Sizzling Sixteen

by Janet Evanovich

  Mooner pushed the door open and gave us the peace sign. “Ladies,” he said. “How goes it?”

  “It goes okay,” I said. “How goes it with you?”

  “I don’t know. I think they might have put some wacky mushrooms on my pizza last night. I was driving down Broad Street just now, and I swear I thought a cow was walking down the street.”

  “Hunh,” Lula said. “That’s crazy, all right.”

  “Some cows got loose at the packing plant this morning,” I told Mooner.

  Mooner clapped a hand to his heart. “That’s a mega relief. Last time I saw cows walking down the street, I had to go into rehab.”

  “What were you doing on Broad?” I asked him.

  “I was handing out fliers. I got some for you, too.” Mooner put a stack of papers on Connie’s desk. “The Alliance is having its annual Hobbit Con, and I’m in charge this year. It’s an awesome honor.”

  “I’ve never been to a Hobbit Con,” Lula said. “What do you do there?”

  “You dress up like a Hobbit,” Mooner said. “And you get a Hobbit name. And there’s all kinds of Hobbit food. And there are Hobbit games. And Hobbit music.”

  “I might like that,” Lula said, taking a flier off Connie’s desk and reading it. “I’m always open to new experiences. Do you got a Hobbit name?” Lula asked him.

  “Bungo Goodchild,” Mooner said.

  “I could see that,” Lula said. “What would my name be?”

  “You could be Alvyan Jumpswell of Fair Downs,” Mooner said. “And Connie could be Primula Boffin.”

  “What if I don’t want to be Primula Boffin?” Connie said.

  “What about Stephanie?” Lula wanted to know. “What’s her Hobbit name?”

  “Ysellyra Thorney.”

  “Yeah, she looks like a Ysellyra Thorney,” Lula said.

  “I have a problem,” I said to Mooner. “Vinnie’s wife kicked him out of the house, and he hasn’t got any place to stay. Do you suppose you could babysit him for me this afternoon and maybe tonight?”

  “Whoa, I’d be honored,” Mooner said. “Vinnie’s the dude. He’s like famous. He runs ASC.”

  “What’s ASC?” I asked Mooner.

  “Alternative Sex Convention. It’s like cutting-edge.”

  “That’s a shocker,” Connie said.

  “Yeah,” Mooner said. “ASC is huge. Maybe Vinnie can give me some pointers.”

  “Unless you got Hobbits that wear chaps and nothin’ else, you probably don’t want any of Vinnie’s pointers,” Lula said.

  “Do you remember where my parents live?” I asked Mooner.

  “Yep. I could find it with my eyes closed.”

  I wrote the address on the back of my card and gave it to Mooner. “Just in case,” I said. “Call me if there are problems. Don’t let Vinnie out of your sight, and stay away from Stark Street.”

  Mooner ambled out of the office, and moments later, we heard a backfire and the Moon Bus chugged down the street.

  “Do you think you can trust him to keep Vinnie under wraps?” Lula asked me.

  “If Vinnie wants to stay alive, he’ll make sure he stays hidden.”

  I called my parents’ house and asked for Vinnie.

  “Mooner is coming to get you,” I told Vinnie. “He’s going to let you stay in his RV. Do not leave the RV!”

  I glanced at my watch. “It’s coming up to lunchtime,” I said to Lula. “Let’s look for Chopper.”

  “What about Butch?” Connie wanted to know.

  “I need an address. I doubt he’ll go back to work. And if I’m going to get him, I need to do it fast. He doesn’t want to go to jail. He’s going to run again.”

  FOURTEEN

  LULA AND I left the bonds office, and Lula looked up and down the street. “I thought for sure there’d be a new black car delivered by now,” Lula said. “You don’t suppose Ranger ran out of cars, do you?”

  “Maybe I’ve reached my monthly quota.”

  A green SUV pulled in behind Lula’s Firebird, and Morelli got out.

  “I’ll be with you in a minute,” I told Lula, and I went to meet Morelli.

  Morelli stepped close to me, hands at my waist, and he nuzzled my neck.

  “Is this a social visit?” I asked him.

  “Not entirely. I wanted to see if you smelled like cow.”

  I stepped away and looked at him. “Well?”

  “Nope.”

  “Is it against the law to smell like cow?”

  “It is if you let a herd of them loose in the city.”

  “How did you know?”

  “Several of the workers who were interviewed remembered seeing a black woman with red hair and big boobs and a pretty girl with a brown ponytail.”

  “They thought I was pretty?”

  “Everyone thinks you’re pretty,” Morelli said.

  “How about you?”

  “Especially me,” he said. “What the hell were you doing at the packing plant?”

  “I was after Butch Goodey. And it was all an accident.”

  “You accidentally started a stampede?”

  “Not me, exactly. Butch was working the holding pen, and he panicked when he saw me. And he bolted. And the cows bolted with him.”

  Morelli put his hand to his chest. “Heartburn,” he said. “You have any Rolaids?”

  “Too much stress,” I said. “It’s your job.”

  “It’s not my job. It’s you. You’re a magnet for disaster.”

  “So find a new girlfriend. Some nice, boring woman who remembers to buy bread.”

  “Maybe I will,” Morelli said.

  “Fine!”

  “Fine, yourself.”

  “Hmmph,” I said, and I turned on my heel, marched back to Lula’s Firebird, and got in.

  “That looked like it went well,” Lula said.

  “Just drive.”

  “Don’t be Miss Crankypants with me just because you aren’t gettin’ any.”

  “I could get plenty if I wanted.”

  “You know what your problem is? You got too many scruples. One or two scruples is okay, but you get too many of them, and it clogs everything up.”

  What she said made no sense at all, but was probably right.

  “I got some scruples,” Lula said, “but I know when to stop. There’s a point where you have to say enough is enough and screw scruples.”

  “Is this conversation going somewhere?”

  “If it was me, I’d sleep with both of them, and when they found out, I’d move on. Sayonara, sweetie.”

  “Jeez.”

  Lula looked over at me. “Maybe that don’t work for you.”

  I sprang forward in my seat. “It’s him! Chopper just drove past us. Black Lexus, tinted windows, fancy wheels, and his plate starts with CH.”

  “I’m on it,” Lula said. “Keep your eye on him.”

  There were three cars between us. Traffic was moderate on Hamilton at this time of the day.

  “He turned right on Chambers,” I said to Lula.

  “He’s going for one of his burger places,” Lula said. “I bet he’s heading for Meat & Go. It’s just ahead.”

  We lost sight of the Lexus on Chambers, but spotted it parked at Meat & Go. Chopper was a big-ticket bond, and I was tired of getting skunked. No way was this one getting away.

  “Park behind him so he’s blocked,” I said to Lula.

  “What are you, nuts? This is my baby. I’m not getting my baby rammed. We saw what happened with Ranger’s Jeep. I’m parking far away, where no one’s gonna park next to me and ding my door.”

  “Okay, fine,” I said. “Just park.”

  We got out of the Firebird and took inventory. Lula had cuffs, pepper spray, stun gun, Glock, pearl-handled Derringer, switchblade knife, and brass knuckles. I had my .45, cuffs, pepper spray, and stun gun. Lula wanted to use everything in her arsenal. I wanted to use nothing.

  “No excessive force,” I said to her.

  “S
ure, I know that,” Lula said. “Just get outta my way. I’m gonna bag this idiot.”

  “No! Let me talk to him. He’s a professional. He’ll cooperate.”

  “You always say that, and then they run over your toes.”

  I put my hand to my chest and grunted.

  “Something wrong?” Lula wanted to know.

  “I think I have heartburn. What does heartburn feel like?”

  “Pain.”

  “I’ve got it. Do you have Rolaids?”

  “No. I never have trouble with heartburn on account of I keep a positive attitude. And I got good digestion from eating right.”

  “You eat everything.”

  “Exactly. I get variety in my diet. Even when I was on that one diet, which I’m not anymore, I made the most of it.”

  This was true.

  “Stay behind me,” I said to Lula. “I’m going in.”

  I had the cuffs at easy access, and I had the stun gun in hand. True, it didn’t work on Butch, but that was a fluke. I crossed the lot and rapped on the tinted driver’s side window. The window rolled down, and Chopper looked out at me. I knew Chopper by sight. He looked like Joe Pesci, if Joe Pesci was Cuban.

  “Mortimer Gonzolez?” I asked.

  “Yeah. What about it?”

  “Bond enforcement,” I said. “You need to come with me to set a new court date.”

  Technically, this was correct, but mostly it was baloney. He needed to come with me so he could get locked up until someone came to bond him out again. And bonding him out would cost him more money.

  “Bite me,” Chopper said. And he powered his window up.

  “That went well,” Lula said.

  “If you say that one more time, I’m going to hit you with the stun gun and spray you full of pepper spray,” I said to her.

  Lula pointed her Glock at Chopper’s front tire and fired off four rounds. The driver’s side door flew open and Chopper lunged out and looked at his tire and looked at Lula.

  “Are you fuckin’ nuts?” Chopper yelled. “Do you know what one of them tires costs? It’s not no ordinary fuckin’ tire. It’s a run-flat.”

  I clapped a bracelet onto his wrist, and he took a swing at me. I ducked and zapped him with the stun gun. Chopper’s eyes went blank, and he dropped to the pavement.

  “I think we finally got one,” Lula said.

  I snapped the second bracelet onto Chopper, and Lula and I dragged him to the Firebird.

  “Watch that you don’t get his shoes onto my leather upholstery,” Lula said. “I just had it detailed.”

  We hefted Chopper onto the backseat and did a high five.

  “This is what I’m talking about,” Lula said, getting into the Firebird. “We’re on a roll now. It’s the bottle. You got it, right?”

  I slid onto the passenger seat and clicked my seat belt in place. “It’s in my shoulder bag.”

  Lula drove two blocks and pulled into a convenience store lot. “I got a idea. The bottle’s working for us, right?”

  “I guess.”

  “Here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna go get a lottery ticket while we’re hot. I bet you anything we win a ton of money.”

  “Who’s paying for the ticket?”

  “You,” Lula said.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I spent my last twenty on burgers.” Lula looked in the rearview mirror. “I bet Chopper got money.”

  “Don’t even think about it.”

  Lula unsnapped her seat belt and lurched out of the car. “It’s just borrowing. I’ll pay him back right away with our winnings.”

  “What if we don’t win?”

  “Of course we’ll win. You got the bottle.” Lula leaned over Chopper and came out with his wallet. She took a twenty and stuffed the wallet back into Chopper’s jacket pocket. “We’re just borrowing,” she told Chopper. “We’ll be right back.”

  “There’s no we,” I said. “I want no part of this.”

  “There you go with the scruples again. You gotta learn a real scruple from a worthless scruple.”

  “We don’t steal from people we capture.”

  “Borrow,” Lula said. “We’re borrowing. And it’s for a good cause. That always makes a difference.”

  I had my arms crossed over my chest, holding firm.

  “You’re gonna have to get out of the car and come with me,” Lula said. “You’re the one with the lucky bottle. And besides, I’m not getting back behind the wheel until we do this. And I’m gonna hold my breath, too.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake!” I said, unsnapping my seat belt. I got out of the car, slammed the door, and stomped into the store.

  “We want lottery tickets,” Lula said to the clerk. “Here’s our borrowed twenty, which is okay because we got a lucky bottle. And we haven’t got time for the Powerball. We’re gonna take those five-dollar scratch things.”

  Lula took her tickets and stepped back and started scratching. Nothing on the first ticket. Nothing on the second ticket. Nothing on the third ticket.

  “This is it,” Lula said. “I can feel it. This here’s the lucky ticket.” She scratched the ticket and shrieked. “I won! I won! I knew I’d win. What did I tell you?”

  I looked over her shoulder. “How much did you win?”

  “Ten dollars.”

  “I don’t want to rain on your parade, but you spent twenty to win ten.”

  “Yeah, but I won. We need more money, now that we’re on a roll. This is just the beginning.”

  “We haven’t got more money.”

  “Chopper has money. His wallet was full of money. We just need to borrow more.”

  “No!”

  “Yeah, but how are we going to pay him back if we don’t borrow more?”

  “I’ll mail it to him,” I said.

  Lula handed her lottery ticket in and got her ten dollars.

  “Hold on,” Lula said. “I need a cookie. I got a cookie craving.” Lula went to the cookie aisle and came back with a bunch of bags and boxes.

  “That’s twelve-fifty,” the clerk said.

  Lula looked at me.

  I blew out a sigh, dug into my purse, and came up with two dollars and change.

  “Now we can celebrate our winnings,” Lula said.

  We took our cookies and went back to the Firebird.

  “What the heck?” Lula said.

  No Chopper.

  “Did we put him in the trunk and I forgot?” Lula asked.

  “He’s on foot, probably trying to get back to his car. Maybe we can catch him.”

  Lula peeled out of the lot and drove the two blocks to Meat & Go. The black Lexus SUV was gone.

  “Yeah, but you gotta look on the bright side,” Lula said. “We won the lottery.”

  I took a package of Hostess Snowballs out of the plastic bag and stuffed one into my mouth.

  “See if you can find him,” I said to Lula.

  We cruised the other lunch locations, and Lula did a loop past Chopper’s apartment. No Lexus SUV parked there, either. He was most likely somewhere getting my cuffs removed.

  “No disrespect intended. And I don’t mean to blaspheme your bottle. But I’m starting to think it sucks as a lucky bottle,” Lula said.

  I was glad she felt that way, because between the bottle and my Smith & Wesson, my shoulder bag was giving me a neck cramp. I’d be more than happy to leave them home tomorrow.

  Connie called on my cell phone. “I have some information on Butch Goodey,” she said.

  I hoped the information was that he was seen boarding a plane for Antarctica. It wouldn’t bother me if I never saw Butch Goodey ever again. It was like trying to capture King Kong.

  “I have a current address off his employment record, and I have siblings. You should have the siblings on his original bond document,” Connie said.

  A current address. Crap. I hung up and slumped in my seat.

  “What?” Lula wanted to know.

  “Connie has a curren
t address for Butch.”

  “Crap,” Lula said. “I’m not liking any of these people we gotta catch. They’re too big and sneaky. And no one wants to get caught. On the other hand, the big dummy knocked me over, and I got a smudge on my skirt. I’m gonna have to take it to the cleaners. He should pay for that.”

  “He lives on Keene Street, in one of those little row houses.”

  “I’m on it,” Lula said.

  FIFTEEN

  THE WHITE TAURUS was parked at the curb in front of Butch’s row house. Originally, these were company houses for a company that made porcelain pipe. They were single-story, twelve units hooked together, maroon asbestos shingle roof and siding. No yard. No porch, front or back. Street parking. A little bleak, but the plumbing worked in almost all of them.

  “We need a plan,” Lula said. “I don’t want to get knocked on my ass again.”

  “The stun gun doesn’t work on him, so I’ll ring the bell, and when he answers, I’ll give him a blast with pepper spray. We’ll both step back to let the spray settle, and then we’ll wrap the FlexiCuffs on him.”

  “If I have to shoot him, I’ll shoot him in the foot,” Lula said.

  “No shooting!”

  “You always say that.”

  “Shooting isn’t good. It hurts people. It could get you in jail.”

  Lula had her lower lip stuck out. Eyes narrowed. “He made me smudge my skirt.”

  “You don’t shoot someone over a smudged skirt.”

  “I was only gonna shoot him in the foot.”

  The pain was back in my chest. I burped and it went away.

  “You got a digestive issue,” Lula said.

  “I never had this problem before.”

  “It’s probably that you’re gettin’ old,” Lula said. “Things like that happen to you when you get old. Or maybe you’re pregnant. Oops, hold on, you’re not pregnant, on account of you’re not gettin’ any.”

  “Could we please concentrate on the problem at hand, which is capturing Sasquatch?”

  “Sure,” Lula said. “I could do that.”

  We walked to the door, and I rang the bell. I had pepper spray in hand, ready to use. Lula was positioned behind me. After a moment, the door opened and Butch stared out at us, looking like a giant in his tiny house.