IT WAS ALMOST noon by the time we left the police station. Diggery was in police custody, waiting for Vinnie to bond him out again, and I was in possession of a body receipt stating I’d recovered Diggery.
“I don’t know why we bother doing this,” I said to Lula. “It’s just wasted time and energy. Vinnie bonds him out, he goes FTA, and we bring him in. And then it starts all over again. It’s like we have a job doing nothing. Doesn’t that bother you?”
“Nope,” Lula said. “I’m in it for the money.”
“The money sucks. Look at this car I’m driving!”
“Yeah, you must not know how to manage your money, because I have a kick-ass car.”
“You make less than I do. You get a percentage of my percentage.”
“True, but I’m also pulling a salary, and I do a little of this and a little of that.”
I cut my eyes to her. “What’s ‘a little of this and a little of that’?”
“It’s my entrepreneurial side. Like, I give hooker lessons on the third Saturday of every month. I help the girls who want to go into the profession. I teach technique. I was one of the few ’hos who could successfully do a thirty-second hand job for those customers in a time crunch. It was an adaptation of the Indian rope burn. And then I give advice on wardrobe, and I help them pick a corner. I tell them it’s location, location, location. And then another enterprise I got going is my bedazzling skills. You’d be surprised how many people want shit bedazzled but don’t have the time. I got business cards and everything.”
“I had no idea you did all that.”
“You bet your ass. I’m not just another pretty face. I got projects. That’s why I got an appetite. It takes a lot of fuel to keep my brain operating. In fact, I’m probably not functioning at full power right now because I didn’t get that Snickers bar.”
“I feel like this is leading up to a stop at the 7-Eleven.”
“Exactly. Not only could I get my Snickers bar, but we could get nachos for lunch.”
I drove Lula to the 7-Eleven on Perry Street. We loaded up on nachos and backtracked to Lincoln. I crossed the railroad tracks, followed Chambers to Hamilton, and parked in front of the bonds office. Ranger pulled in behind me.
“It’s like magic the way he always knows where to find you,” Lula said.
It wasn’t magic. It was GPS. He’d stuck trackers on my cars. I got out and walked back to him.
“I want to take you through the factory tonight,” Ranger said. “They’ll be cleaning until midnight. After that it will be empty except for security. Bogart employs a day guard and a night guard. They each make two rounds. The rest of the time they stay in the guard station at the loading dock.”
“So someone had plenty of time to dip the HR guy in chocolate.”
“You can draw your own conclusions when you see the plant. I’ll pick you up at eleven-thirty.”
Morelli wasn’t going to like this. Ranger wasn’t his favorite person. Ranger especially wasn’t his favorite person when he was alone with me at eleven-thirty at night. Fortunately it was poker night, and Morelli would be doing his man thing with his cousin Mooch, his brother, Anthony, Eddie Gazarra if Shirley let him out of the house, and whoever else showed up with a six-pack of beer.
I watched Ranger drive away and joined Lula and Connie in the bonds office.
“What’s up with the man of mystery?” Connie asked.
“Harry Bogart has hired Rangeman to manage security, and Ranger wants me to go undercover. I’m going to take a job on the line so I can look around.”
“Are you shitting me?” Lula said. “You’re gonna work in the ice cream factory? All my life I wanted to work in an ice cream factory. Maybe you could get me a job.”
“I don’t get to eat the ice cream,” I said. “It’s a job.”
“Yeah, but I bet you get a discount. And suppose you could score a job in the test kitchen? And, like, what happens when the gloppity gloppity machine screws up and doesn’t fill the containers right? What happens to those screwed-up containers of ice cream? I bet they end up in the employee lunch room.”
I gave Connie the body receipt for Diggery, took the outstanding FTA paperwork from my messenger bag, and read through the file. Eugene Winkle. Armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon. Nineteen years old. Two priors. His address was on the fourth block of Stark Street. Not a good address. His mug shot wasn’t good, either. He looked like an enraged bull. Smushed-in nose. Small, crazy, angry eyes. Thick lips parted enough to catch a glimpse of stainless steel caps. Undoubtedly could easily open a beer bottle with his teeth.
Lula was looking over my shoulder.
“Whoa!” Lula said. “That don’t look human. What is that?”
“Eugene Winkle,” I said. “He’s FTA.”
“And he’s gonna stay that way,” Lula said. “I’d rather face Diggery’s snake.”
“I was with Vinnie when he bonded him out,” Connie said. “The picture doesn’t do him justice. He’s actually a lot uglier. He’s about six foot five and weighs around four hundred pounds. Good news is that he probably can’t run very fast. Bad news is . . . well, you can see the bad news.”
“Maybe he’s a nice person under all that ugly,” Lula said. “He could be misunderstood. I bet he was bullied when he was a kid. They probably called him Winkie.”
“He robbed his grandmother, shot her neighbor in the foot, and ran over the family dog,” Connie said.
“That’s terrible,” Lula said. “What kind of person runs over a dog? I hope that dog is okay.”
“I think it lost part of its tail,” Connie said. “The grandmother put up Eugene’s bond. She said he was too mean to be in jail. She said if she could find him she was going to set the dog loose on him.”
“What kind of dog is it?” Lula asked.
“Chihuahua,” Connie said.
“Hunh,” Lula said. “Must be a vicious little bugger.”
I looked at my watch. Damn. Too early to quit work and start drinking.
“Vinnie isn’t back yet,” Connie said, “so I suppose I’m going to have to go into town to bond out Diggery. Someone’s going to have to babysit the office until I get back.”
“I’ll stay here,” Lula said. “I got a new copy of Star magazine that I gotta read. It’s got a article that Jennifer Aniston might get a tattoo of a unicorn.”
Connie took her purse out of her bottom drawer and stood. “What about you?” she asked me. “Are you going after Winkle?”
“Eventually. Not alone. And probably not today. I’m still looking for Larry Virgil.”
“Stephanie could stay here,” Lula said. “Just in case we get a rush of desperados.”
I cut my eyes to Lula. “ ‘Desperados’?”
“It could happen,” Lula said.
Connie looked over at me. “Good idea. Stay here and keep Lula from shooting the desperados if they show up. I won’t be long. Court’s in session. I should be back in an hour.”
Connie and Vinnie always park in the small lot at the back of the building. The lot had parking for four cars and opened to a narrow alley that bisected the block. It was hidey-hole parking for Vinnie, and it allowed Connie to sneak cigarettes.
Connie left through the back door, and Lula turned to me. “I bet she’s out there sneaking a smoke first. That alleyway and parking lot are like the safety zone for smoking without stinking up your personal environment.”
“Seems like it would be easier to just quit smoking.”
“You say that on account of you never smoked. Sure, it could shorten your life and give you lung cancer and heart disease and ruin your skin, but you ever see the look on someone’s face when they take that first drag? It’s like when you feel a orgasm coming on. Like you’ve been workin’ and workin’ at it and finally you know you nailed it and zow! you got yourself a orgasm.”
“Were you a smoker?”
“Hell, yeah. I was a big smoker, but I’m not stupid. I got this beautiful chocolate skin and I’m not going all crone with it because of smoking.”