Explosive Eighteen

SEVEN

“I’M HUNGRY,” LULA SAID, pulling out of the junkyard. “What would Ranger eat for lunch? I bet he’d be up for a bucket of fried chicken.”

“He usually grabs a sandwich at Rangeman. Roast beef on multigrain. Or a turkey club.”

“I could do that. What else does he eat?”

“An apple sometimes. And water.”

“Say what? Is that it? How could he live on that? What about chips? What about a root beer float? And how many of those roast beef sandwiches does he eat for lunch?”

“One sandwich. No chips.”

“That’s un-American. He’s not stimulating the economy like that. I’d feel it was my patriotic duty to at least have chips.”

Lula stopped at a deli on the first block of Stark.

“This looks sketchy,” I said. “The window is dirty, and I just saw a rat run out the front door.”

“I’ve been here before,” she said. “They give you a half-pound of meat on your sandwich, and they throw in pickles for free. If I’m only gonna have one sandwich, this is the place.”

It looked to me like they threw in food poisoning for free, too. “I’ll pass.”

“You have no spirit of culinary adventure. You need to be more like that snarky guy on the Travel Channel. He goes all over the world eating kangaroo assholes and snail throw-up. He’d eat anything. He don’t care how sick he gets. He’s another one of my role models, except he needs ironing.” She took her big silver Glock out of her purse and handed it over to me. “You wait here and don’t let anyone take my car.”

I hefted the Glock, aiming it out the window at an empty street corner. My own gun was smaller, a Smith & Wesson.45 revolver. I’d gotten it from Ranger when I first started doing bond enforcement and Connie had asked him to mentor me. He was scary tough and mysteriously complex back then. He isn’t so different now. He’s abandoned his Special Forces camo fatigues for Rangeman black, he’s dropped the ghetto accent and lost the ponytail as his business needs changed, but he’s still a tough guy with lots of secrets.

Lula hustled out of the deli with a large plastic food container in one hand, a massive wax paper-wrapped sandwich in the other, and a two-liter bottle of soda under her arm.

“He put all my free pickles right into the sandwich,” she said, sliding behind the wheel. “And I got some homemade potato salad instead of chips. It was half price.”

Oh boy. Bargain potato salad from the Rats-R-Us. “The potato salad might not be a good idea,” I said.

Lula opened the lid and sniffed. “Smells okay.” She dug in with her plastic fork. “Tastes okay. Got a tang to it.” She unwrapped her sandwich, ate half, and washed it down with some soda.

I tried not to grimace. I didn’t want to ruin her eating experience, but I was getting queasy inhaling the meat and mayo fumes. I had my window down and my head halfway out when the Lincoln pulled up alongside.

Lancer made a gun with his hand, index finger pointed at me. “Bang,” he said.

I still had Lula’s Glock in my lap. I raised it and pointed it at Lancer, and he drove away.

“What was that about?” Lula asked.

“It’s complicated.”

“I’m getting real tired of hearing it’s complicated. Would you say something like that to Ranger? I don’t think so. I bet he calls you Babe and you tell him everything he wants to know.”

I tell Ranger nothing. Ranger isn’t a talker. Ranger reveals very little and doesn’t encourage verbal spewing on the part of others.

“On the way home from Hawaii, I accidentally picked up a photograph of a man,” I said to Lula. “I didn’t know who he was or how I got the photograph, so I threw it away. Turns out it’s one of a kind, it’s tied to national security somehow, and now I’m the only one who knows what the guy looks like. The FBI is searching for the guy, and the two morons who just drove by are searching for the guy. And it’s possible there are other people searching for the guy.”

“And you say you’re the only one who knows what he looks like?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know where this guy lives?”

“I don’t know anything about him.”

“This makes you real special,” Lula said. “It’s like you’re a reality show, all by yourself.”

Lula finished her sandwich and her tub of potato salad, and we looked over my list of skips.

“I’m just not excited about any of this,” Lula said. “Now that I’m gonna be operating at Ranger level, I need more of a challenge. Where’s the killers and the serial rapists? How come we don’t have any of them? The best we got is Joyce, and she’s not looking so difficult. If she’s not dead, she’s out there with only one shoe and no driver’s license.”

Joyce was weighing on me. She wasn’t my favorite person, but I didn’t like thinking she’d been crushed and discarded. No one should be crushed and discarded. I punched Morelli’s number into my phone.

Morelli answered with a sigh.

“Is that you?” I asked him.

“Yup.”

“Are you busy?”

“I’m up to my knees in blood and paperwork. I don’t know which is worse. What did you have in mind?”

“Have you heard the rumor about Joyce Barnhardt getting compacted?”

Nothing for a beat. “No.”

“Well, there’s a rumor. It originated with Andy Kulicki. He works at the junkyard. I was just there, and Andy said the crusher shook loose a woman’s high heel shoe, a lipstick, and Joyce’s driver’s license. You might want to go over there with a cadaver dog.”

“Boy, I’m really happy to hear that, because I was hoping for another murder.”

“I thought it was my civic duty to pass it on.”

“You give me heartburn,” Morelli said. And he disconnected.

“Well?” Lula’s eyebrow raised.

“He said I gave him heartburn.”

“That’s not real romantic.”

“He has a hard job.”

“Me, too,” Lula said. “I got heartburn, too.”

“You have heartburn because you ate at the Rat Café.”

“You could be right. It tasted okay, but it’s not sitting so good in my stomach. Maybe I just need more soda.” Lula drank more soda and burped. “Oh yeah,” she said, “that’s better.”

“I’m going to take another shot at Lewis Bugkowski,” I said. “This time, I’ll use my stun gun and Flexi-Cuffs.”

Actually, stun guns are illegal in New Jersey as well as Hawaii, but like carrying concealed, Trenton is pretty much unofficially exempt.

“WHAM!” Lula said. “Let’s do it. Where’s he live?”

“Pulling Street.”

Lula turned onto Broad, cut across town, and started to sweat.

“Are you okay?” I asked her. “You’re sweating, and your face isn’t its usual color.”

“What color is it?”

“Asparagus.”

“I might be coming down with the flu.”

“How about food poisoning?”

“I feel like my stomach’s getting all swelled up,” Lula said. “It’s not fitting in my pants no more. And it’s doing funny sounds. I might need a bathroom.”

“Can you make it to the coffee shop?”

“Yeah, I just have to drive faster. You probably want to close your eyes.”

Three minutes later, she slid to a stop in front of the coffee shop.

“I’m gonna make a run for it,” Lula said. “Just stay out of my way, because when I stand up all hell’s liable to break loose.”

She kicked her door open and took off.

“Outta my way! Comin’ through!” she yelled.

She disappeared into the restroom at the back of the coffee shop, and moments later two women ran out.

I bought a ham-and-cheese sandwich and joined Connie at the table in the window.

“Lula ate some green roast beef and half-price potato salad,” I said to Connie.

“You play, you pay,” Connie said. “How’d it go at the junkyard?”

“Andy found a shoe and Joyce’s driver’s license in the crusher area.”

“Were you able to trace it back to a car?”

“No. Turns out your cousin Manny has a loosey-goosey policy about stuff that gets dumped out of the crusher.”

“It’s junkyard etiquette to never look in the trunk,” Connie said.

The restroom door crashed open, and Lula staggered out. “I’m dying,” she said. “Do I look like I’m dying?”

“You’ve looked better,” I told her. “Do you want me to drive you around the block to the emergency room?”

“Thanks for offering, but I’m taking myself home. And I’m never eating potato salad again. There should be a law against potato salad.”

I finished my sandwich and stood. “Places to go. People to capture.”

“If I’m not here, I’ll be on my cell,” Connie said. “I have some short-term offices to look at.”

I left the coffee shop and drove to Buggy’s house. I was better prepared today. I had plastic Flexi-Cuffs in my back pocket and my hand wrapped around my stun gun when I knocked on his front door.

“Boy, am I glad to see you,” Buggy said, looking out at me. “I need to borrow your car. I need to go to the drugstore to get a box of Band-Aids.”

He had a gash on his forehead and a cotton roll stuck up each nostril. I suspected this was damage from his run-in with my RAV4 yesterday.

“I have a better idea,” I said. “I’ll drive you.”

“Nuh-ah. I like to drive.”

I pressed the stun-gun prongs against his chest and pushed the go button. Nothing happened. Low battery.

Buggy snatched my bag from my shoulder. “Your keys are in here, right?”

“No! Give it back.”

He rummaged around in the bag, found the keys, and dropped the bag on the ground.

“Thanks. I was wondering how I was gonna get a Band-Aid,” he said, knocking me aside, muscling his way to the car and wedging himself behind the wheel.

I watched Buggy drive away, and I called Ranger. “You’re not going to believe what just happened.”

“Babe, it’s getting so I’ll believe just about anything.”

“The big dopey guy took my car again.”

Silence for a beat. “Maybe it’d be easier if I gave him a car of his own,” Ranger finally said. “Does he have your bag?”

“No.”

“I’ll send Hal out to get your car. What about you? Is Lula rescuing you again?”

“No.”

Another moment of silence. “Am I?”

“Would you like to?” I asked him.