Tricky Twenty-Two

by Janet Evanovich

  “How about twenty? I bet I could get a tug from you for twenty.”

  “This here’s insulting,” Lula said. “Do you know what you could get for twenty? You could get a snootful of pepper spray. I got some in my purse.”

  Lula reached into her purse and pulled out her gun.

  His eyes got wide and he jumped away. “Crap! I know who you are. You’re the nut who shot up the balcony.”

  Someone yelled, “She’s got a gun! It’s the shooter! Call the police. Run for your lives.”

  “I was just lookin’ for my pepper spray,” Lula said.

  People were bolting up the stairs and out the front door.

  “This isn’t good,” Lula said. “This here’s pandemonium.”

  I turned Lula around and pointed her toward the kitchen. “Follow Connie!”

  We ran through the deserted kitchen and out the back door. I smacked into Dean Mintner and knocked him flat.

  Connie and I picked him up and set him on his feet.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t see you here in the dark.”

  “What are you doing out here?” Lula asked him.

  “I’m watching. I’m taking down names and collecting evidence.”

  “What kind of evidence?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Mintner said. “I haven’t figured it out.”

  “This is why I’m not going to college,” Lula said. “Everybody’s a goofball.”

  We left Mintner and hustled back to the Firebird. Lula put her handicap parking permit into the glove compartment and drove us to the office.

  “This was a good girls’ night out,” Lula said. “We should do this more often.”

  TWELVE

  I WOKE UP to the smell of coffee brewing. On the one hand terrific, and on the other hand terrifying, because it meant someone was in my kitchen. If it was a deranged killer he probably wouldn’t be making coffee. That left Morelli with a key. And Ranger with the ability to magically unlock anything. My money was on Morelli. Ranger would have brought Starbucks coffee in a container. I got out of bed and padded barefoot into the kitchen.

  Morelli was lounging against my counter with a coffee mug in his hand. He poured out a mug for me, added cream, and handed it over.

  “I need to talk to you,” he said.

  “I have a phone. I have a doorbell.”

  “I tried your doorbell. It isn’t working.”

  “You’re lucky I didn’t shoot you.”

  “Cupcake, your gun is in the cookie jar, and it isn’t loaded.”

  I drank some coffee and pushed my hair off my face. “What do you want to talk about?”

  “Doug Linken. We’re starting to get toxicology tests back, and he had traces of black gunpowder on the soles of his shoes. Harry Getz had the same gunpowder on his shoes. It’s not something you see every day. You might find it on a gunsmith or collector, but neither Linken or Getz owned a gun.”

  “Why are you telling this to me?”

  “You’re going to be with Monica Linken tonight. I’ve asked her about the gunpowder, but she had nothing. I thought you might be able to pick up something. Someone passing in front of the casket who might make his own ammo. Maybe a history buff who likes guns.”

  “Is Monica still a suspect?”

  “She’s a person of interest. She has a solid alibi on the Getz shooting. Getz’s wife has a solid alibi on the Linken shooting.”

  “So now Getz and Linken were killed by the same gun, and they both had gunpowder on their shoes.”

  “Yep.”

  “Do they have anything else in common?”

  “They were business partners.”

  “Maybe they were doing business with someone who used gunpowder.”

  “We’ve combed through all their transactions and can’t find anything, but it’s not off the table. Clearly they stepped in it somewhere.”

  “Why do you think it relates to the shootings?”

  “I wouldn’t go so far as to say it relates to the shootings. I just think it’s an interesting piece of information. It’s a mystery I wouldn’t mind having solved.”

  I put a piece of bread in the toaster and looked at Morelli. “Do you want toast? Cereal?”

  He shook his head no. “I’ve already eaten breakfast.”

  I had been sleeping in an oversized T-shirt and bikini panties. Morelli’s eyes were focused on the hem of the T-shirt that hung two inches below my butt.

  “Cute,” Morelli said.

  “Are you sure you came to talk about Doug Linken?”

  He finished his coffee and rinsed his cup out in the sink. “Yeah. I’m really screwed up, right?”

  “Looks like it to me, but what do I know.”

  He pulled me to him and kissed me. His hand slid under the T-shirt and moved to my breast, and his thumb teased across the nipple.

  His phone buzzed with a message, and we both froze.

  “Shit,” Morelli said.

  The message buzzed again. He removed his hand from my breast and checked the message.

  “This is why I have acid reflux,” he said. “Whenever I’m in the middle of anything someone gets murdered.”

  He gave me a quick kiss. He apologized and left.

  This was the second time in less than forty-eight hours that a man stopped fondling me because his phone rang. And both times it was because someone had been killed. If I wasn’t a well-adjusted, emotionally healthy person I might be bothered by this.

  I spread peanut butter on my toast, sliced some banana onto it, and ate it while I drank my coffee and checked my email.

  I deleted several offers for penis enlargement, and two offers from Russian women who wanted to meet me. I answered an email from my friend Mary Lou, and I checked a couple news sites. I was depressed after the news sites so I played Pharrell Williams’s video “Happy.” I danced along with Pharrell into the kitchen, fed Rex and gave him fresh water, and I was ready to get on with my day.

  An hour later I rolled into the office. Lula was on the couch with a copy of Star and Connie was at her desk. Vinnie’s door was shut, but his car was parked in the small lot attached to the building.

  “You’ve got a box,” Connie said to me. “It was just delivered.”

  “It looks like the size of a shoe box,” Lula said. “I bet it’s shoes.”

  There was no return address and the postmark was out of state.

  “I didn’t order shoes,” I said. “I didn’t order anything.”

  I ripped the packing tape off, opened the box, and read the enclosed card.

  “What’s it say?” Lula asked.

  “It says, I found you! I’m smart like that. Here’s something you can use until we meet in person. And it’s signed Scooter Stud Muffin.”

  I pulled out a wad of tissue paper, and we all stared into the box.

  “It’s a dildo,” Lula said. “It’s a good size, too.”

  Vinnie came out of his lair and looked at the dildo. “Cripes,” he said. “That thing’s big enough to pork a cow.”

  Lula took it out of the box and held it up for a good look. “It says here on the tag that it’s called The Whopper and it got studs for her lady’s pleasure.”

  Lula pushed a button on the scrotum and the dildo lit up and vibrated.

  “This here’s a quality dildo,” Lula said. “It got a good hum to it.”

  “Who’s Stud Muffin?” Vinnie asked.

  “Stephanie got some secret admirers,” Lula said. “They send her stuff but there’s no return address or name. Unless you count Stud Muffin as a name.”

  “That’s real interesting,” Vinnie said. “It would be even more interesting if you put the rubber wanger away and did some work. I’m not running a charity here. Why isn’t Billy Bacon back behind bars?”

  “We can’t find him,” Lula said. “He’s slippery.”

  “So set a trap. Do something.”

  Vinnie went back into his office and slammed and locked his door.

  �
�Setting a trap isn’t a bad idea,” I said. “We should give him a pizza party.”

  “I like it,” Lula said. “A big man like him doesn’t pass up food. Especially if it’s free. We’ll send them to his mama’s house. I’m sure she knows how to get in touch with him.”

  “I have a cousin working at Domino’s,” Connie said. “I’ll order it. How many do you want?”

  “Has to be enough to tempt him,” I said. “Send him four extra-large with the works. Have the delivery person say it’s part of a promotion, and he was picked out at random. Tell your cousin we want it delivered at noon.”

  “Domino’s is the best,” Lula said. “They got everything there. They even got gluten free. Maybe you should include one that’s gluten free in case Billy Bacon got issues.”

  “Do we know anyone who would have gunpowder?” I asked Connie.

  “My Uncle Lou,” Connie said. “He’s old-school. Likes to make his own shells.”

  “He must be eighty,” Lula said. “Is he still whacking people?”

  “He gets the occasional job,” Connie said. “He has easy access to nursing homes. Blends right in. Mostly these days he does mercy killings. Terminal cancer. Advanced Alzheimer’s.”

  “Besides Lou?” I asked.

  “I know some people making explosives,” Lula said.

  “Terrorists?” Connie asked.

  “Gangbangers,” Lula said. “Not all that dangerous since they all flunked out of school and can’t read. Pretty much they blow the fingers off their hands putting the shit together wrong.”

  The door to Vinnie’s inner office got yanked open again and Vinnie stuck his head out. “What are you doing still sitting there? You think the rat bastards we bail out are going to come to you?” He pulled his head back in and slammed the door shut.

  “That man has a personality problem,” Lula said.

  “Yeah, that’s the tip of the iceberg,” Connie said. “He’s also got father-in-law problems. We’re not running in the black this month, and Harry isn’t happy. Do you remember Ernest Blatzo?”

  This got a grimace out of me. Blatzo was a high-money bond who went FTA and disappeared off the face of the earth.

  “It would help a lot if you could find Blatzo,” Connie said. “He’s worth twice as much as Billy Bacon and Ken Globovic combined.”

  He was also a freak. He raped women in very brutal ways. It was suspected that some of the women he raped got chopped up into tiny pieces and fed to the pack of feral cats that lived in his yard. Since those women were never found it was hard to pin a murder charge on him. I wanted to see him behind bars, but I wasn’t excited about coming face-to-face with him. Truth is, I wasn’t all that brave. My successes were the result of stubbornness and dumb luck. Lula wasn’t that brave either. She caught people by accidentally running over them with her car or promising them a night of hot sex and then sitting on them until I showed up.

  “I have his file in my bag,” I said to Connie. “I was hoping he was out of country.”

  “We have a source who tells us Blatzo is back in his old house. No one’s actually seen him, but his herd of feral cats are back.”

  “I could throw up thinking about that,” Lula said. “That’s disgusting.”

  I headed out. “Later,” I said to Connie. “Confirm the pizza party.”

  “I’m on it,” Connie said. “What do you want me to do with the thing?”

  “Toss it,” I told her.

  “That would be a shame,” Lula said. “It’s an expensive piece of equipment. I’ll take it if nobody else wants it. I bet I could get good money for this on eBay.”

  Connie handed the dildo over to Lula, and Lula shoved it into her purse.

  “Do you want the box?” Connie asked.

  “Negative,” Lula said. “It’s easier this way.”

  We got to the curb and looked at the Buick and the Firebird.

  “What’s it going to be?” I asked Lula.

  “I’m thinking Buick. Just in case we get lucky, I don’t want to put Billy Bacon back in my Firebird.”

  “No problem.”

  We chugged away, and I took a left on Broad.

  “I don’t like the looks of this,” Lula said. “You’re going looking for Blatzo.”

  “We’ll do a drive-by in his neighborhood. If we see any cats gnawing on body parts we’ll call the police.”

  “I got creepy crawlies thinking about it. I’m gonna have nightmares tonight.”

  •••

  Blatzo lived in a hard-times, drug-infested neighborhood of dingy little cinder block houses squatting on blighted, neglected lots. Junker cars and rusted-out refrigerators were left to linger in the front yards. Rats served as target practice in the backyards. The best you could say about Blatzo’s street was that it was free of the gangbangers who lived on Stark. Here the gangbangers only stopped by occasionally to visit the meth lab that flourished two doors down from Blatzo’s.

  I idled in front of Blatzo’s house, and Lula and I looked up and down the street.

  “Don’t look like anybody’s home,” Lula said. “No lights on. No car in the driveway. Weeds don’t look trampled. No cats sitting on the stoop. Are we sure Blatzo is still living here?”

  “According to Connie. His name is on the lease as a renter, and someone is paying the rent.”

  “Are you gonna go look around?”

  “I’m thinking about it.”

  “Well, you could think about how you’re gonna do it all by yourself because I’m not walking out in that yard. There’s snakes.”

  Lula had a point. Hard to tell what was living in the tall weeds and trash.

  “There’s a path to the house,” I said. “I’m going to knock on the front door.”

  “Are you nuts? What are you gonna do after you knock? What if he answers?”

  “If he answers I’ll cuff him.”

  “The man is six foot tall, probably weighs as much as a Volkswagen, and eats raw meat.”

  I got out of the car and tucked cuffs into my right back pocket and pepper spray into the left.

  “Do you have a gun?” Lula asked.

  “I have a stun gun.”

  “Does it work?”

  I took the stun gun out of my bag and turned it on. “Yep,” I said. “It’s charged.”

  “I got another one of those feelings,” Lula said. “It’s a premonition of disaster.”

  “Chances of Blatzo being in the house are minuscule,” I said. “I’m going to knock on the door. No one will answer. Case closed.”

  “I like that thinking,” Lula said. “That makes sense. I could even take a video with my cellphone to show Vinnie we did something.”

  I squared my shoulders, tipped my chin up, and marched across the street to the house. Lula got out of the Buick and started filming. I got halfway up the path to the front door, eyes on the prize, and I stepped on a snake. I shrieked and jumped. The snake slid away into the weeds. And I ran back to the car.

  “Should I stop filming?” Lula asked.

  “Yes. Get into the car.”

  I retraced my route to Broad and parked in front of the hardware store. I went into the store, bought high rubber boots, and drove back to Blatzo’s house.

  “I don’t know if those boots are snake-proof,” Lula said. “What if you come on a snake with big fangs? Or a jumping snake?”

  I got out of the car and put the boots on. “This time I’ll watch where I’m walking.”

  “Do you want me to film?”

  “I don’t care.”

  “You sound cranky,” Lula said.

  “I’m a little stressed.”

  “You’ll feel better after the pizza party.”

  “The pizza party isn’t for us.”

  “Yeah, but there might be some left over. Wouldn’t want to waste good pizza.”

  I stomped off in my big boots. Across the street, up the path, onto the small stoop. I rang the bell, the door opened, a big hairy hand reached out, grabb
ed me by my shirt front, and dragged me into the house. The door slammed shut and I blinked up at Blatzo.

  “Ernest?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “You n-n-need to come with me. You’re in violation of your bond.”

  “I don’t feel like doing that. You know what I feel like doing?”

  Oh crap. He was going to rape me and chop me up into tiny pieces for his cats.

  “I feel like having a party,” he said. “Just you and me.”

  “Yeah, that would be good. We’ll have a party after we check you in with the court.”

  “We’ll have a party now.”

  He still had my shirt in his fist, and when he said now he jerked me off my feet and slammed me against the wall.

  I yanked the stun gun out of my pocket, pressed the go button, and rammed the prongs against his neck.

  His eyes lost focus for a split second but there was no further reaction.

  “I don’t like that,” he said. “That’s not a nice thing to do to a man who invites you to a party.”

  I kicked out at him, and he backhanded me across the face.

  The front door opened, and Lula stuck her head in. “Everything going okay in here?”

  “No!” I said. “Shoot him. Shoot him!”

  Lula reached into her purse and pulled out the dildo.

  “What the hell?” Blatzo said.

  Lula threw the dildo at him, it bounced off his forehead, and he bent to pick it up.

  “Run!” I said to Lula.

  We bolted out of the house and across the street, and jumped into the Buick. My hand was shaking so bad I couldn’t turn the key in the ignition.

  “He’s coming! He’s coming!” Lula yelled.

  I got the engine to crank over, I slammed the gas pedal to the floor, and we motored off, leaving Blatzo standing in the middle of the road. I had a white-knuckle grip on the wheel, and my heart was skipping beats.

  “I thought I was going to be cat food,” I said to Lula. “I hit him with the stun gun and he barely blinked.”

  “I left my dildo there,” Lula said.

  “No kidding. What was the deal with the dildo anyway? I told you to shoot him, not make love to him.”

  “Mostly you don’t make love to a man with a dildo,” Lula said. “Maybe if you’re another man. I don’t know too much about that side of it.”