Janet Evanovich - Explosive Eighteen

I found a space close to Kohl’s, and Lula and I walked to the cluster of stucco-faced buildings. We stood outside The Hair Barn and watched Brenda fiddle with an older woman’s hair, teasing it up and smoothing it out.

“That’s not good,” Lula said. “That woman looks like Donald Trump on a bad day. And he don’t look all that good on a good day.”

Brenda finished, the woman tottered to the desk, and Brenda took a moment to clean up her station. Lula stayed outside, and I went in to talk to Brenda.

Brenda got steely-eyed when she saw me. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “Did you wise up and bring me the photograph?”

“No. I want some answers.”

She looked through the front window at Lula. “I see you left your muscle outside. Isn’t that risky?”

“Lula isn’t my muscle.”

“Well then, what is she?”

Good question. I didn’t know the answer. “She’s just Lula,” I said. “Okay, yeah, I guess she’s my muscle.”

Brenda dropped her brush and comb into a drawer. “So what did you come here for? You want a haircut? I could do a lot better than what you got. You got no style.”

“It’s a ponytail.”

“Yeah, but it’s boring. You should add a piece. We got a bunch on the wall. Or you could put some color in it. Like gold streaks. Pull some of the hair out and rat it. You know, mess it up like mine. You see how much better my hair looks?”

I glanced at her hair and bit my lip. She looked like an exploded canary. “Maybe next time,” I said. “I want to know about the photograph. Why does everyone want it?”

“I told you why I want it. Poor dead Ritchy wanted me to have it.” She stiffened a little. “Wait a minute. What do you mean everyone ?”

“You. And everyone.”

“There’s others?” she asked.

“You didn’t know?”

Brenda’s lips curled back and her eyes got squinty. “That sonovabitch. He’s trying to cut me out. I should have guessed.”

“Who?” I asked her. “Who’s the sonovabitch?”

“Boy, this really steams me.”

“Who? Who?”

“Never mind who . And you better not be dealing with him. He’s a snake in the grass. And he hasn’t got any money, either. Don’t believe him if he tells you he’s got money.”

“Give me a clue. What does he look like? Old, young, fat?”

“I can’t chat anymore,” Brenda said. “I got a client.”

“Well?” Lula said when I left the shop. “How’d that go?”

“It didn’t go anywhere.”

“You must have learned something.”

“Nope,” I said. “Nothing useful.” I felt my ponytail. “Do you think my hair is boring?”

“Compared to what? It’s not as good as my hair, for instance. But it’s better than lots of other white folks’ hair.”

We climbed into the truck, and I stuck the key in the ignition.

“I think we should take a look at Brenda’s apartment,” I said to Lula. “Connie has it in West Windsor.”

Why not? I thought. If for no reason other than grim curiosity.

Lula tapped the address into her cell phone GPS. “I got it. It’s not all that far from here.”

I drove one exit on Route 1, turned off, and followed Lula’s directions.

“She’s renting, but not an apartment,” Lula said. “Looks to me like she’s renting a house.”

We were winding our way through a neighborhood of small, single-story homes in varying stages of disrepair. Several were empty with FOR SALE signs planted in their small front yards. Most had curtains hanging in windows. Many had swing sets in the backyards.

I found Brenda’s house and sat at idle, taking it in. Driveway leading to single-car attached garage. The house had been painted pale green with bright yellow trim. The yard was bare but neat.

“Let’s take a look,” Lula said.

“We can’t just walk around and look in windows. There are cars parked in some of the driveways. Probably, there are people at home in some of the houses. We’ll be noticed.”

“Yeah, but we do that all the time,” Lula said.

“We do it when we’re looking for a felon and they’ve waived their rights. Brenda isn’t a felon.”

I returned to the highway, and Berger called.

“We’d like you to work with an artist again,” he said.

“I don’t think that’s going to accomplish anything,” I told him. “I can barely remember the photograph. And now I’ve got Tom Cruise stuck in my head.”

“Just try, okay? There’s a lot riding on this… like my pension.”

If I hadn’t been doing eighty, I would have banged my head against the steering wheel. “When do you want me to come in?”

“Now.”

I DROPPED LULA at the office and swung around into town. It was midday and the roads were clogged with cars. Lots were filled, street parking was nonexistent, and after ten minutes of circling several blocks, I gave up and drove into the FBI building’s underground garage. It was public parking, but there was a designated FBI area.

I took the elevator to the sixth floor and went directly to the conference room. Berger, Gooley, and the artist were already there.

“We thought maybe it was the last artist who was thinking about Tom Cruise,” Berger said. “So we’re starting over with Fred.”

I took a seat and nodded at Fred. “Good luck.”

Fred managed a tight smile that was a shade away from being a grimace. An hour later, we had a new sketch.

“How do you feel about this?” Berger asked me. “Is this the guy?”

I did palms up. I didn’t know. “Maybe,” I said.

“At least it’s not Tom Cruise,” Berger said.

Gooley studied it. “It’s Ashton Kutcher.”

We crowded in to see the sketch.

“Shit! He’s right,” Berger said. “It’s freaking Ashton Kutcher.”

I took another look at it, and I had to admit it did look a lot like Ashton Kutcher.

“Well, they both have brown hair, so we can be pretty sure he has brown hair,” I said. “Do you guys validate parking?”

“Not anymore,” Berger said. “Budget cuts.”

I took the elevator to the second parking level and walked to my truck. It seemed to me Ashton Kutcher and Tom Cruise weren’t so far apart. Brown hair, nice-looking, angular face, potential for Top Gun attitude. Maybe it was the attitude that was the common denominator. A quality in their faces that projected a boyishly endearing wiseass personality.

I pressed the unlock button on my car key, reached for the door handle, and got yanked off my feet from behind. In a matter of seconds, I was dragged across the garage and slammed against a panel van. I was so caught by surprise that I barely reacted, ineffectively flailing my arms and yelling, the yelling getting lost in the cavernous garage.

I caught a flash of light from a knife blade and felt the tip of the knife bite into my neck. I went dead still, and Raz’s face swam into focus inches from mine.

“You will be stopping moving,” he said. “You are understanding?”

I nodded.

“Into the van,” he said. “Facedown, or I kill you good. I carve you into pieces and eat you for snack.”

I was too scared to totally focus, but I knew getting into the van wasn’t a step in the right direction. I pulled back, opened my mouth to scream, and he hit me in the face with the butt end of the knife. I tasted blood, a switch got flipped on in my brain, and I went into killer survival mode, kicking, screaming, scratching, gouging. The knife got knocked out of his hand, we scrambled for it, and I got there first. I lunged at him, catching him in the thigh, digging the blade in deep, opening a long gash that gushed blood. He shrieked and grabbed his leg. It was a panicky blur after that. I kicked at him, and he tried to roll away. He was bleeding and cursing, and I kept kicking. I slipped on the blood-slick garage floor, and he took the opportunity to dive into the van and ram the door closed. The motor caught, and his wheels spun and screeched on the cement as he sped away.