Plum Spooky

  “Stand here, and don‘t move, and let me look around,” Diesel said.

  I listened to him search the condo for what seemed like forever and a day. My eyes adjusted to the absence of light enough to see a few large shapes but never enough to make out detail. From time to time, I‘d see a penlight flick on, and moments later, it would flick off. Diesel could see in the dark, but not perfectly.

  “This is boring,” I said to him.

  “I‘m almost done.”

  “Are you finding anything helpful?”

  “He was planning on leaving the country. He had a suitcase packed, and his passport is out on his dresser. No travel itinerary. There are computer connections but no computer. And Wulf‘s been here. The place reeks of him.”

  “The crime lab might have taken the computer.”

  “It‘s possible. Or Wulf might have taken it.”

  Diesel wrapped an arm around me and steered me to the foyer and out the front door. We made a halfhearted attempt to reattach the crime-​scene tape, but it had lost most of its sticking power, so we left it on the ground and scuttled back to my car.

  Halfway home my phone rang.

  “Carl‘s here,” Grandma Mazur said. “I went to answer the doorbell, and there he was on the porch looking all dejected.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “He‘s here in the kitchen, eating cookies.”

  “I‘ll be right there.”

  Thirty minutes later, Diesel walked into my apartment, went straight to the couch, and flipped the ball game on. Carl scampered up beside him.

  “Make yourself at home,” I said.

  “I‘m going to pretend that wasn‘t sarcasm,” Diesel said.

  “I don‘t suppose you have any chips?”

  I brought him a bag of corn chips and a jar of salsa. I took a chip for Rex and dropped it into his cage, along with a baby carrot. I put my mother‘s leftover bag in the fridge, and I shuffled back to the couch.

  “I‘m going to bed,” I said to Diesel. “Alone. And I expect to wake up alone.”

  “You bet.”

  I looked down at Carl. “And I expect you to behave yourself.”

  Carl did a palms-​up and shrugged.

  Stephanie Plum 14.5 - Plum Spooky

  SIX

  I WOKE UP with a heavy arm across my chest. Diesel. I knew from past experiences that Diesel didn‘t fit on my couch and wasn‘t the sort of guy to tough it out on the floor, so I‘d taken the precaution of going to bed dressed in T-​shirt and running shorts.

  Diesel shifted next to me and half-​opened his eyes. “Coffee,” he murmured.

  I slithered out from under him, rolled out of bed, and stepped over the clothes he‘d left on the floor, including seafoam green boxers with palm trees and hula girls.

  I used the bathroom and shuffled into the living room, where Carl was watching the news on tele vision. I got the coffee going and fed Rex. I wasn‘t sure what monkeys ate in the morning, so I gave Carl a box of Fruit Loops. Diesel ambled into the kitchen and poured himself a mug of coffee.

  “What have we got to eat?” he asked.

  “Carl‘s eating the Fruit Loops, so that leaves leftovers from last night, peanut butter, hamster crunchies, and half a jar of salsa. Looks like you ate all the chips.”

  “I shared with Carl.” He retrieved the leftover bag from the refrigerator and dumped it on the counter. Pot roast, gravy, green bean casserole. No mashed potatoes. He put it all on a plate and nuked it. “There‘s enough here for two.”

  I sipped my coffee. “I‘ll pass.”

  Diesel dug into the mountain of food and ate it all.

  “It‘s not fair,” I said. “You eat tons of food. Why aren‘t you fat?”

  “High rate of metabolism and clean living.”

  “What are you doing today?”

  “I thought I‘d hang out,” Diesel said.

  “You and Carl?”

  “Yeah.”

  Carl gave Diesel a thumbs-​up.

  “Well, I‘m a working girl,” I told him. “I‘m going to take a shower and go catch a bad guy.”

  “Knock yourself out,” Diesel said. “If you get a line on Munch, let me know.”

  LULA WAS ON the couch in the bonds office when I walked in. She was wearing a pink sweat suit and sneakers, and she was holding a box of tissues. She didn‘t have any makeup on, and her hair was somewhere between rat‘s nest and exploded canary.

  “What‘s up?” I asked.

  “I‘m dying is what‘s up,” Lula said. “I got the flu back. I woke up this morning, and I couldn‘t stop sneezing. And my eyes are all puffy. And I feel like crap.”

  “Maybe it‘s an allergy,” I said to her.

  “I don‘t get allergies. I never been allergic to anything.”

  “How‘d it go with Tank last night? Did you set a new date for the wedding?”

  “I decided December first is a good time on account of it‘ll be easy to remember for anniversaries.”

  “That was okay with Tank?”

  “Yeah. He had his eyes closed when I told him, but I‘m pretty sure he was listening.”

  Lula sneezed and blew her nose. “I swear, this just came on me. One minute, I‘m doing the nasty, and then next thing, I got the flu again.”

  “Maybe you‘re allergic to Tank,” Connie said.

  “I gotta get my numbers done,” Lula said. “I think there‘s something wrong with my juju. I‘m gonna call Miss Gloria. This just isn‘t right.”

  I pulled Gordo Bollo‘s file out of my bag. “I‘m going to look in on Mr. Bollo. According to his file, he works for Greenblat Produce on Water Street.”

  “I‘ll go with you,” Lula said. “I heard about Greenblat. That‘s a big fruit distributor. I could get an orange or a grapefruit for my bad juju while we‘re there. And I‘ll call Miss Gloria from the car.”

  We piled into the Jeep and I took Hamilton, driving toward Broad Street. I had my top up but none of the windows zipped in. It was the end of September, and Trenton was enjoying a last-​ditch warm spell.

  “Hello,” Lula said into her phone. “This here‘s Lula, and I need to talk to Miss Gloria. It‘s an emergency. I‘m sick, and I think it‘s my juju, and I need my numbers done right away before I might die or something.” Lula disconnected and dropped her phone into her purse. “I hate being sick. No one should ever be sick. And if they do have to be sick, there should never be mucus involved.”

  I didn‘t want to hear any more about mucus, so I punched the radio on, found a rap station for Lula, and blasted it out. By the time I rolled to a stop in front of Greenblat Produce, Lula was on a rant over my radio.

  “You can‘t play rap on this cheap-​ass radio,” she said. “There‘s no bass. This is like Alvin and the Chipmunks do Jay-​Z. On the other hand, your open-​air car got my head cleared out. I can breathe. I don‘t even feel a sneeze coming on.”

  Greenblat Produce was housed in a large cement-​block ware house with a loading dock in the rear and a small windowless office in the front. There were four desks in the office, and they were occupied by women who looked like Connie clones.

  “What?” one of them said to me.

  “I‘m looking for Gordo Bollo.”

  “Oh damn, what‘d he do now?”

  “He forgot his court date. I represent his bail bondsman, and I need to get him rescheduled.”

  “I guess it could be worse,” she said.

  “Oh boy,” Lula said to me. “This guy‘s in deep doo-​doo when he got worse visitors than us.”

  “He‘s in the back,” the woman said. “Go through this door behind me. He‘s probably sorting tomatoes.”

  Lula and I entered the ware house, and I showed her a photo of Gordo.

  “He looks real familiar,” Lula said. “I know him from somewhere. Maybe I knew him in a professional manner from when I was a ‘ho. No wait, that‘s not it. Now, that‘s gonna drive me nuts. I hate when this happens. Okay, I got it. He looks like
Curly from the Three Stooges. Same bowling ball head and everything. No wonder his wife divorced him. Who‘d want to be married to a man with a head like a bowling ball?”

  “Have you been taking cold medicine?”

  “Maybe I had a couple hits this morning for medicinal purposes,” Lula said.

  “I think you should wait in the car.”

  “What? I‘m not waiting in no car. I want to see the guy with the bowling ball head.”

  “Fine, but don‘t say anything.”

  “My lips are sealed. See what I‘m doing? I‘m zipping them and locking them. And look at this. I‘m throwing away the key.”

  Lula sneezed and farted.

  “Oops, excuse me,” Lula said. “I thought I was done sneezing. Good thing we‘re in this big ware house with all this rotting fruit.”

  I took a giant step away from Lula and scanned the room. I walked down an aisle formed from crates of iceberg lettuce, turned the corner, and found Bollo off-​loading a pallet of tomatoes.

  “Gordo Bollo?” I asked.

  “Who wants to know?”

  “We want to know,” Lula said. “Who the heck do you think?”

  I gave Bollo my card. “I represent your bail bondsman,” I told him. “You missed your court date, and you need to reschedule.”

  “The whole thing is bogus,” he said. “My foot got stuck on the accelerator.”

  “You run over that guy twice,” Lula said.

  “Yeah, my foot got stuck twice. It was an accident.”

  “It really doesn‘t matter,” I said to him. “You‘ll have a chance to explain all that if you‘ll just come with me to get a new date.”

  “I can‘t go now. I‘m working.”

  “These look like real nice tomatoes,” Lula said.

  And then she sneezed and farted again.

  “Cripes, lady,” Bollo said. “You just cut the cheese on the tomatoes.”

  “I didn‘t do no such thing,” Lula said. “I was facing the other direction.” She turned and looked behind her. “I laid one on these grapefruits from Guatemala. And anyways, it‘s not my fault. I got bad juju going. I‘m waitin‘ on a call from Miss Gloria.”

  “This won‘t take long,” I said to Bollo.

  “I‘m not coming with you. Go away. Leave me alone.”

  “I gotta get out of here,” Lula said. “There‘s something in here making my nose twitch.”

  “Go out to the car. I‘ll be there in a minute.”

  “You sure you don‘t need me?” Lula asked.

  “I‘m sure!”

  Bollo went back to sorting tomatoes.

  “Listen up,” I said to him. “You are required by law to return to the court, and I‘m authorized to use force if necessary.”

  “Oh yeah? Force this,” he said.

  And he hit me square in the forehead with a tomato. I turned and SPLAT—I took another in the back of the head. By the time I reached the door, I‘d taken at least three more tomatoes.

  “Uh-​oh,” a Connie clone said when I staggered into the office. “Looks like you pissed Gordo off. That man could use some anger management.”

  “I‘ll be back,” I told her. “How late does he work?”

  “He‘ll be here until four.”

  I left the office and settled myself behind the wheel of the Jeep.

  “What the Sam Hill happened to you?” Lula wanted to know.

  “Bollo needs anger management.”

  “I‘d go shoot him or something for you, but I‘m waiting on Miss Gloria.”

  I wheeled out of the lot, turned onto Broad, and Miss Gloria called Lula back.

  “Yeah?” Lula said to Miss Gloria. “Un-​hunh, un-​hunh, un-​hunh.”

  “Well?” I asked her when she disconnected.

  “It‘s my moons. Miss Gloria ran my numbers, and they didn‘t look so good, so then she did my chart, and it turns out my moons are all screwed up.”

  “So?”

  “I just gotta wait it out. She said I need to be extra careful during this time and not make any big decisions on account of they could be life changing and I could decide the wrong thing.”

  “Because of your moons?”

  “Yeah, and we‘re on the cusp of something right now, but cell reception wasn‘t good, so I didn‘t get it all.”

  I parked curbside at the office and followed Lula through the front door.

  “Omigod,” Connie said. “What happened? Is that blood?”

  “Tomatoes.”

  “Gordo Bollo had issues with takin‘ a ride with us,” Lula said.

  “I need cuffs and pepper spray and a stun gun,” I told Connie.

  “You haven‘t got any?”

  “She lost them when someone stole her purse at the mall last week,” Lula said. “I was with her. One minute, we were in the food court, eating pizza, and next thing, she didn‘t have no purse. Lucky she just paid for the pizza, and she had her wallet in her pocket, or she wouldn‘t have no credit cards.”

  “Take what ever you need,” Connie said.

  I got myself outfitted, and walked outside into the midday sunshine. A black Porsche turbo slid to a stop behind my Jeep, and Ranger angled out from behind the wheel and stood hands on hips, looking me over.

  “Babe,” Ranger said. And he almost smiled.

  Ranger dresses in black. The rest of him comes in varying shades of brown. Silky dark brown hair, light brown skin, and brown eyes that are more often than not hidden behind mirrored sunglasses. He‘s two months older than I am and years ahead in life experience. He‘s a security expert and part own er of Rangeman, a protective ser vices company located in a stealth town house in center city.

  “Tomatoes,” I said by way of explanation.

  “Do you need help?”

  “No. But thanks for asking.”

  “Diesel is back,” Ranger said.

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  “I woke up with a migraine this morning.” Ranger picked a chunk of tomato out of my hair. “Word on the street is that you‘re looking for Munch, and Munch is looking for pure barium. And he‘s willing to pay serious money. There are a couple vendors who deal in this sort of thing. Solomon Cuddles and Doc Weiner. If you watch one of these guys, you might run into Munch. You can find Cuddles at the mall somewhere between the food court and the Gap. Weiner operates out of the Sky Social Club on Stark. Don‘t go in there alone. In fact, don‘t go in there at all.”

  “Why would Munch want barium?”

  “I don‘t know. It‘s commonly used in X-​ray imaging. And it‘s useful in making certain kinds of superconductors. I‘m sure it has other uses, but I‘m not a barium expert.”

  A shiny black SUV rolled to a stop behind Ranger‘s Porsche. Tank was in Rangeman black fatigues behind the wheel, and Hal was next to him.

  “I have to go,” Ranger said. “Try not to stand too close to Diesel. He has some bad enemies. You don‘t want to get caught in the cross fire.”

  Stephanie Plum 14.5 - Plum Spooky

  SEVEN

  DIESEL OPENED THE door to my apartment before I had a chance to plug my key in.

  “Did you feel my sensory imprint approaching?” I asked him.

  “No. I was looking out the window, and I saw you pull into the parking lot. What‘s with the tomatoes?”

  “Uncooperative FTA. I tried to take him down in a produce ware house.”

  “If we put some mayo on you, I could eat you for lunch. Which reminds me… there‘s no food here.”

  “That‘s because you and your monkey have eaten it all.”

  “Hey, he‘s not my monkey,” Diesel said.

  “Speaking of the monkey, where is he?”

  “I think he‘s in the bathroom.”

  I heard the toilet flush, the bathroom door banged open, and Carl walked into the living room. He waved at me, climbed onto the couch, and remoted the tele vision on.

  “Did you wash your hands?” I asked him.

  He held his hands ab
ove his head and gave me the finger.

  “He‘s not normal,” I said to Diesel.