Plum Lucky

  I followed Diesel down the stairs, through the small lobby, and out the back door. We got to the car, and he took the keys from me.

  “Excuse me?” I said.

  “I’ll drive.”

  “I don’t think so. This is my car, and I drive.”

  “The guy drives. Everyone knows that.”

  “Only in Saudi Arabia.”

  He dangled the keys over my head. “Do you think you can get these keys from me?”

  “Do you think you can walk after I kick you in the knee?”

  “You can be a real pain in the ass,” Diesel said.

  Another tear slid down my cheek.

  “You forced yourself to do that,” Diesel said.

  “I didn’t. I’m feeling very emotional. I’m hungry and I need a shower and some awful toad man is going to shoot my grandmother. And I’m tired. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.”

  “It was nice last night,” Diesel said. “I liked holding you.”

  “You’re trying to soften me up.”

  “Is it working?”

  I did some mental eye rolling and got into the passenger side of the car.

  The car wash wasn’t far from my apartment. We cruised past, made a U-​turn, and drove by a second time. It was a little after eleven o’clock on a Thursday, and the car wash was empty. Three Hispanic guys in car wash gear lounged in front of the drive-​through brushless system that was built into a cement block tunnel. The waiting room and Delvina’s office were a couple feet away in a second cement block building. The waiting room was glass-​fronted, and I could see some vending machines and a counter with a cash register, but no people. There were two junker cars in the lot. Nothing that looked like it would belong to Delvina.

  Diesel drove around a couple blocks, getting the lay of the land, looking for black Mafia staff cars. We didn’t see any Mafia cars, horse barns, hay wagons, or men hobbling around holding their privates because Grandma finally managed to get her leg up high enough to do damage.

  “Delvina could have your grandmother stashed anywhere,” Diesel said. “The horse is a whole other thing. You don’t ride a horse through downtown Trenton to get handed off for ransom. Delvina needs a horse van to move Doug around. So far, I’m not seeing any evidence of a horse or a van.”

  Diesel turned onto Roebling and slowed when he came to Delvina’s social club. It was a dingy, redbrick, two-​story row house. Two metal folding chairs from Lugio’s Funeral Home had been placed beside the front stoop. This was Chambersburg patio furniture. Pottery Barn, eat your heart out. There was no visible activity in or around the club. No place to hide a horse.

  Diesel took the alley behind the row houses. Each house had a small, narrow yard with a single-​car garage at the rear. Diesel parked halfway down the alley, left the car, and walked. He looked in each of the garages and in all the yards.

  “No sign of a horse,” he said when he returned. “But I’m guessing a couple people are hijacking trucks. Do you need a toaster?”

  I called Connie and asked if Delvina had any other properties.

  “Hold on,” Connie said. “I’ll run him through some programs.”

  I listened to Connie tap onto her computer keyboard and waited while she read through information appearing on her screen.

  “So far, I’m only showing his house in Cranbury and his house in Bucks County. Plus the car wash. I know he owns other properties, but they were probably bought through a holding company. I can run that down, but it’ll take a while. I’ll call you back.”

  “Thanks.”

  “We have time,” Diesel said. “We might as well look at the house in Cranbury.”

  Cranbury is a pretty little town within shouting distance of Route 130. Delvina lived on a quiet, tree-​lined street. His house was white clapboard with black shutters and a red door. It was two stories, with a two-​car detached garage. The lot was maybe a quarter acre and filled with trees and flowerbeds and shrubs. Mrs. Delvina liked to garden.

  “This all seems so benign, so normal,” Diesel said, sitting in the car, looking across the street at the house.

  “Maybe when Delvina is in this house he is sort of normal.”

  Diesel methodically drove up and down streets in Delvina’s neighborhood. There were some rural areas around Cranbury where a horse could be kept without notice, but we didn’t know where to begin.

  I called Connie for a property update.

  “I’m not finding anything local,” Connie said. “He’s got real estate in the Caymans and a condo in Miami under LD Sons Import.”

  “Did you try his wife’s maiden name?”

  “Yeah. Nothing came up.”

  Diesel put the Monte Carlo into gear and headed out of town, back to Trenton. We were on Broad Street when Flash called. I gave Diesel raised eyebrows, and he shook his head no. No sign of Grandma or Doug in Bucks County.

  “I could use a change of clothes,” Diesel told Flash. “And check to see if the O’Connor mess has been resolved. If it hasn’t been resolved and I need to keep him close, he’s going to need clothes, too. And a toothbrush.”

  We stopped at Cluck-​in-​a-​Bucket, got bags of food, and brought them back to my apartment.

  Snuggy was still on the couch in front of the television. We dumped the food on the coffee table and we all dug in.

  “I got an idea while you were gone,” Snuggy said. “Delvina won’t give us Grandma, because we don’t have all the money, but maybe he’ll take the money we’ve got in exchange for Doug. We can ask for another twenty-​four hours to come up with the rest. And here’s the best part.

  Once we get hold of Doug, I can ask him where Delvina is keeping Grandma.”

  Diesel was halfway into a second chicken sandwich. “On the surface, that sounds like an okay idea. If it turns out you can’t actually talk to that horse, I’ll throw you off the Route 1 bridge into the Delaware River.”

  “You have trust issues,” Snuggy said to Diesel. “I sense some passive-​aggressive tendencies.”

  “I’m not passive-​aggressive,” Diesel said. “I’m actively aggressive. And I’d have to be an idiot to trust you. You’re a nut.”

  “Should I call Delvina?” I asked Diesel.

  “Yeah. At the very worst, it’ll buy us some time.”

  I had the money in the duffel bag on the seat next to me. I eased the Monte Carlo up to the car wash and put it in park. I got out and a guy in a car wash uniform got in. The Monte was rolled through the car wash, and when it emerged on the opposite side, the guy got out holding the duffel bag. He walked over to me and gave me a piece of paper. “This is from Mr. Delvina. He said you’d know what to do.”

  Diesel and Snuggy were in the RV half a block away. I drove around the block and parked my clean Monte Carlo behind the RV. I got out, locked up, and climbed on board. Snuggy was at the wheel. He was the only one who could fit in the seat.

  “Here’s the address,” I said to Snuggy. “It’s south of town, off Broad. It’s a light industrial park that’s pretty much abandoned.”

  Ten minutes later, Snuggy maneuvered the RV into the parking lot of a small warehouse. Grass grew from cracks in the pavement and one of the front office windows was covered with a plywood slab. Diesel hopped out and stood still for a moment. I supposed he was taking some sort of cosmic temperature. He walked to a side door, and Snuggy and I hopped out of the RV and followed him.

  Diesel opened the door, and we all peered into the dim interior. Something rustled in a far corner, and deep in shadow I could see the horse. He was tethered to a cinder block. He turned his head and looked at us and made a horse sound. Not a high-​pitched whinny. This was more of a low snuffle.

  “Doug!” Snuggy yelled. And he ran to the horse and threw his arms around the horse’s neck.

  Diesel and I approached the horse, and I could see why Snuggy was so taken. The animal was beautiful. His mane and tail were black and his coat was chestnut. He had large, soulful brown eyes and
long lashes. And he was massive. Even in the dark warehouse, you could sense his power. It was a lot like standing next to Diesel.

  We cut the rope away from the cinder block and led Doug through the warehouse to the parking lot.

  “Are you sure this is going to work?” I asked Snuggy.

  “Sure, it’ll work,” Snuggy said. “Doug’s a real trouper- right, Doug?”

  Doug looked at Snuggy with his huge horse eye.

  “Just exactly how do you talk to him?” I asked Snuggy.

  “It’s sort of telepathic.”

  “Can he understand me?”

  “Yep. See, that’s the mistake people make. Everyone thinks just because animals can’t talk means they can’t understand.”

  I thought about Morelli’s dog, Bob. I was pretty sure Bob didn’t understand a damn thing.

  “Go ahead,” Snuggy said to Doug. “Give her a sign that you understand.”

  Doug blinked.

  “See,” Snuggy said. “Impressive, hunh?”

  “That was it? A blink?”

  “Oh man,” Diesel said. “We are so fucked.”

  Doug moved to the side and stepped on Diesel’s foot. Diesel gave him a shot to the shoulder and Doug moved over, off Diesel’s foot.

  “Okay,” I said, “now that each of you has marked your territory on the fire hydrant, can we get on with it?”

  “We brought the RV instead of your car because it has a tow hitch, but they didn’t leave the horse trailer,” Snuggy said. “I borrowed a horse trailer from a friend, and they took it when they took Doug, and it’s not here.”

  “Maybe you can ride him back,” Diesel said.

  “I can’t ride him back on the highway!” Snuggy said. “And anyway, he has a bad leg. It hurts when he walks on it too much.”

  We all looked down at Doug’s leg. It had a bandage wrapped around it.

  “Put him in the RV,” Diesel said.

  Snuggy and I did an openmouthed What?

  Diesel was looking a quart down on patience. “Do you have any better ideas?”

  Snuggy and I shook our heads. We didn’t have any ideas.

  “We’re wasting time,” Diesel said.

  Snuggy took Doug’s halter and led him over to the door of the RV. There were three steps going up, and the door opening looked maybe a half-​inch wider than Doug’s ass.

  Doug planted his feet firm on the ground and gave Snuggy a look that I swear said Are you insane?

  “Up you go,” Snuggy said. “Into the RV.”

  Doug didn’t budge.

  Snuggy went into telepathic mode, nodding his head, looking sympathetic.

  “I understand your concern,” Snuggy said to Doug, “but you have nothing to worry about. You have to make a tight turn when you first get in, but then you’ll have plenty of room.”

  More telepathy.

  “I’m driving,” Snuggy said to Doug.

  Doug still didn’t move.

  “What are you talking about?” Snuggy said. “I’m a good driver. I brought you around the track to win at Freehold.”

  Doug rolled his eyes.

  “I fell off after we won,” Snuggy said. “And it had nothing to do with my driving. It was one of those freak things.”

  “How about this,” Diesel said to Doug. “You get into the RV, or we leave you in the parking lot and don’t come back.”

  Snuggy went in first, pulling on Doug’s halter, and Diesel put his shoulder to Doug’s butt. After a lot of swearing on Diesel’s part, and a lot of nervous foot stamping on Doug’s part, Doug got himself into the RV.

  “Jeez,” Snuggy said to Doug. “Quit your complaining. Look at Diesel. He doesn’t fit in here, either, but he’s making the best of it.”

  Doug turned his horse eye on Diesel, and I didn’t think it looked friendly.

  “Maybe you want to give Doug some room,” I said to Diesel. “Maybe you want to go up front and hang with Snuggy.”

  Stephanie Plum 13.5 - Plum Lucky

  Chapter 8

  It was four o’clock when we cruised into the lot to my building and parked the RV in the back, next to the Dumpster.

  “We should get Doug out of the RV for a couple minutes,” Snuggy said. “Let him stretch his legs and go potty.”

  The possibility that Doug might have to go potty got us all on our feet. We maneuvered Doug into the back bedroom, turned him around, and managed to get him out the door and down the steps. Snuggy walked Doug around in the lot, but apparently Doug didn’t feel the need to do anything. I wasn’t all that unhappy, because I didn’t know how I was going to explain a load of horse shit in the parking lot.

  “Ask him about Grandma,” I said to Snuggy. “Does he know where she is?”

  Here’s the thing. I didn’t entirely buy into the whole horse talk business, but a part of me wanted to believe. Not only did I want to believe for Grandma’s sake, but I liked the idea that communication was possible between species.

  I also liked the idea that reindeer could fly, there was such a thing as the birthday cake diet, and, most of all, I wanted to go to heaven.

  “What about it?” Snuggy said to Doug. “Un-​hunh, un-​hunh, un-​hunh.”

  I looked up at Diesel. “Are you getting anything?”

  “Yeah, a real strong desire to quit my job and go to bartending school.”

  “Doug says before they drove him to the warehouse, they had him outside, in a yard, and he was tied to a thing in the ground, like a dog. He said it was humiliating. He doesn’t know exactly where it was, but he might be able to spot it if you drive him around.”

  “That’s a little vague,” Diesel said.

  “Doug thinks they might have Grandma there because he heard a lot of yelling, and then they pulled the shades down, so he couldn’t see in the window. And he thinks he might have heard a gunshot.”

  “No!” I had my hand to my heart. “When?”

  “Just before they loaded him into the horse trailer.”

  I whipped my phone out and dialed Delvina.

  “What?” Delvina said.

  “Is my grandmother all right?”

  “Was she ever all right?”

  “I want to talk to her,” I told him.

  “No way. We got her locked in the crapper, and I’m not opening that door until I get a cattle prod. Do you have the rest of my money?”

  “Not yet, but I’m working on it.”

  Delvina disconnected.

  “Doug says he’s hungry,” Snuggy said. “He said he had to eat grass, and there wasn’t hardly any. He says he thinks he could be more helpful if he wasn’t hungry.”

  Diesel dialed Flash. “I need horse food,” he said to Flash. He listened a minute and studied his shoe. “I don’t know what horses eat. Just go to a horse food store and let them figure it out. And bring some beer and pizza with the horse food.”

  “What are you going to do with Doug?” I asked Snuggy. “He needs a barn or a stable or something.”

  “I have him scheduled for surgery next week, and after that, I have a place for him to live in Hunterdon County. I just don’t have anything for him right now. And I guess I’m in a bind with the surgery. I lost the money I was going to use.”

  I called my mother.

  “Do you know anything about Lou Delvina?”

  “You aren’t involved with him, are you? He’s a terrible person. If your cousin gave Delvina to you to find, you give him back. Let someone else look for him.”

  “He’s not one of my cases. This is something else.”

  “Well, I hear he’s sick. And something happened with him and his wife, because he’s not living at the Cranbury house anymore.”

  “Do you know where he is living?”

  “No, but I ran into Louise Kulach at church last week, and she said twice she saw Delvina getting cold cuts at the deli on Cherry Street. She said he looked terrible. She said you wouldn’t recognize him, except the butcher told her who it was. Where’s your grandmother?”


  “She’s in the bathroom.”

  “What should I do about supper? I have a pot of spaghetti sauce on the stove.”