Twisted Twenty-Six

by Janet Evanovich

  I helped myself to coffee and brought it to the little kitchen table. I’d eaten baby food at that table, and I’d done my homework at it too. I couldn’t imagine the table not being there. The refrigerator and the stove got changed out, but the table remained. It was the heart of the kitchen, and the kitchen was the heart of the house. Even after the attempted kidnapping, the kitchen still felt safe. Even with my mother nipping at the whiskey and my grandmother reading the obits for entertainment, the kitchen felt sane. Going with Grandma’s theory, I was pretty confident that all our souls were intact, and that the kitchen was partly responsible for keeping them that way.

  Grandma brought her bowl of oatmeal to the table. “That’s a pretty necklace you’re wearing,” she said. “Is it new?”

  “Yep,” I said. “Ranger gave it to me.” I pulled Grandma’s necklace out of my pocket and handed it to her. “He gave me one for you, too.”

  My mother was at the sink, washing out the oatmeal pot. She stopped scrubbing and looked over at Grandma and me.

  “It’s to help keep us safe until we get the key issue sorted out,” I said. “It’s a panic button. If you squeeze it, Ranger will send someone to find you. He’ll know where you are as long as you’re wearing the necklace. You should put it on and not take it off. It’s waterproof. You can wear it in the shower.”

  Grandma put the necklace on. “I feel safer already,” she said.

  My mother rinsed the pot and set it in the dish rack. “I noticed the Rangeman car was gone this morning.”

  “Ranger’s replaced it with the necklace and some surveillance equipment,” I said.

  “It would be good if we’ve seen the end of it,” she said. “Hopefully those two thugs won’t return.”

  I could guarantee it.

  “I have to go to work,” I said. “Text me if anything changes here.”

  I rinsed my coffee cup and noticed the ironing board had been put away, but the iron remained on the kitchen counter.

  * * *

  —

  I missed the Boston Kreme donut by five minutes. Lula was enjoying it when I walked into the office. Just as well, I thought. It wouldn’t hurt to clean up my act with diet as well as everything else. All part of the new Stephanie. The new Stephanie is adventuresome, with metallic extensions in her hair. The new Stephanie doesn’t pay attention to body shaming because she has dainty breasts. And now the new Stephanie is going to be a model of good health.

  “There’s a chocolate frosted in there if you want it,” Lula said. “It’s not a Boston Kreme but it’s got sprinkles on it. You don’t often see that on a chocolate frosted donut.”

  I took the donut and ate it. Slight setback for the new Stephanie.

  “I have a guy I’d like you to run through the system for me,” I said to Connie. “Sylvester Lucca. He belongs to the feet in the red Air Jordans.”

  “And you’re looking to connect him to someone associated with Jimmy,” Connie said. “You want to know who hired him.”

  “Yes.”

  “I got my day planned out,” Lula said. “I’m going to find that snot-nosed Carol Joyce. Just because he made fools out of us two times, I bet he thinks he can always make fools out of us.”

  “Always is a long time,” I said.

  Lula took another donut. “You bet your ass.”

  I checked the time. “It’s too early for shoplifting. We can make a run past his house to see if he’s home. I’ll drive. Ranger took pity on me and gave me a loaner.”

  “I’m all about it,” Lula said.

  We left the office and went to the Macan.

  “This here’s some good wheels,” Lula said, sliding onto the passenger seat. “You have to do anything special to get this?”

  “No. Everyone felt I needed a safer car that was easier for me to steer with my bad arm.”

  “Too bad. I wouldn’t mind doing something special for Ranger. He wouldn’t even have to give me a car.”

  I bypassed the center of town and took Liberty to Cherry Street. Mrs. Joyce was in front of her house with a fat Chihuahua that was all hunched over.

  “That don’t look good at all,” Lula said. “They need to give that dog some prunes.”

  “The Escalade isn’t in the driveway,” I said, pulling to the curb.

  Lula rolled her window down. “Hey, Mrs. J.,” she said. “Where’s your boy, Carol?”

  “He’s at his office,” Mrs. Joyce said. “Are you still looking for him?”

  “Yep,” Lula said. “We just haven’t had any luck catching him. Where’s his office at?”

  “I don’t know exactly. I’ve never been there. I know it’s by the outlet mall, because he’s always saying how convenient it is when he wants to be thrifty.”

  “I bet,” Lula said. “Is it in an office building?”

  “No. Carol doesn’t like those high-rises where he has to cart everything up in the elevator. His office is in one of those strips of offices. More like little garden apartments. I saw a picture of it once. All the units were painted a salmon color.” She looked down at the dog. He was slowly turning in circles, still hunched over. “Go poopoo,” she said. “Make a poopoo for Mommy.”

  “Okay, we gotta go now,” Lula said. “Good luck with the dog. I had an uncle who looked like that once. He had to get an enema, and then he about exploded. You might want to stand back a little, just in case.”

  I drove to the end of the street and got a bird’s-eye view of the outlet mall up on my cellphone. I moved around the area until I found something that looked like strips of offices.

  “I know where that is,” Lula said. “It’s a mix of self-storage units and office units. I was at a studio there a couple times during my short but highly acclaimed adult film career.”

  “It looks like it’s off Rosewood.”

  “Yep. There’s a whole complex between Rosewood and the highway. Must be a hundred of these little units that people use for all kinds of things.”

  I took Route One to the Rosewood exit, drove a half mile on Rosewood, and came to a sign for Rosewood Light Industries and Storage.

  “This is it,” Lula said. “It’s like a maze after you get inside the complex. You’ll have to ride up and down a bunch of dead-end streets to look for the Escalade.”

  I cruised three streets and found the Escalade on the fourth. It was parked in front of a middle unit on Avenue D. Five units on one side of it and six on the other. The entire stucco building was painted salmon. Each unit had a door. No windows. Each unit had a number, and most had plaques with names. The Escalade was in front of CJ Enterprises.

  “Lots of these are used for storage,” Lula said. “They all have roll-up garage doors in the back and there’s service roads behind them.”

  I was about to park behind the Escalade, blocking its escape, and immediately thought better of it. Been there, done that. I parked two units down, and we went to the door of CJ Enterprises. I knocked and no one answered. I tried the door. Not locked. I opened it, and Lula and I stepped in. It was basically an empty room. There was an old wooden desk and chair in the middle of the room. Some empty cardboard boxes lay in a jumble in a corner. A long folding table was against one wall. No stolen merchandise. No Carol Joyce, but the lights were on. There was an open door and a closed door next to the folding table.

  “That’s the bathroom and the utility closet,” Lula said. “It’s a pretty basic setup.”

  We crossed the room and looked in the bathroom. Sink and toilet and a double-door closet. I opened the closet and found stacks of men’s jeans.

  “They’re real nice,” Lula said. “Ralph Lauren. They’re pricey jeans. I wouldn’t be leaving them in a bathroom.”

  We heard a scuffling behind us, and the door slammed shut.

  “What the heck?” Lula said.

  I tried the doorknob. “We�
�re locked in.”

  “No problem,” Lula said. “I’ll shoot the shit out of this door.”

  “Where’s your gun?”

  “It’s in my purse.”

  “Where’s your purse?”

  “It’s in the car.”

  “Plan B,” I said, pulling my phone out of my pocket. “I’ll call for help.”

  “Babe,” Ranger said on the first ring.

  “I’m locked in a bathroom.”

  “And?”

  “I can’t get out. The bathroom is in the CJ Enterprises unit, Avenue D.”

  “Anything else you want to tell me?”

  “Nope. That’s it.”

  The line went dead, and I knew help was on the way.

  “This is annoying,” Lula said. “I bet it was Carol Joyce who locked us in here. I’m disliking him more all the time.”

  I checked my email and text messages, and before I had a chance to look in at Facebook, I heard footsteps and a rap on the door.

  “Anybody in there?” a male voice asked.

  “Yep,” I said. “Can you get me out?”

  “You’re padlocked in. Hang on and we’ll get the bolt cutters.”

  Five minutes later, Lula and I were set free.

  “There are some real nice men’s jeans in there,” Lula said to the two Rangeman guys. “You should check them out and see if any of them are your size. Our treat.”

  We reached my new Porsche, and “losers” was written in lipstick on the driver’s side door window.

  “Looks like the little prick hit the cosmetics counter,” Lula said. “How do you suppose he knew this was our car?”

  “It’s the only one here.”

  “He has a lot of nerve calling us losers. We might be inept at this job, but we aren’t losers. ‘Losers’ implies a whole other thing. He doesn’t know us well enough to call us losers. He could have written a lot of other stuff on the window that would apply better. For instance, he could have written ‘pussy,’ and it would be insulting but accurate, you see what I’m saying?”

  I got a tissue out of my bag and tried to wipe the lipstick away, but it turned into a big pink smear.

  “I got a wipe,” Lula said, ripping a packet open. “Best invention ever. It’s like taking a little bit of clean with you wherever you go.” She scrubbed the window and got most of the lipstick off. “Now what? I think we should try Macy’s. He likes that store.”

  “You still want to chase after this guy?”

  “You bet your ass. Just because he made fools out of us three times, don’t mean one of these times we won’t luck out. Notice he called us losers and not quitters. That’s on account of we never quit. In my mind, that’s the difference between being a loser and a winner. A winner is willing to look like a idiot for as long as it takes to get the job done. I figure you stick with it long enough and you win. Unless you die or come down with some disease like shingles or cancer of the rectum. If I ever got cancer of the rectum, I’d go to the best rectumologist out there. Like I’d get a celebrity rectumologist. I wouldn’t mess around with some local yokel.”

  “All good to know,” I said, “but I vote we take a break from Carol Joyce and go back to the office to see what Connie has for me on Sylvester Lucca.”

  “Works for me,” Lula said. “There might be some donuts left.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CONNIE HANDED ME a slim manila folder. “Not much on him,” she said. “The interesting part is that he needed money. He was living way beyond what he could afford. He was in an expensive apartment, and he had a flashy, expensive car. He was behind on his payments for both. He had three maxed-out credit cards. Two in collection.”

  “He had just the one job?”

  “Yeah. He was a trainer at Miracle Fitness.”

  “No connection to Jimmy?”

  “None that I could find. He fits the profile of a wiseguy, but I didn’t see anything that would indicate he was part of the club. I called a couple of my friends that use Miracle Fitness, and they said Lucca was a real ladies’ man. Came on to everyone. Didn’t much care about age or marital status. I guess it was generally believed he fooled around on the side with some of his clients.”

  “Do we have a list of his clients?”

  “Not exactly. He taught classes that didn’t require a sign-up. When you join Miracle Fitness you get to use the equipment and attend the classes. Some of the trainers had their own private clients, but it wasn’t done through Miracle Fitness. I gave you a copy of the Miracle membership list. I sort of hacked into their system to get it.”

  “Did you look through the list?”

  “No. I didn’t have time.”

  “We should go check this place out,” Lula said. “I always wanted to see what it was like inside. I figured it had to be good, since they had those naked statues on the outside. I even thought about joining a couple times when I wanted to tone up. It’s in a convenient location.”

  “Why didn’t you join?” I asked.

  “I figured it was expensive. Anything that’s got naked gods by the front door has to be pricey. And it’s not like I don’t already have some tone. I mean, I got tone coming out of my ass.”

  “So, it seemed like a waste of money,” I said.

  “Not so much a waste as I had to prioritize. Instead of putting my money into the gym, I put my money into the gym clothes. I got a bunch of those leggings and sporty bra tops. I got a set that’s leopard print.”

  “Do you ever wear them?”

  “Hell, yeah,” Lula said. “I put them on every Sunday after church and then I go to the supermarket to do my weekly shopping. There’s a lot of bending and lifting involved. I’m all about multitasking. And they’re comfy. Gym clothes got a lot of stretch to them.” She took the last donut and turned to me. “We should go get you some. It would be a good part of your ‘new Stephanie’ program. We could get a set that goes with your extensions. They’d be a excellent accessory. Gym clothes aren’t real expensive, either, if you know where to shop. I get mine at Target and when the seams split open, I just go get some more.”

  “Maybe they wouldn’t split if you’d go easier on the donuts,” Connie said.

  “Nope,” Lula said. “It’s not the donuts. It’s that I get a workout at the supermarket on account of the beer I like is always on the bottom shelf.”

  I stuffed the file into my messenger bag. “Let’s take a look at Miracle Fitness.”

  * * *

  —

  I parked the Porsche in the lot attached to the gym, and Lula and I walked into the lobby. The floor was polished marble, and the reception desk was high-gloss wood. The young woman behind the desk was in black workout clothes that showed she was fitness perfection. A glass wall running across the back of the lobby gave us a view of the fitness equipment and the women using it.

  “They must all be beginners,” Lula whispered to me, “on account of none of them look like the bitch behind the desk.”

  “I’m interested in a membership,” I said to the woman. “Do you have a list of classes? And I’d also like some information on your trainers.”

  “Of course,” she said. “I can give you a packet that will answer all your questions. It will also include a breakdown of our fees and various membership choices. Would you like a tour of our facility?”

  “A tour would be great,” I said, taking a glossy pink folder from her.

  Four minutes later we were following a guy named Thor.

  “This is the Pilates room,” he said. “We have two of them. As you can see there’s a class going on. The second one is almost always free for unsupervised use. Any questions?”

  “I got one,” Lula said. “Is Thor your real name?”

  “No,” he said. “My real name is Bruce. They make you take a godlike name when you come to work here.�
�

  “I got another question,” Lula said. “Are there any more naked statues besides the ones out front?”

  “Nope. That’s it.”

  We looked in on a Zumba class and a spinning class.

  “I couldn’t do that spinning class,” Lula said. “My cooter falls asleep when I ride a bike.”

  I have the same problem, but I wasn’t comfortable discussing my cooter with Thor.

  “I have a friend who took some classes with one of the trainers here and really liked him,” I said. “I don’t know his name, but he wore red Air Jordans.”

  “That would be Zeus,” Thor said. “He’s dead.” Thor moved to the next door. “We also have a room with a heavy bag and a couple speed bags if you’re into that.”

  “Whoa, wait a minute,” I said. “Zeus is dead? What happened?”

  “Don’t know. They found him behind a dumpster.”

  “Who would want to kill Zeus?”

  “Probably lots of people,” Thor said. “He was an okay guy, but he messed around. And I think he owed a bunch of people money.”

  “Miracle Fitness won’t be the same without a Zeus,” Lula said.

  “It’s only temporary,” Thor said. “The new Zeus starts tomorrow.”

  “The new Zeus,” Lula said. “That’s like the old Stephanie and the new Stephanie, only instead of changing himself, the old Zeus got dead and replaced. Gives you something to think about when you see how that’s another route to take.”

  If Thor was confused, he didn’t show it. He just stood there and calmly waited to continue his tour. Probably he smoked a lot of pot.

  “I guess that’s the cycle of life,” Lula said. “Still, seems like it was awful easy to replace Zeus.”

  “They keep a file of applicants in the office,” Thor said.

  Lula and I peeked into the ladies’ locker room and followed Thor back to the lobby.

  “This has been helpful,” I said. “I’ll go home and look through the packet of information.”

  We returned to the SUV and buckled ourselves in.

  “It’s wrong that someone could kill Zeus,” Lula said.