Rex stopped running on his wheel and looked at me. Rex went nuts over blank messages. Rex had no patience to wait for people to call back. Rex had a problem with curiosity.
The phone rang, and I snatched it up. “Hello.”
“Is this Stephanie?”
“Yes.”
“This is Sugar. I don't suppose Sally is with you.”
“No. I haven't seen Sally all day.”
“He's late for dinner. He told me he'd be home, but he isn't here. I thought maybe he was off doing some bounty hunter thing since that's all he talks about anymore.”
“Nope. I worked alone today.”
* * * * *
I OPENED the curtains in my bedroom and looked out across the parking lot. It was mid-morning and already the heat was shimmering on the blacktop. A dog barked on Stiller Street, behind the lot. A screen door banged open and closed. I squinted in the direction of the barking dog and spotted a black Jeep Cherokee parked two houses down on Stiller.
No big deal, I said to myself, lots of people drive black Jeep Cherokees. Still, I'd never seen a Cherokee there before. And it really did remind me of the car that had been tailing me. Best to check it out.
I was wearing cut-off jeans and a green Big Dog T-shirt. I stuck my .38 into the waistband of the jeans and pulled the shirt over the gun. I walked around like this for a few minutes, trying to get used to the idea of carrying, but I felt like an idiot. So I took the gun out and returned it to its place in the brown bear cookie jar.
I rode the elevator to the small lobby, exited from the front entrance and walked one block down St. James. I hung a left at the corner, continued on for two blocks, turned and came up behind the Cherokee. The windows were tinted, but I could see a shadowy form at the wheel. I crept closer and knocked on the driver's-side window. The window rolled down and Joyce Barnhardt smiled out at me.
“Ciao,” Joyce said.
“What the hell do you think you're doing?”
“I'm staking you out. What does it look like I'm doing?”
“I suppose there's a reason?”
Joyce shrugged. “We're both after the same person. I thought it wouldn't hurt to see what pathetic attempts you've made to find her . . . before I take over and get the job done.”
“We aren't after the same person. That simply isn't done. Vinnie would never give the same case to two different agents.”
“A lot you know.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“Vinnie didn't think you were making any progress, so he gave Maxine Nowicki to me.”
“I don't believe you.”
Joyce held her contract up for me to see. “Authorized by the Vincent Plum Agency to apprehend Maxine Nowicki . . .” she read.
“We'll see about this!”
Joyce made a pouty kissy face.
“And stop following me!”
“It's a free country,” Joyce said. “I can follow you if I want to.”
I huffed off, back to my building. I stomped upstairs, got my keys and my shoulder bag, stomped back downstairs and gunned the CRX out of the lot . . . with Joyce close on my back bumper.
I didn't bother to lose her. I turned onto Hamilton and in less than five minutes was at the office. Joyce parked half a block back and stayed in her car while I stormed through the front door.
“Where is he? Where is that miserable little worm?”
“Uh oh,” Lula said. “Been there, done that.”
“Now what?” Connie said.
“Joyce Barnhardt, that's what. She showed me a contract authorizing her to bring in Maxine Nowicki.”
“That's impossible,” Connie said. “I issue all the contracts, and I don't know anything about it. And besides, Vinnie never gives out an FTA to two different agents.”
“Yeah, but remember that Joyce person came in real early on Tuesday morning,” Lula said. “And she and Vinnie were locked in his office together for almost an hour, and they were making those weird barnyard sounds.”
“I forgot my gun again,” I said.
“I got a gun,” Connie said, “but it isn't going to do you any good. Vinnie went to North Carolina yesterday to pick up a jumper. He should be back the end of the week.”
“I can't work like this,” I said. “She's in my way. She's following me around.”
“I can fix that,” Lula said. “Where is she? I'll go talk to her.”
“She's in the black Cherokee, but I don't think that's a good idea.”
“Don't worry about nothing,” Lula said, swinging through the door. “I'll be real diplomatic. You wait here.”
Lula, diplomatic?
“Lula,” I yelled, “come back here. I'll take care of Joyce Barnhardt.”
Lula reached the car and was standing by the curbside rear quarter panel. “This the one?” she called to me.
“Yes, but . . .”
Lula pulled a gun out from under her T-shirt and—BANG! She blew a cantaloupe-sized hole in Joyce's back tire. She had the gun back under the shirt by the time Joyce got out of the car.
Joyce saw the tire and her mouth dropped open.
“Did you see that?” Lula asked Joyce. “A guy came by here and shot up your tire. And then fast as anything, he ran away. I don't know what this world is coming to.”
Joyce looked from Lula to the tire and from Lula to the tire, all the while her mouth still open but no words coming out.
“Well, I gotta get back to work,” Lula said, turning her back on Joyce, walking back to the office.
“I can't believe you did that!” I said to Lula. “You can't just go around shooting out people's tires!”
“Look again,” Lula said.
Connie was at her desk. “Anybody want to go to Mannie's for lunch today? I'm in a pasta mood.”
“I have to follow up on a lead,” I told her.
“What kind of lead?” Lula wanted to know. “There gonna be action? If there is, I want to go along, because I'm in an action mood now.”
Truth is, I could use another person to keep an eye out for Maxine. I'd have preferred Ranger, but that was going to be awkward with Lula standing in front of me, hankering after action.
“No action,” I said. “This is a boring lead. Very boring.”
“It's about Maxine, isn't it? Oh boy, this is gonna be great. That body we found last time was almost dead. Maybe this time we'll hit the jackpot.”
“We'll need to take your car,” I said to Lula. “If there's a takedown we can't all fit in my CRX.”
“Fine by me,” Lula said, retrieving her purse from a file drawer. “I got air in my car. And another advantage, my car's parked out back, so we don't have to put on our sympathy face to Joyce, being that she's got a flat tire and we don't. Where we going anyway?”
“Muffet Street. North Trenton.”
* * * * *
“I STILL DON'T LIKE THIS,” Kuntz said. “Maxine is crazy. Who knows what she'll do. I'm gonna feel like a sitting duck out there.”
Lula was standing behind me on Kuntz's porch. “Probably just another dumb-ass note taped to the bottom of the bench. Think you should stop your whining,” she said to Kuntz, “on account of it makes you look like a wiener. And with a name like Kuntz you gotta be careful what you look like.”
Eddie cut his eyes to Lula. “Who's this?”
“I'm her partner,” Lula said. “Just like Starsky and Hutch, Cagney and Lacey, the Lone Ranger and What's-his-name.”
Truth is, we were more like Laurel and Hardy, but I didn't want to share that information with Kuntz.
“We'll be in place ahead of time,” I said. “Don't worry if you don't see us. We'll be there. All you have to do is show up and go sit on the bench and wait.”
“What if there's trouble?”
“Wave your arms if you need help. We won't be that far away.”
“You know which bench, right?”
“The bench next to the flagpole.”
“Yeah. That's the one.
”
Betty stuck her head out next door. “Hello, dear. Isn't it a lovely day? Are you young people planning some sort of activity? If I was your age I'd go on a picnic today.”
“We're working today,” Lula said. “We got a big lead to follow up on.”
“Betty,” Leo yelled from deep in the house, “where's my coffee cake? I thought you were bringing me a piece of coffee cake.”
Betty pulled her head in and closed the door, shutting off the flow of cold air.
“Nosy old bag,” Kuntz said. “You can't do nothing around here without her knowing it.”
“Why do you stay if you dislike it so much?”
“Cheap rent. I get a break because I'm family. Betty's my mother's sister.”
* * * * *
“YOU KNOW what we need?” Lula said, sliding behind the wheel, buckling herself in. “We need some disguises. I bet Maxine knows what you look like by now. And the way I remember that part of the park, there aren't a lot of places to hide. We're gonna have to hide out in the open. We're gonna need some disguises.”
I'd been thinking similar thoughts. Not that we needed disguises but that we were going to have a hard time making ourselves invisible.
“I know just the place to get a good disguise, too,” Lula said. “I know where we can get wigs and everything.”
Twenty minutes later we were standing outside the door to Sally's condo.
“This feels a little weird,” I said.
“You know someone else who's got wigs?”
“I don't need a wig. I can stuff my hair up under a ball cap.”
Lula rolled her eyes. “Oh yeah, that's gonna fool a lot of people.”
The door opened and Sally looked out at us. His eyes were bloodshot, and his hair was standing on end.
“Yikes,” Lula said.
“What's the matter? This the first time you've seen a hung-over transvestite?”
“Not me,” Lula said. “I've seen lots of 'em.”
Lula and I followed him into the living room. “We have a strange sort of favor to ask,” I said. “We need to go on a stakeout this afternoon, and I'm worried about being recognized. I thought you could help me with a disguise.”
“Who do you want to be . . . Barbarella, Batgirl, the fucking slut next door?”
Stephanie Plum 4 - Four To Score
Stephanie Plum 4 - Four To Score
Stephanie Plum 4 - Four To Score
5
“MAYBE I COULD just borrow a wig,” I said to Sally.
He ambled off to the bedroom. “What do you want? Farrah? Orphan Annie? Elvira?”
“Something that won't attract attention.”
He returned with a blond wig and held it out for approval. “This is from my Marilyn collection. Very popular with older men who like to be spanked.”
I was thinking Yuk, but Lula looked like she was filing it away in case she decided to return to her former profession.
Sally pinned my hair back and tugged the wig on. “Needs something.”
“Needs Marilyn lips,” Lula said. “Can't have Marilyn hair without Marilyn lips.”
“I don't know how to do lips,” Sally said. “Sugar always does my lips. And Sugar isn't here. We sort of had a fight, and he went off in a snit.”
“You two fight a lot?” Lula asked.
“Nope. Never. Sugar's real easy to live with. He's just a little nerdy, you know. Like, he thinks I shouldn't be hanging out with you because it's too dangerous. That's what we had the fight about.”
“Jeez,” I said. “I don't want to come between you and your roommate.”
“No problem, man. Sugar's cool. He's just one of those worrywart motherfuckers.” Sally opened a professional-size makeup case. “Here's lots of shit if you know how to use it.”
I choose candy-apple-pink lipstick and made big, glossy, pouty lips.
Sally and Lula stood back and did the take-a-look thing.
“Gotta lose the shoes,” Lula said. “Never gonna get away with those lips and that hair and those shoes.”
Sally agreed. “The shoes aren't Marilyn.”
“I saw these great shoes at Macy's,” Lula said. “They'd be perfect.”
“No! I'm not going to Macy's. I want to get to the park early, so we can hang out and watch for Maxine.”
“Only take a minute,” Lula said. “You'd go bonkers over these shoes.”
“No. And that's final.”
“Just let me put some lip gloss on and I'll be ready to go,” Sally said.
Lula and I sent each other a look that said, Uh oh.
Sally paused with lip gloss in hand. “You didn't think you were going to leave me here, did you?”
“Well, yeah,” I said.
“This is bounty hunter shit,” Lula said. “And you don't know any bounty hunter shit.”
“I know other kinds of shit. And beside, I don't think you know a big fucking bunch of bounty hunter shit, either.”
I was staring at the wall, and I was thinking it might feel good to run full tilt and bash my head against it. “Stop! We'll all go. We'll all pretend to be bounty hunters.”
Sally turned to the hall mirror and smeared lip gloss on his lips. “Sugar gave me this cool cherry-tasting shit to use on my lips. He says I've got to keep my lips from getting chapped so my lipstick goes on nice and smooth. I'm telling you, this woman stuff is complicated.”
He was wearing leather sandals, cut-offs that were so short he had cheek showing, a sleeveless T-shirt and a two-day beard.
“Not sure you totally got the hang of this woman stuff,” Lula said. “Think maybe you'd do better shaving your ass than worrying about lip shit.”
* * * * *
IT WAS a little after one when we got to the park.
“Those shoes make all the difference,” Lula said, staring down at my new shoes. “Didn't I tell you those shoes were the shit?”
“Slut shoes,” Sally said. “Retro fucking slut.”
Great. Just what I needed, another pair of retro slut shoes—and an extra $74 on my Macy's charge card.
We were sitting in the parking lot, and directly in front of us was a large man-made lake. A jogging path circled the lake, sometimes snaking through patches of trees. A snack bar and rest rooms were in a cinder-block building to our right. To the left was an open field with swing sets and wooden structures for climbing. Benches had been placed at the water's edge but were empty at this time of day. The park saw more use in early evening when the temperature dropped. Seniors came to watch the sunset and families came to feed the ducks and play children's games.
“Kuntz will be sitting on the bench by the flagpole,” I said. “Instructions were that he should be there at three.”
“I bet she pops him,” Sally said. “Why else would you set someone up like that?”
I didn't think there was much chance that Maxine would pop him. The bench was too exposed. And there were no good escape routes. I didn't suppose Maxine was a rocket scientist, but I didn't think she was entirely stupid, either. It looked to me like Maxine was playing with Eddie Kuntz. And it looked to me like she was the only one who thought the game was funny.
I passed the photo of Maxine around. “This is what she looks like,” I said. “If you see her, grab her and bring her to me. I'll be covering the area between the snack bar and the car. Lula, you take the playground. Sally, I want you to sit on the bench by the boat ramp. Keep your eye out for snipers.” I did a mental eye roll on this one. “And watch that no one rushes Kuntz after he sits down.”
Not only had Sally and Lula talked me into buying platform sandals with strappy tie things halfway up my calf, they'd also managed to get me to trade my shorts for a black stretch miniskirt. It was an excellent disguise except for the fact that I couldn't run, sit or bend.
At two o'clock a couple of women arrived and took off jogging. Not Maxine. I walked down to the snack bar and bought a bag of popcorn to feed to the ducks. Two olde
r men did the same. A few more joggers showed up. Men, this time. I fed the ducks and waited. Still no sign of Maxine. Lula was sitting on a swing, filing her nails. Sally had stretched out on the ground behind his bench and appeared to be sleeping. Do I have a team, or what?
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