“So about Sunny?” I asked.
“Sorry, can’t help you. Don’t know where he is, but I know he’s moving around. Are you working tonight?”
“I’m going to Bingo at the Senior Center. Turns out Bingo was a common interest for the murdered women.”
Morelli grimaced. “Ranger should be giving you time and a half for hazardous duty. Those Bingo ladies are tough.”
“Yeah, and that’s not even as bad as it gets. Your grandmother put the eye on me.”
“Bummer.”
“That’s it? Bummer?”
“There’s no such thing as the eye.”
“Are you sure?”
Morelli gave his head a small shake. “Actually, no.”
“Then do something. Tell your grandmother to take the whammy off me.”
“I’ll talk to her.”
I walked Morelli to his car. “Is there anything you can tell me about the Dumpster murders? Do you guys have a lead?”
“I’m not involved, and Butch isn’t looking happy. Butch is looking like he’s running down dead-end streets.”
I watched Morelli drive away, and I went back inside the bonds office to collect Lula.
“Let’s saddle up,” I said. “We need to get serious about Sunny. I’m tired of being the bad guy. I want this behind me.”
“I like your attitude,” Lula said. “Get serious. Take charge. Kick ass. It’s downright inspiring. Look at me. I’m on my feet and I’m ready to root that little crooner out of his hidey-hole.”
Fifteen minutes later Lula turned onto Nottingham Way and meandered around Hamilton Township until she found Rita’s house.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Lula asked. “I know she’s our number one candidate for harboring Mr. Bow Tie, but didn’t she say she was going to shoot you?”
“Only if I broke into her house.”
“That don’t instill me with too much confidence. How do you want to do this? Do you want me to stay parked here at the end of the block so you can sneak around and look in her windows? Or do you want me to park in her driveway so you can go ring her bell while I sit in the car with the motor running?”
“I couldn’t help notice both those options had you staying in the car.”
“I figure I need to keep myself safe so I can call the paramedics when you get shot.”
“It’s good to know you’re looking out for me.”
“That wasn’t sarcasm, was it? On account of I thought I detected some sarcasm.”
I was talking to Lula but I was looking straight ahead, watching a black Lincoln Town Car cruise down the street and swing into Rita’s driveway.
“Timing is everything,” I said to Lula.
“Well, shut up,” Lula said, spotting the Lincoln. “You think they’re doing a pickup or making a delivery?”
“I’m guessing pickup.”
After several minutes the front door to Rita’s house opened, Uncle Sunny appeared, the door closed behind him, and he got into the backseat of the Lincoln.
“Now what?” Lula asked, rummaging around in her Brakmin. “I got a gun in here somewhere. You want me to shoot out their tires?”
“No. I’m going to follow them and wait for a better place to make an apprehension.”
“Like what better place are you hoping for?”
“A place without his henchmen.”
The Lincoln eased out of the driveway and rolled down the street the same way it’d come. They didn’t seem to have noticed us, or maybe they didn’t care. I suspected they thought of me more as a nuisance than a genuine threat.
We followed at a distance, allowing a couple cars to come between us. The Lincoln took Nottingham Way past Hamilton Avenue and Greenwood and turned onto State Street. Sunny was going back to his home base at Morgan and Fifteenth Street.
The Lincoln stopped at the corner of Fifteenth and Freeman. Shorty, Moe, and Sunny got out of the car and walked into a three-story brownstone. A young guy ran out of the building and drove away with the car.
“Valet parking for the mafia staff car,” Lula said.
“Sunny owns the building,” I told Lula. “He rents it out to the Chestnut Social Club.”
“I performed at the Chestnut Social Club when I was a ’ho,” Lula said. “It was a bunch of old Italian geezers who liked talking about the good old days when they could get a boner. We figured the club was named after their shrunken privates, which were about the size of chestnuts.”
“So you know the building?”
“Haven’t been there in a bunch of years since I’m not a ’ho no more, but used to be the ground floor was where they played dominoes and cards on a couple cheap-ass card tables with folding chairs. There was a bar on the second floor and a kitchen, which I never saw them use because they got food delivered. They had a big TV there and some leather couches and a back room with a bed. I never got to the third floor. I figured they counted out the day’s receipts up there.”
“Not an ideal place to make a bust.”
“It might not be so bad. It’s someplace Sunny feels safe, so he could go upstairs to see what they took in last night, and Shorty and Moe might not feel like climbing all those stairs. Shorty and Moe are probably gonna watch the domino players and scarf down some cannoli.”
“How would I get to Sunny if he’s on the third floor?”
“Backstairs. Every floor got a little balcony with stairs connecting them. It’s an emergency exit they could use if they gotta sneak out. I know about it because it’s the ’ho exit.”
Lula parked and we walked around the corner and took stock of the back of the building.
“I only see a window at each balcony,” I said. “No door.”
“Yeah, you gotta climb through the window and you end up at an inside back stairwell that got a door to each floor. You could go up on the inside or you could go up on the outside. Problem is, if you go up on the inside you could run into one of the Chestnuts.”
We were standing in a narrow alley that ran the length of the block. The alley was wide enough to accommodate a garbage truck and limited parking, but I didn’t see any cars parked. There were similar two- and three-story row houses on the other side of the alley. People occupying those row houses would be able to see me climbing the outside stairs. Fortunately the two closest houses didn’t look occupied. Their windows were boarded, and there was a construction Dumpster backed up to one of them.
I tucked handcuffs into the back pocket of my jeans, rammed a small canister of pepper spray into my front pocket, and clipped an illegal stun gun onto my waistband.
“You need a real gun,” Lula said.
“I don’t need a real gun. I’m not shooting anyone.”
“Suppose they shoot at you first?”
“I wave my arms in the air, scream like a girl, and run away as fast as I can.”
“Hunh,” Lula said. “I suppose I should come with you then in case that don’t work.”
We climbed the stairs to the third floor and tried the window. Locked.
“Probably because nobody hardly ever goes out this window,” Lula said.
We went down one level and tried that window. Also locked.
“Well, it’s just a window, and accidents happen,” Lula said.
She swung her Brakmin at the window, the glass shattered, and the security alarm went off.
“Oops,” Lula said. “I wasn’t counting on that.”
We bolted down the stairs and hid behind the construction Dumpster. The back door to Sunny’s building opened, and two overweight, out-of-shape guys stepped out and looked around. They peered up at the balconies but couldn’t get motivated to climb the stairs.
One of them pointed to the broken window. “Must have been a bird,” he said.
The other guy nodded, then they wheeled around and went inside.
“You should hurry up and go in before they turn the alarm back on,” Lula said. “I’ll stay here and be the lookout. I’ll tell you if someon
e comes to fix the window.”
“What if I need help getting Sunny out?”
“Call me and I’ll be there in a flash.”
I trudged up to the second floor, carefully stuck my hand through the broken window, and unlocked it. I opened the window, climbed in, and put my ear to the door. I could hear people talking, and noise from the television. I tiptoed up to the third floor and listened at that door. Silence. I eased the door open and found myself face to face with Uncle Sunny. He was sitting on a folding chair behind a long wood table, counting money. There was a monster safe on the far side of the room. The door to the safe was open, and a thin, balding, middle-aged guy was trying to stuff a large leather satchel into the safe.
For a long moment the two men looked at me in shocked surprise, mouths open.
“Did you order takeout?” the skinny guy asked Sunny.
“She’s a bounty hunter,” Sunny said. “And she’s a pain in the ass.”
The skinny guy turned and reached for the gun that had been placed on top of the safe, but I crossed the room and sent a couple million volts into him before he could wrap his finger around the trigger. Sunny scuffed his chair back and bolted for the door. I lunged and tackled him, taking us both to the floor. We rolled around, grunting and cussing. He paused to catch his breath, and I snapped a cuff on him. There was some more scrambling and wrestling, and I got the second cuff on. I scooted away, got to my feet, and pulled him up. He put his head down for a head butt and charged me. I stepped away, and he ran into the wall and knocked himself out.
I stared down at him in complete disbelief.
“Hey!” I said, nudging him with my toe, not getting a response.
I took a closer look to make sure he was breathing. I felt for a pulse.
“Ice cream,” he murmured. “Chocolate.”
The skinny guy was coming around. He was drooling, his eyes were open, and his fingers were twitching. I didn’t want to zap him again, and I didn’t have a second set of cuffs, so I took the cuffs off Sunny and used them to cuff one of the skinny guy’s hands to the safe.
I dragged Sunny into the back stairwell, but I wasn’t going to get him through the window or down the stairs without some help. I leaned out the window to yell for Lula and saw her at the end of the street, running after the giraffe. I dialed her cellphone and was told to leave a message. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Stay calm, I told myself. Murdering Lula wouldn’t solve anything.
I was going to have to try to get Sunny down the inside staircase. I grabbed him under his armpits and backed my way down. I reached the second-floor landing and heard gunshots coming from the floor above me. Probably the skinny guy trying to get someone’s attention. I’d kicked his gun out of reach, but I hadn’t searched him.
Sunny opened his eyes. “Mom?”
“You bet,” I said. “Don’t worry. I’m going to take care of you.”
I dragged him across the landing to the edge of the stairs. I stepped back, lost my balance, and slid the rest of the way on my back with Sunny on top of me. I shoved him off and lay there for a couple beats, trying to catch my breath, thinking the whole falling-down-stairs thing was getting old. In fact, I thought, I might not even be liking any of my job all that much. I heard men thundering down the stairs from the third-floor landing, and Sunny turned his head and focused on me. “You!”
Ignore the pain, I thought. Get up and run!
I had just hit Freeman Street when Sunny’s goons burst out the door and spilled into the alley. I rounded the corner and saw Lula standing by her Firebird on Fifteenth.
“Hey,” Lula called to me. “I saw Kevin!”
“Get in!” I yelled. “They’re after me.”
I reached the Firebird, grabbed at the door, and hurled myself into the car. “Go!” I told her.
Lula took off as a bullet zinged past us and shattered her side mirror.
“What the heck is the matter with those people?” she said, stomping on the gas pedal. “What did you do to get them so mad? Honestly, you have no way with people. And who’s gonna pay for my mirror? Do you know which one of those morons did this?”
I slouched in my seat and closed my eyes. “Remember how you were going to be there in a flash to help me?”
“Yeah, but then Kevin galloped up. He stopped right in front of me and looked at me. He’s got big brown eyes and movie star eyelashes that are about a foot long. And he talked to me and told me he appreciated that I was his friend.”
“He talked to you?”
“It was one of them telepathic conversations.” Lula looked at me. “You don’t look good. You got a hole tore in your jeans, and your knee is bleeding. What happened to you?”
“I fell down the stairs.”
“You gotta stop doing that,” Lula said.
“I’m thinking about getting a new job.”
“What would you do?”
“That’s the problem.”
Truth is, I was a college graduate with no skills. And after a bunch of years spent working as a bounty hunter I feared I was no longer especially smart.
“Where are we going now?” Lula asked.
“St. Francis Hospital. I think I broke my finger.”
Two hours later Lula and I straggled into the bonds office. The middle finger on my right hand was in a splint and taped to my index finger.
“What happened?” Connie wanted to know.
“Broke my finger,” I told her. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“She fell down the stairs,” Lula said. “Again.”
“You ran off and left me,” I said. “Again.”
“Kevin came right up to me,” Lula said to Connie. “I swear I was just inches from him. I was standing in the alley waiting for Stephanie, and I was checking my text messages, and next thing I see Kevin has sneaked up and is looking down at me. And he’s a lot bigger when he’s that close. You’d get a crick in your neck from looking up at him.”
“I don’t understand how a giraffe could be running loose in that neighborhood,” Connie said. “At the very least you’d think someone would have reported it to animal control. How is it eating? Where is it sleeping?”
“I don’t know where it’s sleeping, but there’s not a lot of leaves left on any of the trees for about a four-block chunk of real estate,” Lula said.
“So where did it come from?” Connie asked. “It’s not like a giraffe just wanders into town. You’d see him if he was walking down Route 1. People would notice. He’d be on the evening news.”
“Maybe Bella sent the giraffe as a distraction and it’s a magic giraffe that only me and Stephanie can see,” Lula said. “Probably Bella was the one who broke Stephanie’s finger, too.”
“Something to think about,” Connie said.
I hiked my messenger bag up onto my shoulder. “The only thing I’m thinking about is lunch. I’m going to Giovichinni’s.”
“I’ll go with you,” Lula said. “I could use some of their chicken salad.”
We walked the short distance and went straight to the deli counter in the back of the store. I ordered a turkey club, and Lula ordered a large container of chicken salad, a large container of potato salad, a medium container of coleslaw, and a large container of macaroni salad.
“That’s a lot of food,” I said to her. “I thought you were trying to lose weight?”
“Yeah, but I don’t have bread like you. The bread goes right to your belly. And I’m having a diet soda. Plus I got three heads of lettuce for Kevin.”
We were at the checkout with Loretta Giovichinni at the register when she looked past us, went pale, and made the sign of the cross.
“Holy Mother,” Loretta whispered.
I turned and saw Bella heading in my direction. Her eyes were small and glittery, and her narrow lips were pressed tight together. Lula threw a handful of money at Loretta and ran out of the store with her food. Loretta ignored the money and ducked down behind the counter.
“Sha
me to you,” Bella said to me. “I heard what you do to Sunny. You knock him out and throw him down the stairs. You go to hell. I make sure of it. I give you the eye to hell.”
I heard Loretta suck in air behind the counter, and somewhere farther back in the store something clattered to the floor.
“That seems extreme,” I said to Bella. “I was only trying to do my job, and I didn’t throw him down the stairs. He fell down the stairs on top of me.”
“Liar, liar, pants on fire,” Bella said.
She put her finger to her eye, pulled down her lower lid, and glared at me. “Ha!” she said. She turned on her heel and walked, head held high, out the door.
Loretta popped up from behind the counter. She looked down at my turkey club and waved me through. “It’s on the house if you promise not to come back. That woman scares the crap out of me.”
“Could be worse,” I said. “At least I know the consequences of the curse.”
“You’re going to hell,” Loretta said. “How could it be worse?”
SEVEN
LULA POLISHED OFF the last of her macaroni salad and chucked her empty food containers into the trash.
“I’m all refreshed now,” she said. “I’m ready to go kick some more butt. What should we do next? You want to pick up the Sunny hunt?”
“No. I’m going to table Sunny until tonight.”
I was starting to get a grip on Sunny’s schedule. He spent the night with Rita and in the morning he went to the club to check on the previous night’s business. I thought my best shot at Sunny was to break in on him when he was sleeping. I just had to figure out how to get around the home invasion shooting me dead thing.
“Then how about we drive over so I can give Kevin his lettuce?” Lula said.
“I was thinking we should look for Ziggy Radiewski,” I told her. “He’s probably in the bar next to the hardware store on State Street. That’s his usual afternoon hangout.”
“Yeah, but I got this lettuce for Kevin, and I don’t want it to wilt.”
“I think we should let things chill out in that neighborhood. Put Kevin’s lettuce in the fridge and we’ll take it over tomorrow.”