reasoned with. Good.

Zandra leaves the lawnmower knife in place and says, "Bexley, roll up the right leg of his pants. Take the gun out."

The man mutters, "shit," under his breath.

Bexley pulls up the pant leg to reveal an ankle holster housing a small, semi-automatic pistol. She jerks the gun free.

"Careful with that thing. I don't carry cocked and locked, but it's loaded," the man says.

"Good," Zandra says. "Bexley, unload the gun and put it in my pocket."

Bexley stares at the gun. "How?"

I was hoping you knew.

"Just push the little button on the handle. The mag will pop out," the man says.

Bexley follows his instructions. The magazine releases and slides out of the handle. Bexley puts it and the gun into Zandra's deep, purple pocket.

"Thanks, I guess," Bexley says to the man.

"Hey, I just don't want to get shot," the man says. He swallows and looks down. "Or stabbed."

Something goes ding in the kitchen, like a timer going off. Bexley jumps.

"That's the oven. I gotta pull the pie out or it'll burn," the man says.

You're giving yourself too much credit calling the roadkill frisbees you sell here a pizza pie. You're not some Sicilian artisan.

"Then we'd better make this quick," Zandra says. She can smell the pizza in the kitchen. "Time to make a call."

The man doesn't move. Neither does Bexley.

"Go get the phone and give it to him, Bexley," Zandra says, and she does.

With the phone in hand, the man thumbs through a list of contacts on the screen. "Hey, uh, I don't mean to be difficult, but I'm not sure who I'm supposed to be calling. You asked for a driver, then a manager, then an owner. Who are you trying to get to?"

Good question.

"I need to speak to the manager. In person," Zandra says. "I don't care how you do it. Get him down here."

Bexley clears her throat. "The manager? I thought it was the delivery driver."

I did, too, for a little while, but the driver wouldn't make sense. Why communicate through secret notes in pizza boxes if the driver was Pixie's "other man?" The driver is right there.

No, it couldn't be the driver. It could be the owner, but I don't have the first clue who that is. I'm sure I could find out, but it'd be a waste of time.

That's because of what the manager told Bexley or Chad—I forget which one it was—when they called Omino's that first night to report the order to the cul-de-sac house was missing. The manager told them, if I recall correctly, "Go fuck yourself," because of all the rip offs lately. A bit of an overreaction.

What's odd about that is there was no actual order to Pixie's cul-de-sac house. Nothing to be delivered, nothing to go missing, nothing to get ripped off. So why would the manager get so upset about a non-existent order?

I can't believe this didn't occur to me earlier.

The man dials up the manager and makes up a story about one of the ovens acting strangely. He puts on a convincing performance.

"Well done," Zandra says to the man. "Would you like me to give you your balls back?"

"Uh, well, yeah," the man says.

"Then give Bexley your phone and go back to work," Zandra says.

The man hands Bexley his phone. Zandra pulls the knife away from his groin and takes a shuffled step backward.

Is he going to attack me? No. He's too relaxed. No discernable change in breathing or in body temperature that I could feel. You'd be surprised how much heat a terrified or enraged person puts out. There's an adrenaline stink that comes with it, too. None of that here.

"Just be cool. This will all be over soon," Zandra says.

"I mean, if you're going to kill him and not me, I'll be better than cool," the man says and heads back to the kitchen. "That guy busts my balls all day. Real type-A asshole. Total control freak."

Exactly the type of person who could pull off a discreet relationship with Pixie. Can't afford to get sloppy.

The man keeps busy in the kitchen while Zandra and Bexley wait. The lock on the front door starts wiggling. Someone works a key from the outside.

Here we go.

The manager steps into Omino's. Zandra has to look twice.

That's not who I was expecting.