Janet Evanovich - Smokin Seventeen

“This is getting real old,” Lula said, back on her feet. “On the bright side we’re at 7-Eleven, and I can get nachos for lunch.”

Lula and I ate our nachos in my car and washed them down with Slurpees.

“This isn’t such a bad job,” Lula said. “We get a lot of personal freedom. We could eat lunch wherever and whenever we want. And we meet a lot of interesting people. Vampires and such. I don’t especially want them suckin’ on me, but aside from that it’s pretty good. And I already got some mileage out of seeing Merlin Brown naked.”

I scooped up the last of my nacho cheese and a small sigh inadvertently escaped.

“You on the other hand, don’t look so happy,” Lula said.

“I feel like my life isn’t going anywhere.”

“And?”

I did another sigh.

Lula drained her Slurpee. “Why do you gotta be going somewhere? Seems like it should be enough that we had nachos. And we got meaningful jobs. We catch bad guys. If it wasn’t for us there’d be vampires and all kinds of shit running around loose.”

“Actually the vampire is still at large.”

“Yeah, but we’re thinking about catching him.”

“And what about my relationships?”

“Here we are back to the relationships,” Lula said. “I knew it was gonna come to this. Your whole problem is you turned yourself into a glass-is-half-empty person. You got two hot men on the line, and you look at it like a bad thing, but I see it like hitting the jackpot. You probably could even have three hot men if you put an effort into Dave Whatshisname.”

I looked down at my jeans. I still couldn’t button them. “And on top of everything else, I’m getting fat,” I said.

“That’s not your fault. You had the hex put on you. Bella gave you the boils and all. And now you got the vordo.”

I put my phone to my ear and called Connie. “Have you had a chance to find out about vordo?”

“No,” she said, “but I’ll ask around.”

“Not that I believe in it,” I said to Lula, hanging up.

“Sure,” Lula said. “I don’t believe in it either. Whatever the heck it is. Still, I’m glad I don’t got it.”

I put the Escort into gear and drove Lula to the coffee shop so she could get her Firebird.

“What are you gonna do now?” she asked.

“I guess I’ll go home.” Okay, I guess I was feeling a little defeated. And I guess I was sort of embarrassed about stun gunning the guy in line, but if we’re going to be brutally honest here, I was just glad I wasn’t the one to wet their pants.

I PULLED INTO THE LOTto my apartment building and realized Mooner’s bus was parked there. When I offered the use of my apartment to Connie I hadn’t anticipated Vinnie and Mooner hanging out there. I took the elevator to the second floor, walked down the hall, and even before I inserted my key, I caught the smell of pot.

I kicked the door open and stormed into my apartment. Connie was at the dining room table, working at the computer. Vinnie was slouched on the couch watching television. Mooner was slouched next to Vinnie.

“Who’s been smoking pot in here?” I yelled. “There is no smoking in my apartment. Especially pot . This is a total drug-free zone.”

“I wouldn’t let anyone smoke in here,” Connie said. “I made them go out to smoke.”

“Yeah,” Mooner said. “We like had to smoke in the hall.”

I felt my eyebrows go up into my hairline. “You were smoking pot in the hall? Are you insane? That is so rude . It’s illegal. It’s unhealthy. It’s smelly. It’s irresponsible. It’s unacceptable!” I was halfway through my rant when my attention was diverted to the television screen. Two huge-breasted naked women were trying to have sex with a monkey and a little man dressed up like a hobbit. “What the heck are you watching? That’s not pay-per-view, is it?”

“It’s like great that you’ve got cable,” Mooner said. “You can’t get quality film like this on network. Okay, so it might cost dinero, but dude, you’ve got hobbit movies. That is so like rare.”

The hobbit had his business hanging out, and it was hard to tell if he was interested in the women or the monkey. I didn’t especially care about the hobbit’s sexual orientation. What I cared about was that this was going on my bill. Not only was I going to have to pay for this, but it was going to be public record that I bought hobbit porn. Someone in the cable company billing department would know.

I wrestled the remote away from Vinnie, clicked the television off, and pointed stiff-armed at the door. “Out!”

“I have to meet with the contractor anyway,” Vinnie said, pushing up from the couch. “They’re taking the crime scene tape down tonight, and we can get back to work on the office tomorrow.” He stopped at the door. “Where’s my bear?”

I dropped a peanut into Rex’s cage. “I’m working on it.”

Rex rushed out of his soup can den, stuffed the peanut into his cheek, and rushed back into his soup can.

Mooner held the door open for Vinnie. “Dude, we could get satellite television for the Moon Bus.”

“Yeah, and we could rob a bank to pay for it,” Vinnie said.

“No!” I yelled into the hall, after them. “Don’t say that to Mooner. He’ll do it!”

“At least somebody’ll be bringing in money,” Vinnie said.

I closed and locked the door and looked in on Connie in the dining room. “You don’t think they’ll rob a bank, do you?”

Connie shrugged. “Anything’s possible, but Vinnie would be more inclined to hijack a truck.”

“Anything new come in?”

“No. It’s deadly slow.”

I took a nap and when I woke it was a little after five and Connie was packing up to leave.

“See you tomorrow,” she said. “Do you have anything fun planned for tonight?”

“I’m helping Ranger with a new account.”

“Good thinking to take a nap.”

“It’s business.”

Connie hiked her tote bag onto her shoulder. “I’ve seen him look at you. It’s like you’re lunch.”

I grabbed my sweatshirt and my shoulder bag and walked with Connie to the parking lot. Rangeman was located on a quiet side street in the center of the city. I took Hamilton and did a quick detour into Morelli’s neighborhood. His SUV was in front of his house, so I pulled in behind it and parked. Morelli inherited the house from his aunt and has since become surprisingly domesticated. There’s still some wild beast left in the man, and he doesn’t own a cookie jar, but he’s better than I am at stocking his refrigerator and from time to time he puts the seat down on the toilet.

He was pouring Bob’s dinner kibble into a bowl when I walked into the kitchen. Bob did his happy dance when he saw me, whipped around, and dove for his food when Morelli set the bowl on the floor.

“What’s up?” Morelli asked.

“I just stopped in to say hello. I’m on my way to Rangeman. Ranger asked me to go over a security system.”

“After hours?”

“It’s never after hours at Rangeman.”

Rangeman ran a very specialized high-end security service, and unlike most large security firms, they monitored their accounts locally from a monitoring station in the Rangeman building. The building ran 24/7 and many of the men rented small efficiency apartments on site.

“Anything new on the bonds office bodies?” I asked Morelli.

Bob had scarfed up all his food and was pushing his bowl around on the floor. Morelli grabbed the bowl and put it in the sink. “Nothing earth-shattering. Positive IDs on both of them. Dugan and his lawyer, Bobby Lucarelli. No surprise there. Put into the ground a week to a couple days apart.”