Janet Evanovich - Explosive Eighteen

Jeez Louise.

I thrashed around in bed for a couple hours, trying to get back to sleep and having no luck. I finally rolled out of bed around eight and out of the apartment around nine. My plan was to stop in at the bonds bus before heading off to the FBI.

Traffic was slow on Hamilton, and I saw the reason for the gridlock when I was half a block from the bus. The bus was no more. A couple orange traffic cones marked the area of destruction. Beyond the cones lay the smoldering, blackened cadaver of twisted metal and stinking charred upholstery that used to be the bonds bus. I parked across the street, behind Vinnie’s Cadillac, Lula’s Firebird, and Connie’s Hyundai. DeAngelo’s Mercedes was noticeably missing. Vinnie, Lula, and Connie were on the sidewalk, eyes glazed, aimlessly staring at the mess.

“I’m thinkin’ lightning,” Lula said. “This here looks like a natural disaster. I’m thinkin’ the lightning came in through the fan in the crapper and snaked around inside until it found the microwave, and then BANG .”

“There was no lightning last night,” Connie said. “It hasn’t rained in days.”

“Well then, my next theory is terrorist,” Lula said. “A suicide bomber.”

“Why would a suicide bomber blow up the bonds bus?” Connie asked.

“They don’t need a reason,” Lula said. “They just be walking around with bombs stuck up their butt, and when they feel like pushin’ the button- KABOOM -there’s terrorist guts everywhere. Maybe one of them walked by the bus and smelled doughnuts, so he went in, ate a doughnut, and blew himself up.”

I was pretty sure it wasn’t a terrorist who destroyed the bus. I was pretty sure it was DeAngelo, and I knew Connie was thinking the same thing. Neither of us was saying anything because we didn’t want to set Vinnie off on a screaming rampage. Although it seemed unlikely, as he was currently one shade from comatose.

“Terrorist,” Vinnie said. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

“Lucille must have fed him a Valium smoothie this morning,” I said to Connie.

Connie looked over at Vinnie. “He’s been here since three this morning. He’s as fried as the bus.”

“Can we still operate?” I asked her.

“Yes. We lost the bus but not much else. I’ve been working off my laptop, and it travels with me. We lost a lot of files in the fire that took out the original office, but we didn’t lose anything with this fire. It’s all electronic now.”

I glanced at Lula. She was dressed in black. Black faux lizard-skin cowboy boots, black jeans that looked like they were painted on her, black tank top with an acre of boob squishing out. Pink hair.

My curiosity was raised. “What’s with the black?” I wanted to know. “You never wear all black.”

“I told you yesterday, I’m gettin’ serious. I’m not takin’ this job lightly no more. I’m channeling my inner Ranger, and I’m wearing black like him. I figure he’s on to something with the black deal.”

“He wears black so he doesn’t have to match socks in the morning.”

“See, that’s what I’m sayin’. It’s about being efficient. Get the job done. Wham . That’s gonna be my new motto. Wham . Now that I’m in black, I’m thinking I could catch Joyce Barnhardt. No problemo.”

“It might not be that easy,” I said. “There’s a rumor going around that Barnhardt’s been compacted.”

“Darn,” Lula said. “That would take all the fun out of capturing her.”

“I heard the same rumor,” Connie said.

“Too bad,” Lula said. “I was ready to be all over Barnhardt. I was ready to wham her.”

“I need to talk to a couple guys downtown this morning,” I said to Lula. “It shouldn’t take long. I’ll pick you up when I’m done, and we’ll go to the junkyard.”

“Being that we don’t have a bonds bus no more, I’ll be at the coffee shop,” Lula said. “I’m thinking about having one of them cinnamon rolls. What would Ranger eat?”

“He’d have half a bagel with a small amount of cream cheese and some smoked salmon.”

Lula shook her head. “That man don’t know much about eating.”

I LEFT THE FIRE SCENE, drove down Hamilton, and spotted the tail when I turned onto Broad. Black Lincoln two cars back. Most likely they were with me when I left my apartment, and I hadn’t been paying attention. The FBI had offices in a building in the center of the city. There was underground parking, but I chose not to use it. Even when security cameras were in play, I felt vulnerable in a parking garage. I found on-street parking half a block away, locked up, and walked to the FBI building. I waved at the Lincoln as it rolled past, but no one waved back or beeped the horn. Guess Lancer and Slasher were busy thinking up a new cover, since FBI was obviously out.

Berger’s office was on the sixth floor. He had a small cubby with a desk and two chairs. I imagined Gooley had an identical cubby somewhere in the vast room filled with cubbies.

“Did you bring the photo?” Berger asked.

I sat in one of his chairs. “I don’t have the photo.”

Berger blew out a sigh. “Did you ever have the photo?”

“Yes. I discovered it when I got home. I had no idea how it got into my bag or what it was. There wasn’t any writing on it. No name or address. I assumed I’d grabbed it by mistake when I bought magazines for the flight. So I threw it away.”

“Any chance of retrieving it?”

“No, I tried. The garbage had already been picked up.”

“Was it a man or a woman?” Berger asked.

“You don’t know?”

He shook his head. “To my knowledge, only one person knew the identity of the person in the photo, and that person is dead.”

“Would that dead person happen to be Richard Crick, the doctor who got stuffed into the trash can at LAX?”

“Bingo.”

“It was a photo of a guy standing on a street corner,” I told Berger. “Casual. Not posed. Completely unexceptional. No piercings or tattoos. Just a nice-looking guy. Somewhere around forty. Short brown hair. Fair-skinned. He was wearing a dark suit.”

“Did you recognize the street corner?”

“No. It could have been anywhere. It looked like an office building in the background. No vegetation, so I don’t know if it was Hawaii, Oregon, or New York.”

“Would you recognize this guy if you saw him again?”

“Hard to say. Maybe. I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the photo.”

“I’d like to set you up with an artist,” Berger said. “At this point, anything is better than nothing.”

“Do I want to know why this photo is so important?”

“No. I don’t even know. And I don’t want to know. Something to do with national security.”

“I’m being harassed by two men posing as FBI. Morelli ran them through the system, and they’re not with the Bureau.”

“American?”

“Yes.”

“It’s possible you’ll also have some foreign nationals sniffing around,” Berger said.

“Great. What am I supposed to do with these people?”

“Don’t let them get too close. I imagine some of them are nasty buggers.”

“Shouldn’t you be protecting me?”

“Protection got cut from the budget. Come back tomorrow, same time. I’ll have a forensic artist here. We’ll see if you can give us anything useful.”

I left the building and found Ranger lounging against my parked car, arms crossed over his chest, his expression unreadable, his posture relaxed. My messenger bag hung from his shoulder. He had a Band-Aid covering the stitches under his eye. The Band-Aid was a couple shades lighter than his skin. Ranger’s heritage was Cuban and his look was Latino. He was multilingual, ambidextrous, and street-smart. He was formerly Special Forces. He was my age. He was more big jungle cat than golden retriever.