Notorious Nineteen

EIGHT

“SO HOW’D YOUR big date go?” Lula asked when I walked into the office.

“It wasn’t a big date. It was business.”

“I wouldn’t mind doing some business with him. I swear he’s the finest man ever made.”

Connie looked up from her computer. “Did I miss something?”

“Stephanie had a date with Ranger last night,” Lula said.

“It was business,” I told Connie. “He needed someone to attend an event with him. It wasn’t social.”

“It don’t have to be social to be sexual with Ranger,” Lula said. “Unfortunately I don’t know firsthand, but I have a active fantasy life.”

“If you don’t have any leads on Cubbin you might try to find Brody Logan,” Connie said to me. “He’s got a medium high bond, and he’s got his collateral. Vinnie made the mistake of not confiscating it when he bonded him out.”

I pulled the file out of my bag and glanced at it. “It says here ‘religious icon.’ What does that mean? Is it a cross? A picture of the Virgin Mary?”

“It’s a tiki,” Connie said. “It’s three foot high and carved out of some sacred Hawaiian tree.”

“I thought a tiki was one of them thatched huts they got in the Bahamas,” Lula said. “They serve the best drinks at them tikis.”

“Different tiki,” Connie said.

“Do you have a picture?” I asked.

“No, but I think if you’ve seen one tiki you’ve seen them all. How different can a tiki be?”

“I never seen one,” Lula said.

“I have,” I told her. “They had one at the hotel when I was in Hawaii. They sort of look like a piece of a totem pole.”

“This might be a good time to get Logan,” Connie said. “He’s probably still hanging out under the bridge.”

“You got big bags under your eyes,” Lula said to me. “You sure you didn’t have a night of hot love with Ranger?”

“Positive. I got food poisoning and threw up three times.”

“Bummer,” Lula said. “That probably put a crimp in his style.”

I hung my messenger bag on my shoulder and turned toward the door. “I’m off.” I looked at Lula. “Are you coming with me?”

“Yeah, I’m hoping to see the tiki.”

I took Hamilton to Broad and turned off Broad at Third Avenue. The Freemont Street Bridge was two blocks down Third. It was a good location for someone like Logan because it was close to a city soup kitchen, and the blocks around the soup kitchen had a lot of panhandling potential. I parked on the street, and Lula and I got out and walked across a rough patch of rogue weed and assorted trash. The bridge itself spiraled overhead, connecting Third Avenue to the freeway. A slum had developed under the bridge, with cardboard box huts and plywood shanties. Three men stood smoking in the shade.

“It’s like a little town here,” Lula said. “I bet it could be cozy in one of them cardboard boxes except for the rats. And probably they got no cable.”

“They’re also missing indoor plumbing.”

“Maybe they got a box designated for that.”

The men watched us approach. One of them looked drugged out and crazy. The other two just looked tired.

“Howdy,” Lula said. “How’s it going?”

“The usual,” one of them said. “What’s up?”

“We’re looking for Brody Logan,” Lula told him. “Is he here?”

No one said anything, but one of the men nodded toward a small bedraggled tent. I gave him a couple dollars and went to the tent. I squatted down and pulled the flap away. “Brody?”

“What?”

He was wearing a faded orange T-shirt and jeans, and sitting cross-legged in front of the tiki. Two red patches instantly colored his checks, and his eyes went round in what I took for panic. I introduced myself and showed him my ID.

“Oh man,” he said. “Give me a break. I’m real close.”

“Close to what?” I asked.

“To getting this guy home. He’s like a tiki, you know? He’s supposed to be living in this cool shrine, having the good life, takin’ in the volcano vibes. Problem is some idiot snatched him and smuggled him out of Hawaii in a bag of dirty laundry. Seemed like a good idea. Like the tiki would be a conversation piece and get the dude chicks. And like the tiki would enhance the dude’s tent. But turns out the tiki isn’t turned on by Jersey. So now he’s bummed and havin’ like a hissy fit and bringing this idiot dude bad juju.”

“Are you the idiot dude who smuggled him out?” I asked.

“Yeah. Wow, you’re smart. How’d you know that?”

“Lucky guess.”

“Tiki and me have been working the bridge traffic and the Starbucks crowd, and I’ve almost got enough saved up to get us back to Hawaii. So going to jail doesn’t fit into the plan.”

“I want to know why you trashed the cop car,” Lula said.

“The stupid cop took Tiki.”

“The wooden thing.”

“Yeah. He has a name besides Tiki but I forgot it so I call him Tiki.”

“The tiki is named Tiki?”

“He doesn’t mind,” Logan said. “He’s cool with it. Anyway, Tiki was sitting in front of Starbucks waiting for me to come back with a cinnamon latte, and the cop picked him up. The cop said Tiki looked stolen, but I think he just wanted Tiki. Like the cop was the one doing the stealing. Like the cop had a tiki fetish or something. I came out and about freaked when I saw Tiki locked up in the cop car. And Tiki was freaked too. Let me out, let me out, he was saying.”

“You heard it talking?” Lula asked.

“Yeah, of course. Well, you know, in my head. That’s how Tiki always talks to me.”

“He talkin’ to you now?” Lula wanted to know.

“Not now, but before you came he was telling me he wanted eggs for breakfast.”

“How’s he take his eggs?” Lula asked.

“Usually scrambled. And some wheat toast.”

“I bet you smoke a lot of weed,” Lula said. “Maybe do some ’shrooms.”

“No way. I’m pure. Maybe in the past, you know, but Tiki doesn’t like that stuff.”

“Good to know,” Lula said. “Back to the cop car. Why’d you bash it in?”

“Well, at first I just smashed the window to get Tiki out, but then I got into it, like it was a rush. I mean, have you ever trashed a cop car? It’s the best.”

“It got you arrested,” I said.

“Yeah. I look back at it now, and I think it was Tiki messin’ with my head, telling me to trash the car. I shouldn’t have taken him away from Pele.”

“Who’s Pele?” Lula asked.

“She’s the volcano goddess. She lives in Kilauea, and this guy here’s one of her dudes. So you see how I’m on a holy mission, right?”

“Why don’t you just FedEx the dude back to Pele,” Lula said.

“It don’t work that way. I have to put the tiki dude in the right spot. I gotta say words over him. Like how I’m sorry I put him in with my dirty laundry, and how now he and Pele can get it on.”

“You’ll have a chance to explain all that to the judge,” I said. “And if you don’t have any priors you might get away with community service.”

“Uh-oh,” Logan said. “I might have had a few substance indiscretions.”

“Guess you’re goin’ to the pokey, then,” Lula said.

His eyes darted from me to Lula and back to me, and he bolted, lunging out of the tent, knocking me over. “No!”

I scrambled to my feet and ran flat out, but I couldn’t catch him. Logan dodged traffic on Third and disappeared down the street.

Lula came clattering after me on her four-inch Via Spiga spike heels. “He’s a fast bugger,” she said, bending at the waist, trying to catch her breath. “You should have just shot him.”

“He’s unarmed.”

“Yeah, but he dissed you.”

“I’m going back for the tiki,” I said to Lula. “At least Vinnie will have his collateral.”

The three men were still standing in the same spot, still smoking, when Lula and I returned to the shantytown.

“How’d that go?” one of them asked.

“He got away,” Lula said. “He could really run.”

“He got motivation,” the man said.

I crawled into Logan’s tent and took the tiki. “Me too.”

“Uh-oh,” the man said. “He’s not gonna like you take the tiki. That tiki talks to him.”

I carted the tiki across the field, put it into the backseat, and clicked a seat belt around it.

“Good thing your Uncle Sandor had seat belts put into this car,” Lula said. “Otherwise Tiki would be rolling around back there.”

I got behind the wheel, plugged the key into the ignition, and jumped when someone rapped on my window.

It was Ranger.

“You left the contents of your purse in my car last night,” he said, handing me a plastic baggie.

“Thanks. And I have your gun.” I pulled the Ruger out of my bag and gave it to Ranger.

He held the gun flat in his hand and looked at it. “It smells like orange blossoms.”

“I washed it and sprayed it with air freshener.”

“You washed it?”

“I wore rubber gloves and scrubbed it with my vegetable brush. It was . . . icky.”

He yanked open the driver’s side door, pulled me out of the car, and kissed me. The kiss involved tongue and a hand on my ass, and made my nipples tingle.

“I can always count on you to brighten my day,” Ranger said.

Ranger drove off, and I got back into the Buick.

“That was hot,” Lula said. “Imagine what he’d do if you washed his Glock.”

“I’m a little flustered,” I said. “What was I doing before Ranger knocked on the window?”

“You were gonna drive somewhere.”

“Do you know where?”

“You didn’t say, but we could ride around and look for bad guys.”

I went back to Broad and took Broad to Stark Street.

“This here’s a good choice,” Lula said. “There’s always lots of bad guys on Stark Street.”

I was looking for one in particular. Melvin Barrel. I drove the length of Stark, all the way to the no-man’s-land where the redbrick row houses are covered with gang graffiti, the insides are gutted from crack fires, the rats are as big as barn cats, and the human inhabitants hide in the shadows.

I made a U-turn and did another pass down Stark. I slowed when I got to Barrel’s rooming house, idled in front of the house for a moment, and was about to drive away when I saw Barrel on the next block, walking toward us.

“Do you see him?” I asked Lula.

“Yeah, I see him. And he don’t see us. He’s texting on his cellphone, not paying attention.”

I cut the engine, and Lula and I got out and went to the sidewalk. I tucked cuffs into the waistband of my jeans for easy access, put my illegal stun gun into my back pocket, and got a grip on my pepper spray.

“What’s the plan?” Lula asked. “How about I distract him by offering him some ’ho services, and then you could sneak up behind him and give him a thousand volts. How’s that sound?”

“Sounds good. Make sure you turn him around so he doesn’t see me.”

I slipped into the doorway of a building, Lula headed for Barrel, and Barrel stepped off the curb still texting. A shiny black Mercedes sped down the side street and hit Barrel straight on. Barrel got punted about ten feet, and the Mercedes ran over him. My stomach instantly got sick and my breath caught in my throat.

“Ow,” Lula said. “That gotta hurt.”

The Mercedes came to a stop, and two men got out. They were all blinged up in gold chains and flashy running suits, and the one had a lightning bolt cut into his hair.

Lula and I ran into the street and joined the men who were standing, staring down at Barrel. Barrel wasn’t moving, and he had tire tracks across his chest.

“That’s Melvin Barrel,” the driver said.

The other guy squatted down for a closer look. “Yep. It’s Barrel all right.”

“Is he okay?” Lula asked.

“Looks to me like he’s dead,” the guy said.

“The idiot walked right in front of my car,” the driver said. “Who does that?”

“He was texting,” Lula said.

“Well, he’s not texting no more,” the driver said. He pulled out a gun and shot Barrel five times. “That’s for hitting my car, asshole.”

Lula and I sucked in some air and stumbled back about ten feet. And the two guys got into the Mercedes and drove away.

I punched 911 into my cellphone with a shaky finger and reported the accident. I called Morelli and reported the accident. And then Lula and I stood guard over the body so it didn’t get scooped up by God-knows-who like the last time we were on Stark. On a personal level, I didn’t actually care what happened to Barrel. As a professional, if the body disappeared my payday went with it. And as a woman, I was slightly nauseous.

A patrol car was the first on the scene. It was followed by the EMT truck, Morelli, and two more cop cars.

Morelli parked and sauntered over to me. “Your FTA has tire tracks on his chest.”

I made a small grimace. “Two guys in a Mercedes drove over him.”

“Technically it wasn’t a hit-and-run, though,” Lula told Morelli. “They stopped, but they just didn’t stay. They only stayed long enough to shoot him.”

“He got run over by the Mercedes, and then he got shot?” Morelli asked.

“That’s right,” Lula said. “But it was recreational shooting. Barrel was already dead from being run over.”

One of the uniforms was cordoning off the area with yellow crime scene tape. The two EMTs were shuffling around, waiting for the medical examiner to show up and take over. A small crowd was gathering, gawking at Barrel.

Morelli turned his attention to me. “You do understand that your life isn’t normal, right?”

“Barrel was texting and he stepped off a curb without looking,” I said.

“But you were here,” Morelli said. “How does it happen that you’re always right in the precise spot where disaster strikes? Your car’s been blown up how many times? And it’s never your fault. Remember when you fell off the fire escape into dog diarrhea? And the time you dated a serial killer?”

“I liked that serial killer,” Lula said. “He could make a damn good pork chop.”

“Is there a point to this?” I asked Morelli.

“No,” he said. “I’m venting. It scares the crap out of me that I’m in love with you.”

“Aw, that’s sweet,” Lula said.

I thought so too. It was kind of a backhanded admission, but it made my heart get fluttery. The sight of Barrel lying on the ground oozing body fluids snapped me back to the moment. I took my phone out of my bag. “You don’t mind if I take a picture of this guy with my cellphone, do you? I need to prove he’s dead.”

“Knock yourself out,” Morelli said. “Last time an FTA of yours went dead you asked the EMTs to drive him to the courthouse.”

“There’s a lot of paperwork when the FTA is dead,” I said. “It’s easier when you can have him show up in court.”

I took my pictures and gave Morelli a detailed description of the Mercedes driver. The medical examiner was on the scene, and the crime scene photographer was at work. Lula was looking like she was ready to break out in hives.

“I’m moving on,” I said to Morelli. “Things to do. Will I see you tonight?”

“Dinner at seven. My house. I’ll get Chinese.”