TWENTY-THREE
IT WAS SUNDAY, and Morelli and Bob had breakfast and took off to help Morelli’s brother, Anthony, put a swing set together for his kids. I waved them off, had a second cup of coffee, and called Lula.
“I’m going to visit Forest,” I said. “Want to ride along?”
“Sure,” she said. “Nothing much doing here.”
I took my big bag of dog food out to the car and drove to Lula’s apartment. I hadn’t heard from Ranger, so I had no idea what was happening with Vlatko. The possibilities sent a wave of nausea through my stomach, and I watched my rearview mirror, making sure I wasn’t being tailed by a guy with one eye and a sharp knife.
I picked Lula up and drove to Stark Street, slowing when we got to Buster’s building. The CSI van was parked curbside, and a single strip of yellow crime scene tape fluttered at the apartment’s front door.
“Did you hear about Jimmy Poletti?” I asked Lula.
“Hard not to hear. It was on every news station. They even interviewed his wife, who didn’t seem that broken up. Maybe she’s the one shooting all these guys. Maybe she has a bad hair day and she pops someone. And she could specialize in poker players. She might have been traumatized by a poker player when she was a kid.”
Considering how congested Trudy Poletti’s schedule had to be with the Pilates classes and the boinking every man she could get her hands on, it was hard to believe she had time to murder poker players.
I turned at the corner of Geneva and parked. I left Lula with the Buick, grabbed the dog food, and walked it to Forest’s box. It was a nice sunny morning, and Forest was sitting outside, leaning against his dumpster. The Chihuahua pack was snoozing at his feet. All heads came up when I approached.
“I brought food for the minions,” I said to Forest.
“Do you hear that, my teensy minions? The nice lady brought us food.”
Some of the minions started to vibrate.
“Why are they shaking?” I asked Forest.
“Minions do that. They’re very excitable.”
I put the bag on the ground and kept my distance. I didn’t want the minions to feel threatened by a big advancing human.
“Now that the little critters have lots of food,” I said to Forest, “I thought you might be willing to let me bring you in.”
“I can’t leave my minions unprotected. Starman will barbecue them.”
Crap. I had two alternatives. The first was to stun-gun Forest and drag him to the car. I went with the second.
“I’ll take care of the minions,” I said. “I’ll get you booked in at the police station, and I’ll babysit the minions until you can secure a bond.”
Forest turned to the minions. “What do you think? Would you like to go with the nice lady for just a little while so Forest can get arrested?”
“Lula is waiting at the cross street,” I said. “Do you have something we can put the minions in?”
“The minions run free.”
Great. Free-running minions.
I walked Forest to the Firebird with the minions goose-stepping around us.
“What the heck’s this?” Lula asked.
“We’re taking Forest to the police station, and then I’m taking the minions home with me. I’ll stash them in my apartment until someone springs Forest. They haven’t put the carpet down yet, and Briggs is there to babysit.”
Forest loaded the Chihuahuas into the Buick. “Be good minions. No dookey or peepee in the nice lady’s box.”
I cuffed Forest, buckled him into the backseat with the Chihuahuas, and drove to the police station. I left Lula with the dogs and walked Forest into the building. I collected my body receipt and returned to Lula.
“Remember I got a big date with Stanley Kulicky tonight,” Lula said to me. “We’re going to see that movie about the end of the world coming and then just in time the world’s saved by one of them Transformers.”
“What time will it be over?”
“We’re going to the eight o’clock movie, so it’ll be over around ten. I’ll call you when we’re walking out.”
I dropped Lula off at her apartment, and as soon as I got behind the wheel of the Buick, the dogs started yapping. As I drove through town, they yapped louder. They scrambled over the seat and jumped at the dashboard. They were on my lap, on the back of my seat, gnawing on my ponytail. They snarled at one another, snapped at passing cars, and looked at me bug-eyed.
I whipped into the drive-thru at Cluck-in-a-Bucket, got a bagful of bacon cheeseburgers, and stuffed the bag into the glove compartment. I gritted my teeth, hunched over the steering wheel, and headed for my apartment.
I lured the dogs out of the car and into the building with the bag of burgers. We took the stairs, hurried the short distance down the hall, and I shoved my key in the lock with one hand and held the burger bag over my head with the other. For small dogs they could jump impressively high when they smelled burgers.
I held the door open with my foot, threw a burger into the kitchen, and the dogs rushed in and pounced on the burger.
Briggs ran in from the bedroom. “What the heck’s going on?”
“Roommates,” I said. “I need to leave them with you.”
“They look vicious.”
I handed him the bag of burgers. “Just give them a burger once in a while and you’ll be fine.”
“They’re dogs, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t want dogs in my apartment.”
“It’s not your apartment,” I told him. “It’s my apartment.”
“It’s sort of mine.”
“Wrong, wrong, wrong. There’s no part of this apartment that’s yours.”
“Yeah, but I got rights. I’m living here.”
“You have no rights. And if you want to keep living here, you’ll take very good care of the dogs. And anyway, it’s only for a short time.”
Easy to understand why everyone wanted to kill him.
I drove to Walmart and went straight to the pet department. I got ten lightweight leashes, ten Chihuahua-size harnesses, a box of plastic poop bags, ten little chew toys, and a giant bag of dog food.
I hauled everything back to my apartment and let myself in. All ten dogs rushed at me, yapping and snarling. I opened the bag of dog food, threw some nuggets at them, and they snapped them up.
“Jeez,” Briggs said, “I thought you’d never show up. These dogs are creeping me out. They keep shivering and looking at me with big bugged-out eyes.”
“It’s a Chihuahua thing,” I told him. “They’re excitable.”
“Yeah, me too. I’m excited you’re here to take them away.”
“Turns out they’re not going away today. I can’t get their owner bailed out until Monday.” Maybe never.
“Are you shitting me? What am I supposed to do with them?”
I dumped the dog stuff on my kitchen counter. “First thing we have to do is take them for a walk, so help me hook them up.”
So much for the free-running minion experience.
By the time we got the dogs out of the elevator they were hopelessly tangled. I had three leashes in each hand, and Briggs had two in each hand.
“These are the dumbest dogs ever,” Briggs said. “It’s like they never walked on a leash before.”
“You might want to walk them two at a time after this,” I said.
“It’ll take me all day. And I’ll be a sitting duck out here.”
“I’ll give you a break on the rent.”
“I’m not paying any rent.”
“Exactly.”
We walked them around the block, and they all peed and two out of ten pooped.
“How often do I have to do this?” Briggs asked.
“Four times a day. They don’t have to always go for long walks. They just need a chance to piddle.”
We dragged the dogs up the stairs, and I set out bowls of water for them and gave them a quilt to use as a bed.
“I need a television,” Briggs said. “There’s nothing to do here.”
“You could look for a job.”
“I don’t have a car. How am I going to get around?”
“Taxi. Skateboard. Drone pickup. Figure it out!”