“I can take it from here,” Lula said to me. “I know I’m just the assistant agent, but I got a good grip on this one.”
She popped a donut into her mouth and looked like she was in rapture.
“Omigod,” she said. “This is the best donut ever. This is like having an orgasm in my mouth. And not someone else’s either. Like it’s mine.”
The counter girl took a step back. “That’s gross.”
“Well, obviously you don’t know a lot about orgasms,” Lula said. “I gotta talk to the fry cook. I gotta compliment him.”
“He’s in the back,” the girl said. “He’s pretty busy right now.”
“Hey, fry cook!” Lula yelled. “I gotta talk to you.”
A big guy in a grease-stained white T-shirt appeared and stepped up to the counter. He was over six feet tall and built like a bear. He was balding and the hair he had left was pulled into a ponytail. He had a two-day beard and bloodshot eyes.
“You got something to say about my nuts?” he asked Lula.
Lula looked back at me. “Is he the one?” she whispered.
I nodded, yes.
“Are you Arnold Rugalowski?” Lula asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “So what?”
Lula tucked the bucket of nuts under her arm and fished around in her purse. “Hold on,” she said. “I gotta get my equipment.”
Lula’s purse had the capacity of a small suitcase. Lula could never find anything in her purse.
“Maybe I can help,” I said, moving closer, offering Lula my cuffs.
“Thanks,” Lula said, taking the cuffs, turning to Arnold. “We’re bond enforcement agents, and we want you to come downtown with us, so we can reschedule your court date.”
“Screw that,” Arnold said. “And you’re not getting my nuts, either.”
He reached across the counter and grabbed the cardboard bucket Lula had tucked under her arm.
“Hey!” Lula said. “Those are mine. I paid for them.”
Arnold flipped her the bird and walked back to his fry station.
“That’s rude,” Lula said. “I don’t like his attitude. I want to see the manager,” she said to the counter girl. “I demand to see the manager.”
“He isn’t here right now,” she said. “It’s just me and Arnold. Do you want to talk to Arnold again?”
“Damn right I want to talk to Arnold,” Lula said. “Hey, Arnold!” she yelled. “Get your butt out here and bring my nuts with you.”
Arnold stepped up to the counter. “You want your nuts? Try this on for size.”
He took a donut from the bucket and threw it at Lula. It hit her in the forehead and was followed by a second that hit her left boob.
“Ow!” Lula said. “Stop that.”
“Make me,” Arnold said.
Lula fished around in her purse, found her Glock, and fired off a shot that took out an overhead sign advertising Clucky Nuggets.
The counter girl ducked behind the counter, and a handful of people who had been sitting in booths ran out of the building.
Arnold reached under his greasy T-shirt and grabbed the gun he had tucked under his waistband. “Dumb, fat bitch,” he said. “Eat this.”
Lula shrieked, panicked, and threw her gun at him, and we ran for the car. Arnold unloaded a couple of rounds that missed Lula and me but took out my side mirror.
I chirped the tires getting out of the lot and headed for the office.
“He said I was fat,” Lula said. “Can you imagine?”
“That’s what bothers you about that whole fiasco?”
“That’s not all. I’m bothered that I never got my chicken nuts, even though the one I ate didn’t live up to my expectations.”
“What about the orgasm in your mouth?”
“Hunh, I suppose you never lied about a orgasm? I was being complimentary. And I’ll tell you another thing. They should do something about gun control in this state. They let just any bat-shit crazy idiot carry a gun.”
“You carry a gun,” I said.
“That’s different. I’m almost a police officer. I’m a quasi-law-enforcement person.”
“You realize you left your gun back there?”
“Yeah, I’m gonna have to replace it. I’ll detour to the hair salon on Stark when I go home today. Lolita Sue always has a nice collection. I get all my guns from her.”
“You don’t get them at a gun shop?”
“Hell, no. You gotta fill out all those forms and go through a bunch of crap. All I do with Lolita Sue is give her a couple bucks.”
* * *
I dropped Lula at the office, and I called Ranger.
“I need you,” I said to him.
“Babe,” Ranger said. “I’m your man.”
“I don’t need you that way. I need you to help me break into a safe.”
Okay, that was sort of a fib. Every woman I knew lusted after Ranger. Including me. He was six feet of hard-muscled perfection. He was magic in bed. And he had a magnetic pull that was beyond the physical. On the flip side, he wasn’t a candidate for marriage, and he had a code of conduct that didn’t necessarily conform to the national norm. I’d decided a while ago that it was best to ignore and deny Ranger-lust.
“I have a lot of skills,” Ranger said. “Safecracking isn’t one of them.”
“But you know someone.”
“I do.”
“I’m on the hunt for the La-Z-Boys’ treasure. Supposedly there are clues locked up in the safe at the Mole Hole.”
“There’s a little Italian bakery on Henry Street,” Ranger said.
“Carlotta’s.”
“Meet me in the lot behind the bakery at ten o’clock tonight.”
“Okay, but…”
The Man of Mystery disconnected.
I thought about the files in my bag. Potts, Rugalowski, and Trotter. It was midafternoon. I could make another try at a capture. Potts was the obvious choice. He was guilty of a nonviolent crime. And he was a first offender, so he wasn’t up to speed on the system. When I told him that I was merely taking him downtown to get a new court date, he might actually believe me. There was the gluten issue, but he’d probably have clothes on, so an accident wouldn’t be an entire disaster. Plus, I kept a shower curtain in the back for blood and other body fluid emergencies. My bounty hunter skills are lacking, but at least I’m prepared for fugitive leakage.
CHAPTER SIX
Potts was thirty-seven years old and living with his parents in a house on Porter Street. A spouse wasn’t listed on his bond application. His parents put up the bail bond money. He was unemployed.
Porter Street was about a mile from the bonds office in a neighborhood very much like the Burg. Small houses, nonexistent front yards, and backyards big enough to hold a Weber grill and a trash can. Mostly blue-collar, two-income families or retirees who had paid off their mortgage.
I parked across from the Potts house and watched for a while. A Ford Escape was in the driveway that led to a single-car garage. A rusted-out Sentra was at the curb. I was guessing everyone was home. Not my favorite scenario. I hated to make apprehensions that involved parents. It always felt sad that they had to see their kid led away in cuffs. It didn’t matter that the kid was forty-two or that the parents were relieved to see him taken away. It still felt sad to me. If it was my child, I would be destroyed. Even Rodney Trotter’s mother, in her La La Land pot-hazed delusion, had to shed a tear at having her son locked up.