Janet Evanovich - Sizzling Sixteen

He looked to the front of the office. “This is a zoo. It’s like vultures fighting over a dead cow.”

I looked around. “Yeah, getting to be only bones left. It’s amazing what Connie’s sold in two hours.”

“The brownies helped.”

“Do you like being a cop?” I asked him.

“Sometimes. Why do you ask?”

“I’m not sure I like being a bounty hunter anymore.”

“What would you rather do?”

“That’s the problem,” I said. “I don’t know. I’ve never had a passion for anything. I went into retail after college because I like to shop, but I didn’t especially like my job. And I’m not sure I was good at it. And then I became a bounty hunter because I couldn’t get anything else. And I know I’m not the world’s best bounty hunter.”

“You make a lot of captures,” Morelli said.

“Wow, are you being supportive of my job?”

“No. I hate your job, but you’re not horrible at it.”

“That’s the problem. I’m not horrible at it. I want to be wonderful at something.”

“I know a few things you’re wonderful at.”

“Good grief.”

Morelli hooked a finger under the shoulder strap on my tank top. “Would you like me to list them?”

“No!”

“Tonight?”

“Maybe tonight,” I said.

Morelli leaned into me and kissed me lightly on the lips. “You’re such a cupcake.”

I supposed that was good, but I wasn’t sure. I watched Morelli walk away, and I had a rush of tenderness, and then I got a rush of lust. Morelli was flat-out handsome, and I knew a few of his talents, too.

I went back to Connie. She was packing the service for eight in a box while a woman waited. She gave the woman the box and she left, elbowing her way through the crowd.

“I’m going to cut this off at noon,” Connie said. “We only have junk left. Nothing that’s going to bring any real money.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Yeah, you can get food. When I shut this down, we’ll count everything up. Lula’s either going to be passed out or have the munchies real bad by then.”

WHEN I RETURNED to the office a little after noon, the tables were gone from the sidewalk and the cars and trucks were also gone. Mooner’s RV was still parked in front of the bookstore, but Mooner wasn’t in sight. Most likely, he was inside the Love Bus planning out Hobbit Con. I carted the bags of food into the office and set it all out on Connie’s desk.

Connie was working with a calculator, adding in money she’d arranged in stacks on the floor. She had a Glock on the desk beside her phone. Lula was asleep on the couch. Lula woke up when she heard the food bags rustling.

“Is that food? God bless whoever brought food. I’m starved.”

“I have meatball subs and potato salad and macaroni from Pino’s,” I told her.

Connie took a sub and kept working, plugging numbers into the calculator.

“How are we doing?” I asked her.

“I think we’re going to make it. The guns and the motorcycle helped a lot.”

“That whole back room is just about empty,” Lula said. “Only thing left is dust bunnies.”

I sat back and ate my lunch and watched traffic move past the bonds office. The rhythm on the street was normal again. I imagined the militiamen were on their way back to Idaho with their dynamite, and some woman in the Burg was setting her new service for eight in her china closet.

“That’s it,” Connie said. “We have a million three for Sunflower and fifty-two dollars left over. I have the fifty-two dollars on my desk. Everything else can get packed. Count it as you go. We want to give Sunflower a million three. No more. No less.”

“What are we gonna put it in?” Lula asked.

Connie collected the lunch wrappers and stuffed them into the Pino’s bag. “We have a couple duffel bags in the back that were holding guns. We sold the guns, but I kept the bags.”

“Do you think Sunflower will recognize his money?” Lula asked.

“No. It’s all been rebundled,” Connie said to Lula. “So far as we know, we weren’t seen at Chopper’s, and you were the only one seen at the funeral parlor. I doubt they’d attribute the robberies to you.”

“Yeah,” Lula said. “Sunflower’s one of them chauvinistic underestimators.”

Lula and I set to work packing the duffel bags, being careful to count as we packed, and Connie called Sunflower.

“He sounded happier this time,” Connie said when she got off the phone. “I think he needs the money.”

“Where are we making the switch?” I asked her.

“He wants us to bring the money to the back door of the bar. I told him we wouldn’t go inside, so he’s going to have his man waiting for us.”

“We’ll take the Mercedes,” I said to Connie. “Ranger monitors all his cars. If anything bad goes down, we’ll have Ranger backing us up.”

I drove the Mercedes to the parking area behind the bonds office, and Lula and Connie lugged the duffel bags out and put them on the backseat. Connie got in the front passenger seat and set her Uzi on the floor, between her feet. Lula squeezed herself onto the backseat next to the duffel bags filled with money. Lula had her Glock in her purse and a sawed-off shotgun wedged between her legs.

I had my gun with two bullets.

“Vinnie better appreciate this,” Lula said. “I’m expecting a raise. And I want a company car. Not just any car, either. I want a good one. And I want one of them tower of treats at Christmas. You know, where you get it in the mail, and it’s a stack of boxes with all kinds of shit in ’em.”

“I don’t want a raise,” Connie said. “I want to rescue Vinnie, and then I want to kick his perverted ass all the way from the bonds office to the hospital.”

I drove across town and turned up Stark Street. I had my eye on my rearview mirror. No Rangeman tail in view, but I knew Chet was following my blip on his screen. Connie and Lula were silent. We were all in alert mode. I rolled past the bar, took the next cross street for half a block, and turned into the alley.

Three goons were waiting outside the bar’s back door. No Vinnie. I crept down the alley and stopped at the bar. Connie powered her window down, and the men stepped forward. Connie poked her Uzi out the window, and the men stopped in their tracks.

“Do you have the money?” one of the men asked.

“Yes,” Connie said. “Do you have Vinnie?”

“No. Why would we have Vinnie?”

“You recaptured him.”

“Not that I know of,” the guy said. “I’m just supposed to get the money from you. You give us the money, and we don’t blow up the bail bonds office with all of you in it, including Vinnie.”

“I need a moment,” Connie said to the men. And she powered her window up.

“What the heck is this?” Lula said. “I’m confused.”

Connie looked over at me. “What do you think?”

“I don’t think they have him,” I said.

Connie gave a curt nod. “That’s what I think.”

“So who’s got him?” Lula asked.

“Don’t know,” Connie said, “but if we give them the money, they won’t blow us up.”

Lula opened her door and dumped the money out on the pavement. “I want a receipt,” she said.

“I don’t got a receipt,” the one guy said. “Mr. Sunflower didn’t give us no receipt. And anyway, we’d have to count it to give you a real receipt.”

“Are you sayin’ I’m a cheater?” Lula said to him. “Because you better take it back if that’s what you meant to say. You be in for a world of hurt if you slander me.”

“Cripes, woman,” the guy said. “I just don’t got a receipt. Cut me some slack here.”