Janet Evanovich: Plum Spooky

I took his file from my Prada knockoff messenger bag and showed Lula his mug shot, plus a photo.

“Good thing he‘s a genius,” Lula said, “on account of he don‘t have much else going on.”

At five-feet-two-inches tall, Munch looked more like fourteen than twenty-four. He was slim, with strawberry blond hair and pale freckled skin. The photo was taken outdoors, and Munch was squinting into the sun. He was wearing jeans and sneakers and a SpongeBob T-shirt, and it occurred to me that he probably shopped in the kids‘ department. I imagine you have to be pretty secure in your manhood to pull that one off.

“I‘m feeling hot today,” Lula said. “I bet I could find that Munch. I bet he‘s sitting home in his Underoos playing with his whatchamacallit.”

“I guess it wouldn‘t hurt for us to check out his house one more time,” I said. “He‘s renting one of those little tiny row houses on Crocker Street, down by the button factory.”

“What are you gonna do with the monkey?” Lula wanted to know.

I looked over at Connie.

“Forget it,” Connie said. “I‘m not babysitting a monkey. Especially not that monkey.”

“Well, I don‘t let monkeys ride in my car,” Lula said. “If that monkey‘s going with us, you‘re gonna have to drive your car. And I‘m sitting in the back, so I can keep an eye on him. I don‘t want no monkey sneaking up behind me giving me monkey cooties.”

“I‘ve got two new skips,” Connie said to me. “One of them, Gordo Bollo, ran over his ex-wife‘s brand-new husband with a pickup truck, twice. And the other, Denny Guzzi, robbed a con ve nience store and accidentally shot himself in the foot trying to make his getaway. Both idiots failed to show for their court appearances.”

Connie shoved the paperwork to the edge of the desk. I signed the contract and took the files that contained a photo, the arrest sheet, and the bond agreement for each man.

“Shouldn‘t be hard to tag Denny Guzzi,” Connie said.

“He‘s got a big ban dage on his foot, and he can‘t run.”

“Yeah, but he‘s got a gun,” I said to Connie.

“This is Jersey,” Connie said. “Everyone‘s got a gun… except you.”

We left the bonds office, and Lula stood looking at my car.

“I forgot you got this dumb Jeep,” Lula said. “I can‘t get in the back of this thing. Only Romanian acrobats could get in the back of this. I guess the monkey‘s gotta ride in back, but I swear he makes a move on me, and I‘m gonna shoot him.”

I slid behind the wheel, Lula wedged herself into the passenger-side seat, and Carl hopped into the back. I adjusted my rearview mirror, locked onto Carl, and I swear it looked to me like Carl was making faces at Lula and giving her the finger.

“What?” Lula said to me. “You got a strange look on you.”

“It‘s nothing,” I said. “I just thought Carl was… never mind.”

I drove across town, parked in front of Munch‘s house on Crocker Street, and we all piled out of the Jeep.

“This here‘s a boring-ass house,” Lula said. “It looks like every other house on the street. If I came home after having two cosmopolitans, I wouldn‘t know which house was mine. Look at them. They‘re all redbrick. They all have the same stupid black door and black window trim. They don‘t even have no front yard. Just a stoop. And they all got the same stupid stoop.”

I glanced at Lula. “Are you okay? That‘s a lot of hostility for a poor row house.”

“It‘s the monkey. Monkeys give me the willies. And I might have a headache from all that medicinal whiskey.”

I rang Munch‘s doorbell and looked through sheers that screened the front window. Beyond the sheers, the house was dark and still.

“I bet he‘s in there,” Lula said. “I bet he‘s hiding under the bed. I think we should go around to the back and look.”

There were fifteen row houses in all. All shared common walls, and Munch‘s was almost dead middle. We returned to the Jeep, I rolled down the street, turned left at the corner, and took the alley that cut the block. I parked, and we all got out and walked through Munch‘s postage-stamp backyard. The rear of the house was similar to the front. A door and two windows. The door had a small swinging trapdoor at the bottom for a pet, and Carl instantly scurried inside.

I was dumbstruck. One minute, Carl was in the Jeep, and then, in an instant, he was inside the house.

“Holy macaroni,” Lula said. “He‘s fast!”

We looked in a window and saw Carl in the kitchen, bouncing off counters, jumping up and down on the small kitchen table.

I pressed my nose to the glass. “I have to get him out.”

“Like hell you do,” Lula said. “This here‘s your lucky day. I say finders keepers.”

“What if Munch never returns? Carl will starve to death.”

“I don‘t think so,” Lula said. “He just opened the refrigerator.”

“There has to be a way to get in. Maybe Munch hid a key.”

“Well, someone could accidentally break a window,” Lula said. “And then someone else could crawl in and beat the living crap out of the monkey.”

“No. We‘re not breaking or beating.”

I rapped on the window, and Carl gave me the finger.

Lula sucked in some air. “That little fucker just flipped us the bird.”

“It was probably accidental.”

Lula glared in at Carl. “Accident this!” she said to him, middle finger extended.

Carl turned and mooned Lula, although it wasn‘t much of a moon since he wasn‘t wearing clothes to begin with.

“Oh yeah?” Lula said. “You want to see a moon? I got a moon to show you.”

“No!” I said to Lula. “No more moons. Bad enough I just looked at a monkey butt. I don‘t want your butt burned into my ret i nas.”

“Hunh,” Lula said. “Lotta people paid good money to see that butt.”

Carl drank some milk out of a carton and put it back into the refrigerator. He opened the crisper drawer and pawed around in it but didn‘t find anything he wanted. He closed the refrigerator, scratched his stomach, and looked around.

“Let me in,” I said to him. “Open the door.”

“Yeah, right,” Lula said. “As if his little pea brain could understand you.”

Carl gave Lula the finger again. And then Carl threw the deadbolt, opened the door, and stuck his tongue out at Lula.

“If there‘s one thing I can‘t stand,” Lula said, “it‘s a show-off monkey.”

I did a fast walk-through of the house. Not much to see. Two small bedrooms, living room, single bath, small eat-in kitchen. These houses were built by the button factory after the war to entice cheap labor, and the button factory didn‘t waste money on frills. The houses had been sold many times over since then and were now occupied by an odd assortment of se nior citizens, newly marrieds, and crazies. Seemed to me, Munch fit into the crazy category.

There were no clothes in the closet, no toiletries in the bathroom, no computer anywhere. Munch had cleared out, leaving a carton of milk, some sprouted onions, and a half-empty box of Rice Krispies behind.

“It‘s the strangest thing,” Lula said. “I got this sudden craving for coffee cake. Do you smell cinnamon? It‘s like it‘s mixed up with Christmas trees and oranges.”

I‘d noticed the scent.

And I was afraid I recognized it.

“How about you?” I asked Carl. “Do you smell cinnamon?”

Carl did another shrug and scratched his butt.

“Now all I can think of is cinnamon buns,” Lula said. “I got buns on the brain. We gotta go find some. Or maybe a doughnut. I wouldn‘t mind a dozen doughnuts. I need a bakery. I got cravings.”

Everyone vacated the kitchen, I closed the back door, and we all piled into the Jeep. I found my way to Hamilton and stopped at Tasty Pastry.