22 Tricky Twenty-Two (3 page)

“Unfortunately I know this young woman,” Mintner said. “She’s trying to turn the school paper into the
Enquirer.
Everything is a crusade. It’s all so sensational. And she has tattoos.”

“Well, that’s a sin against nature right there,” Lula said.

“Exactly,” Mintner said. He focused on Lula. “Are you being sarcastic? Do you have tattoos?”

“I don’t have any tattoos on account of they don’t show up that good on my fabulous dark chocolate skin. And yeah, I’m being sarcastic as hell.”

Mintner mumbled something that I thought might have sounded like
dumb bitch
and turned to his computer. He typed in
Julie Ruley,
and moments later printed out her class schedule and dorm address.

“After classes she’s most likely at the newspaper office,” Mintner said. “I’m helping you because Globovic is a menace. He needs to be found and taken off the streets.”

“You bet your ass,” Lula said. “And we’re the ladies who are gonna do it.”

I took the printout and thanked Mintner. I picked up a campus map on the way out of the building and studied it. The newspaper office wasn’t listed, but I guessed it would be either in the journalism department or in the student center. According to Julie Ruley’s schedule she was currently in a twentieth-century literature class in the Steinart building. No doubt doing an in-depth comparison of James Joyce’s
Ulysses
with
Harry Potter.

“She’s in class now,” I said to Lula. “Then she’s free for the afternoon. Since we don’t know what she looks like, beyond being Malibu Barbie with tattoos, I guess we should try the newspaper office after lunch.”

K STREET IS
in a sketchy part of town. Not nearly as bad as the blighted blocks of upper Stark, but bad enough that you want to keep your eyes open for big mutant rats and drugged-out old men. Mixed in with the rats and the dopers are decent citizens, illegal immigrants, human traffickers, and runaway kids. Billy Bacon fit somewhere between a decent citizen and a mutant rat. He was six foot three inches tall and weighed upwards of 250 pounds. How he’d managed to get down a chimney, even with the bacon grease, was a miracle. The fact that he’d made it half a block with his pockets jammed full of money and jewelry and his clothes soaked in bacon grease put him in the realm of folk hero on K Street. He was forty-three years old, single, and according to his bond agreement he lived with his mother, Eula.

“His mistake was using bacon grease,” Lula said. “First off, it’s a waste of good grease when there’s other things not so tasty. If he’d greased himself up with motor oil, the dogs wouldn’t have tracked him down. ’Course the grease was there for the taking on account of he worked the grill at Mike’s Burger Place on K and Main. They collect bacon grease by the barrel from their bacon burgers.”

Lula cruised down K Street and idled across from the three-story redbrick graffiti-riddled building where Billy and his mother lived. We’d been here before, looking for Billy, with no luck.

“Problem is, he’s a popular guy,” Lula said. “He fried up a good burger, and he was taking care of his momma. I knew his momma from years ago when she was a prime ’ho. Everybody knew she gave one of the best BJs around, but then she got some lip fungus on all her lips, if you know what I mean, and her business kind of fell apart. She was down to doing hand jobs and then she got the arthritis. I hear just about the only thing she can do with her hand now is lift a liquor bottle. Billy said he turned to stealing so he could afford the meds for his momma’s fungus. It’s kind of noble when you think about it.”

“It wasn’t noble. It was stupid. Now he’s going to jail and his mother will have no one. Not to mention I have serious doubts he was stealing to pay for meds. Last time he got busted he said he’d hijacked twenty cases of Jack Daniel’s because he needed to cauterize a bite he got from a rabid dog.”

“Twenty cases sounds excessive,” Lula said.

The front door to the brick building opened, and Billy Bacon walked out.

“Holy cats,” Lula said. “That’s Billy Bacon. It’s like he was waiting for us to come along and arrest him.”

Billy Bacon spotted us in the car and took off at a run up the sidewalk.

“He moves pretty good for a big man,” Lula said, “but he don’t move as fast as my Firebird.”

She gave the Firebird some gas, and just as the car jumped forward Billy Bacon attempted to cross the street.
Whump!
Lula punted Billy Bacon about twenty feet.

“Oops,” Lula said.

We got out and looked down at Billy Bacon.

“Are you okay?” Lula asked him.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I feel dazed. You hit me with your car.”

“You were born dazed,” Lula said. “And you better hope you didn’t put a scratch in my Firebird. I just had it detailed.”

Billy Bacon lurched to his feet and looked himself over. “I might have a skinned knee or something. You got insurance?”

“What we got is a pair of handcuffs,” Lula said.

I went to cuff him, and he swatted me away. “I don’t want to go to jail. I got things to do.”

“Like what?” Lula asked him.

“Like lunch.”

“We’re going for lunch soon as we get you trussed up,” Lula said. “We’re going for egg salad.”

“I might go with you if you buy me a sandwich,” Bacon said. “I want ham and cheese. And I want a bag of chips. And not the little bag neither.”

I cuffed him and got him settled into the backseat, and Lula drove us the two blocks to the deli.

“I want a egg salad sandwich on worthless white bread,” Lula said. “Make sure they pile on lots of egg salad. And then I want a tub of their potato salad, and a tub of their macaroni salad. And I’ll take a large Diet Coke.”

I left Lula parked at the curb, ran into the deli, and put my order in. Five minutes later I came out and Lula was gone. I looked up and down the street. No Lula. I called her cellphone. No Lula.

Crap.

I waited five minutes and called Lula’s cell again. Nothing. I called Ranger and told him Lula had disappeared with my FTA, and I needed a ride.

“Babe,” Ranger said. And he hung up.

Ten minutes later Ranger’s shiny black Porsche 911 Turbo rolled to a stop in front of the deli. Ranger can’t be bothered with anything as trivial as matching his clothes, so he only wears black. Today he was in the standard Rangeman uniform of black shirt with logo and black cargo pants. His skin is flawless, his hair is soft and sexy and cut short, his body is hard muscle and perfect, his eyes are dark brown and unreadable. His past is murky, and he’s made it known that his future doesn’t involve marriage. It’s the present that worries me, because I get damp when I sit next to him, and damp with Ranger isn’t good. Damp could turn into a flash flood. I know this for a fact. It’s happened. Unfortunately it’s
wowie kazowie!
at the moment of liftoff and disaster the day after.

I find it hard to emotionally disentangle after we’ve been romantic. I suspect Ranger doesn’t have this problem. I think I might fall into the category of
pet
for Ranger. He’s fond of me. He’s protective. I amuse him. Beyond that, I’m not sure.

I slid onto the passenger seat, put the bag of food on the floor, and buckled myself in.

“I’m worried about Lula. She’s not answering her phone. We had Billy Bacon cuffed and sitting in the backseat, and I went into the deli for food. When I came out she was gone.”

Ranger glanced down at the bag. “I think we can safely assume she didn’t leave voluntarily, since you have the food. I can’t see Lula walking away from lunch.”

“Maybe you could have your guys keep their eyes open for her.”

Ranger provides high-end, specialized security to individuals and businesses willing to pay his price. Rangeman cars are in constant motion around town, checking on accounts, responding to service calls, always plugged into the command center at the Rangeman building.

Ranger called in the request to look for Lula, and we parked across from Billy Bacon’s building. We watched the street. No Lula. No Billy Bacon.

“Stay here,” Ranger said. “I’ll check inside.”

Ten minutes later Ranger reappeared and walked to the car.

“Well?” I asked.

“They aren’t in there. I spoke to the super, walked through four apartments, and talked to your FTA’s mother. I’ll spare you the details.”

“Was his mother helpful?”

“His mother was passed out on the couch.”

I opened the deli bag, took out the turkey club I’d gotten for myself, and gave half to Ranger.

“Billy’s never been an especially violent guy,” Ranger said. “Maybe he took off with Lula to have a nooner.”

I couldn’t see Lula choosing sex over egg salad, but I suppose it was possible. I tried her phone again. No answer.

Ranger finished eating and pulled into traffic. “Let’s cruise down to Mike’s.”

“About tonight,” I said. “What sort of date is this?”

“Bodyguard detail for one of my better clients. He and his wife have been getting death threats. I have men watching their house, but they’re going out tonight, and I need someone to stay close to the wife.”

“Where are they going?”

“Viewing at the funeral home on Hamilton.”

“I need the red dress for that?”

“The red dress is for me,” Ranger said. “I like the red dress.”

Mike’s Burger Place was a single-room diner with a couple scarred wood tables and some rickety chairs. It smelled like a bacon burger, and I could feel the grease in the air coating my skin, soaking into my hair. No customers. It wasn’t a lunch place. It would be packed at five o’clock with people getting takeout. A skinny sick-looking guy stood behind the counter. His white T-shirt was stained with God-knows-what, and he had a spatula in his hand.

“What can I get you?” he asked.

“Information,” Ranger said. “I’m looking for Billy.”

“Yeah, me too,” the guy said. “I’m filling in two shifts on this crap job because Billy took off.”

“Do you know where he is?” Ranger asked.

“No. Don’t care. What I know is he isn’t
here.
”

We got outside, and I put my fingertip to the pimple. It felt like it was growing, feeding on the grease.

“Babe,” Ranger said.

Babe
means many things from Ranger. This was the first time it was a comment on a pimple.

I blew out a sigh. “I’m under a lot of stress.”

Ranger’s mouth curved into the hint of a smile.

“No, I don’t need help relieving my stress,” I said to him.

He opened the passenger side door for me. “I’ll drive past Lula’s house on the way to the bonds office, and I’ll have my men do tours down K Street.”

“Thanks.”

“Have you called the office to see if she’s there?”

“I called Connie while you were in the apartment building. Connie hasn’t heard from her.”

“She hasn’t been gone very long.”

“I know, but she left without her egg salad,” I said to Ranger. “Lula might abandon me, but she’d never drive off without her lunch.”

“Maybe something better came along.”

CONNIE WAS ON
the phone when I walked into the office. She hung up and looked over at me. “Have you heard from Lula?”

“No.” I put the deli bag on Connie’s desk. “It’s like she vanished into thin air. Left without her lunch.”

Vinnie stuck his head out of his inner office. “Do I smell egg salad?”

“It’s Lula’s lunch,” I said.

“So where’s Lula?” he asked.

Connie and I did a shoulder shrug.

“Don’t know,” I said.

Vinnie is like a cartoon character of a bail bondsman. Slicked-back hair, body like a weasel’s, pointy-toed shoes, skinny pants, and shiny shirts. He keeps a vodka bottle in his bottom desk drawer, next to his gun.

“Where’d you get the egg salad?” he asked.

“The deli on K Street.”

Vinnie ventured out of his office far enough to look in the lunch bag.

“Is this potato salad?” he asked.

“Yeah, and macaroni.”

“Anybody want any of this?”

“Not me,” Connie said.

“Nope,” I said. “Me either.”

“Hello, lunch,” Vinnie said, and he took the bag into his office and closed and locked his door.

“Any luck with Globovic?” Connie asked.

“I’m going back this afternoon to talk to his girlfriend.”

Vinnie yelled from inside his office. “Where’s my dessert? There’s no dessert here.”

“How do you keep from shooting him?” I asked Connie.

“I embezzle money from his bank account. It’s pretty satisfying.”

When most people say things like that it’s a joke. I suspected Connie was serious. And I’m sure she deserves whatever she steals.

“I’m going back to Kiltman,” I said. “Let me know if you hear from Lula.”

It took three tries to get my car to crank over, but I finally chugged down the street. I watched for the red Firebird as I drove across town. I tried to convince myself that Lula was at a shoe sale or all-you-can-eat sausage bar, but I wasn’t having a lot of success. There was a knot in my stomach and a hollow feeling in my chest.

I parked in a lot attached to the student center and walked to the front entrance. It was a big building containing a small theater, a food court, a gallery for student art, and a bunch of offices. The student paper was located in one of the second-floor office spaces. Every inch of the room was cluttered with stacks of papers, office machines, some utilitarian desks, and mismatched chairs. Two women were at a desk, studying something on a laptop.

“Julie Ruley?” I asked.

“That’s me,” one of the women said.

Julie Ruley was about five four with straight blond hair parted in the middle and tucked back behind her ears. No makeup. Oversized T-shirt. Jeans. Ratty sneakers. Glossy black polish on nails cut short. Hard to tell if she was Malibu Barbie under the T-shirt, and I didn’t see any tattoos.

“Would it be possible to speak to you in private?” I asked her.

“Sure,” she said, rising out of her chair. “We can talk in the hall.”

I found a quiet spot against the wall and introduced myself.

“It’s all bogus,” Julie said. “Mintner is out to close Zeta, and he’s using Gobbles to do it. Mintner asked Gobbles to stop by his house, and when Gobbles got there Mintner was nuts. Gobbles said Mintner was yelling about the evil stuff going on at Zeta. Totally out of control.”

“What about the baseball bat?”

“Gobbles was on his way home from playing ball with some friends. He had a bat and a mitt with him.”

“That’s not the way the police report reads. Mintner said his living room was trashed and Gobbles broke his arm.”

“Gobbles said Mintner was on a rant and fell over the ottoman. Maybe that’s how his arm got broken. Gobbles left after Mintner fell. I believe Gobbles,” Julie said. “He’s never lied to me. And I don’t like Dean Mintner. No one likes him.”

“Why is Gobbles in hiding? Why didn’t he show up for his court date?”

“He thinks everything is stacked against him. And I think he’s right. People are going to believe Dean Mintner.”

“Still, he should check in with the court. We can get him bonded out again. Right now he’s considered a felon, and that’s not a good thing.”

“I’ll pass it along if I hear from him.”

I gave her my card, and returned to my car. There was a note under the windshield wiper.

Stop hunting Gobbles or else.

P.S. Zeta rules!!

I looked around, but I didn’t see anyone I recognized from the fraternity. No one seemed to be watching me. No big deal, I thought. I’d been threatened by psychopathic serial killers, mutant gangbangers, and Morelli’s crazy Sicilian grandmother. This hardly registered on my fright meter.

I settled myself behind the wheel, and texted Connie and asked her to get me information on Julie Ruley. With any luck she lived off campus and was harboring Gobbles.

I hadn’t heard anything from Ranger or Connie about Lula, so I called Morelli.

“I’m worried about Lula,” I told him. “I went into the deli on K Street for lunch, and when I came out she was gone.”

“And?”

“She left without her egg salad.”

“I could see where that would be worrisome.”

“I’m serious. I had an FTA in the backseat of Lula’s Firebird. She’s not answering her phone, and she’s not at the office. I have Ranger’s men looking for her, but they haven’t turned up anything. I thought you might keep your eyes open for her.”

There was a long moment of silence.

“You called Ranger before me?” Morelli asked.

“I needed a ride.”

“Your father drives a cab.”

“Jeez Louise. I’m reporting a missing person, okay?”

“It hasn’t been twenty-four hours since I suggested we back off a little on our relationship and already you’re with Ranger.”

“I work with the man. I have a professional relationship with him.”

“I love you, but you give me acid reflux,” Morelli said.

“Yeah, well, you gave me a pimple.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

Morelli gave a bark of laughter. “I’ll pass the word on Lula. Let me know if she turns up.”

I
thunked
my forehead on the steering wheel. My life was a mess. A car drove by, and someone in the backseat threw an egg at me and yelled “Zeta!” It splattered against my driver’s side window and oozed down into the door. I looked at my watch and wondered if it was too early to start drinking. A glass of wine or a beer. Just one. Maybe two at the most. Reality check. I’m not good at drinking. I get very happy and then I fall asleep. Since I had to work with Ranger that night, I thought I should delay drinking. Donuts would be a better way to go. A dozen donuts would significantly improve my day.

I hit a Dunkin’ Donuts drive-thru and started working on the donuts in the parking lot. By the time I got home there were six left in the box, and I didn’t want to see another donut ever again. Not ever. Perhaps a Boston Kreme, but that was it.

I live in a modest apartment building on the fringe of Trenton proper. It’s ten minutes from the bonds office, ten minutes from my parents’ house, and fifty years out of date. It’s a solid three-story building with cheap aluminum windows and an unreliable elevator. My second-floor apartment looks out at the parking lot at the rear of the building. Not exactly scenic, but I have a front-row seat for the occasional dumpster fire.

I was feeling sick from the donuts so I took the stairs, thinking exercise would help. I let myself into my apartment, dropped a morsel of a maple glazed into Rex’s cage, and set the rest of the donuts on the counter. Rex rushed over to the piece of donut, stuffed it into his cheek, and hustled it back to his soup can home.

I have a very small area when you first enter my apartment that I like to call my foyer, but probably that’s too grand a name for the space. I have a small, practical kitchen, a living room that sort of combines with my dining room, a bedroom, and a retro bath.
Retro
is another way of saying that my bathroom is really old and ugly.

My dining room serves as my office. I’d inherited the table and chairs from a distant relative. No one else in the family had wanted them. They were nothing I would intentionally buy, but for free they were fine. Rectangular table. Six chairs. Brown wood.

I’m not any kind of cook, and I eat most of my meals standing over the sink, so using the table as a desk wasn’t a hardship. I sat down, opened my laptop, and downloaded the new file from Connie.

Julie Ruley was in her senior year at Kiltman. Her parents were divorced. One brother, two years younger. He was enrolled at Penn State. Her mother and stepfather live in South River. Julie’s current local address was 2121 Banyan Street. Connie had a side note informing me that this was not on campus.

I checked Banyan out on Google Maps and saw that it was within walking distance of the school. The aerial view told me 2121 Banyan was a large house in a residential neighborhood. Most likely subdivided into student apartments.

Morelli called my cellphone.

“Lula turned up,” he said.

“Is she okay?”

“She’s okay, but the people she was with are a
mess.
The story I have is that she was at the curb in front of the deli and two idiots got in with guns drawn and told her to drive. Turns out they’d just robbed the Korean grocery two doors down from the deli. I guess they thought Lula’s Firebird was a step up from the stolen Kia they’d been driving.”

“Where did they take her?”

“Chop shop in Camden.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Yep. Big mistake. Originally it seems these morons just wanted to get away. The plan had been to acquire enough money to get a bus ticket to Texas, where they’d steal enough money to buy themselves a car wash. They told Lula to take them to the Camden bus station, but then they got to thinking they could make more on the Firebird than they stole from the grocery.”

“Lula loves her Firebird.”

“That’s an understatement. I’m not sure how she managed it, but when they got to Camden and ordered her out of the car, she disarmed the guy in the front and beat the crap out of the two of them. They were happy to see the police arrive.”

“Why Camden?”

“They didn’t want to leave from Trenton. Too easy to track.”

“Brilliant.”

“Yeah,” Morelli said.

“Where is she now?” I asked.

“I’m not sure. The Camden police released her about an hour ago.”

“The FTA? Billy Bacon?”

“Ran off while Lula was trashing the other two guys.” There was a moment of silence. “How’s the pimple?” he finally asked.

“It’s holding its own. How’s the heartburn?”

“Not good.”

It was almost five o’clock when I opened my door to Lula. She was minus the pink angora sweater, her poison green tank top was smudged, and her hair was less than perfect.

“You’re not gonna believe my day,” Lula said. “Where’s my egg salad?”

“Vinnie ate it.”

“Say what?”

“I was worried about you when you disappeared. Why didn’t you call?”

“I got kidnapped and one of the idiots took my cellphone. What do you mean Vinnie ate my egg salad?”

“I brought the stuff from the deli back to the office and Vinnie ate it.”

“He got some nerve. I was looking forward to that egg salad.”

“We can get more tomorrow.”

Lula’s attention moved to the box on the counter. “Is that donuts I see?”

“Help yourself.”

Lula took a jelly donut. “I’m about starved. First off I got kidnapped and they wanted to go to Camden.” She shook her head. “Camden. Like I haven’t anything better to do than to drive to Camden. And then when we got to Camden they said I should get out and walk home on account of they were taking my Firebird to a chop shop. Okay, I get that they need money to start up a business. Not that I’m saying it’s the right thing to do or anything. But you don’t take a acetylene torch to a red Firebird. It’s not done. And I just had it detailed.”

“Morelli said you trashed them.”

“I might have got carried away in the moment. It’s the protective nature in me needing to protect my Firebird.”

Lula finished the jelly donut and took a chocolate covered.

“And Billy Bacon got away?” I asked her.

“Yup. He took advantage of the situation and ran like a rabbit, handcuffs and all. I drove around looking for him after the police got done talking to me, but I couldn’t find him. So what did you do with the rest of the day? Did you find Globovic?”

“I talked to his girlfriend. I’m sure she knows where he is. I might go back with Ranger tonight and look around.”

“Sounds like a plan to me. You mind if I take the rest of these donuts home?”

“They’re yours.”