Janet Evanovich - Finger Lickin’ Fifteen

“I guess you could say that to Morelli, too,” Joyce said.

Lula cut her eyes to me. “You want me to shoot her? ’Cause I’d really like to do that. I still got a few bullets left in my gun.”

“Thanks, but not today,” I said to Lula. “Some other time.”

“Just let me know when.”

“So what are you doing here in the slums?” I asked her.

“Ask Connie.”

“Vinnie hired her again,” Connie said. “He decided you weren’t bringing the skips in fast enough, so he brought Joyce in to take up the slack.”

“I don’t take up slack,” Joyce said. “I take the cream off the top.”

From time to time, Joyce had worked for Vinnie, mostly because she was good with a whip and once in a while Vinnie felt like a very bad boy.

“What’s in the casserole?” Joyce asked.

I opened the lid. “It’s barbecue. Grandma Mazur made it for me for dinner. She knows how I love this recipe.”

Joyce spit on the pulled pork. “Just like old times,” she said. “Remember when I used to spit on your lunch in school?”

“How about now?” Lula asked. “Can I shoot her now?”

“No!”

Joyce took the casserole dish from me. “Yum,” she said. “Dinner.” And then she sashayed out of the bonds office, got into her black Mercedes, and roared off down the street with the barbecue.

“I got a dilemma here now,” Lula said. “I don’t know whether I want her to like my barbecue sauce or get the squirts from it.”

Vinnie stuck his head out of his office. “Where is she? Did she leave? Christ, she scares the crap out of me. Still, there’s no getting around it. She’s a man-eater. She’ll clean up the list.”

Connie and Lula and I did a collective eye roll because Joyce had tried her hand at bounty hunting before and the only man she ate was Vinnie.

“Am I fired?” I asked Vinnie.

“No. You’re the B team.”

“You can’t have an A team and a B team going after the same skips. It doesn’t work.”

“Make it work,” Vinnie said.

“We should have saved the barbecue for Vinnie,” I said to Lula.

“Wasn’t me that gave Barnhardt the barbecue,” Lula said. “I wanted to shoot her.”

I hiked my bag onto my shoulder. “I’m out of here. I’m going to see if Myron Kaplan is home.”

“I’m with you,” Lula said. “I’m not staying here with this Barnhardt-hiring idiot.”

“What about the filing?” Vinnie yelled at Lula. “There’s stacks of files everywhere.”

“File my ass,” Lula said.

ACCORDING TO THE information Connie had given me, Myron Kaplan was seventy-eight years old, lived alone, was a retired pharmacist, and two months ago, he robbed his dentist at gunpoint. Myron’s booking photo was mostly nose. Several other photos taken when bail was written showed Myron to be slightly stooped, with sparse, wild gray hair.

“There it is,” Lula said, checking house numbers while I crept down Carmichael Street. “That’s his house with the red door.”

Carmichael was a quiet little side street in the center of the city. Residents could walk to shops, restaurants, coffeehouses, corner groceries, and in Myron’s case… his dentist. The street was entirely residential, with narrow brick-faced two-story row houses.

I parked at the curb, and Lula and I walked to the small front stoop. I rang the bell, and we both stepped aside in case Myron decided to shoot through his door. He was old, but he was known to be armed, and we’d been shot at a lot lately.

The door opened, and Myron looked at me and then focused on Lula in the yellow stretch suit and black flak vest.

“What the heck?” Myron asked.

“Don’t mess with me,” Lula said. “I’m off doughnuts, and I feel mean as a snake.”

“You look like a big bumblebee,” Myron said. “I thought I slept through October, and it was Halloween.”

I introduced myself and explained to Myron he’d missed his court date.

“I’m not going to court,” Myron said. “I already told that to the lady who called on the phone. I got better things to do.”

“Like what?” Lula wanted to know.

“Like watch television.”

Myron had a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He was gumming it around, sucking in smoke and blowing it out, all at the same time.

“That’s disgustin’,” Lula said. “You shouldn’t be smoking. Didn’t your doctor tell you not to smoke?”

“My doctor’s dead,” Myron said. “Everybody I know is dead.”

“I’m not,” Lula said.

Myron considered that. “You’re right. You want to do knicky-knacky with me? It’s been a while, but I think I can still do it.”

“You better be talkin’ about some kind of card game,” Lula told him.

“We need to go now,” I said. “I’m kind of on a schedule.”

“Listen, missy,” Myron said. “I’m not going. What part of not going don’t you understand?”

I hated capturing old people. If they didn’t cooperate, there was no good way to bring them in. No matter how professional and respectful I tried to act, I always looked like a jerk when I dragged their carcass out the door.

“It’s the law,” I said. “You’re accused of a crime, and you have to go before a judge.”

“I didn’t commit a crime,” Myron said. “I just got a refund. This quack dentist made me false teeth. They didn’t fit. I wanted my money back.”

“Yes, but you got it back at gunpoint.”

“That’s because I couldn’t get an appointment to see him until January. Couldn’t get past his snippy receptionist. When I went in with the gun, I got to see him right away. It’s not like I have forever to wait for money. I’m old.”

“What about the teeth?” Lula asked him. “Where’s the teeth?”

“I left them with the dentist. I got my money back, and he got his teeth back.”

“Sounds fair to me,” Lula said.

“The court decides what’s fair,” I said. “You have to go to court.”

Myron crossed his arms over his chest and narrowed his eyes. “Make me.”

“This is gonna get ugly,” Lula said. “We should have left this for Barnhardt.”

“I’ll make a deal,” I said to Myron. “If you come with me, I’ll get you a date with my grandmother. She’s real cute.”

“Does she put out for knicky-knacky?”

“No!”

“Criminy,” Lula said to Myron. “What’s with you and the knicky-knacky? Do it by yourself and get it over with just like the rest of us.”

“He’s not real big,” I said to Lula. “Probably about a hundred and sixty pounds. If we hog-tie him, we should be able to cart him out to the car.”

“Yeah, and he don’t have no teeth, so we don’t have to worry about him biting us.”

“You can’t do that to me,” Myron said. “I’m old. I’ll have a heart attack. I’ll pee my pants.”

Lula was hands on hips. “I hate when they pee their pants. It’s a humiliating experience. And it ruins the upholstery.”

I cut my eyes to Myron. “Well? How do you want us to do this?”

“I gotta go to the bathroom before you hog-tie me,” Myron said. “Or else I’ll pee for sure.”

“You’ve got three minutes,” I said to him.

“I can’t go in three minutes. I’m old. I’ve got a prostate the size of a basketball.”

“Just go!”

Myron trotted off to the bathroom, and Lula and I waited in the front room. Five minutes passed. Ten minutes. I went to the bathroom door and knocked. No answer.

“Myron?”

Nothing. I tried the door. Locked. I called again and rapped louder. Shit!

“I need something to pop the lock,” I said to Lula. “Do you have a safety pin? Chicken skewer? Knitting needle?”

“I got a bobby pin.”