Janet Evanovich - Takedown Twenty

“How would I hook up with them?”

“Same way you hook up with anyone,” Shirlene said. “Twitter. Or you could walk down the fifth block wearing red, and then they’d show up and shoot you.”

“Anything else?” Lula asked.

“I hear some of them play basketball on the city courts across from the projects.”

“Do you know when they play?” I asked.

“They don’t play in the morning.”

I gave Shirlene twenty dollars, and Lula and I drove to the basketball courts by the projects. There were kids playing basketball, and some of them looked like killers, but none of them looked like Antwan.

“I don’t know why Vinnie wrote a bond on this loser,” Lula said. “It’s no wonder we can’t find him. We don’t have any information. Who writes a bond on someone without an address or a single relative?”

“The bond was completely secured. Vinnie doesn’t care if we find him.”

“Then why are we looking?”

“ I need to find him. I need the recovery money for a new car. Or at least a new muffler.”

“I don’t know why you’re going there. You’ll be rolling in dough when you capture Uncle Sunny.”

“I’m making zero progress with the Sunny capture. I broke my finger, I’ve been condemned to hell, dropped off a bridge, and shot at.”

“Yeah, but you can’t expect everything to go perfect all the time. You just had a few bumps in the road.”

“I need a new job.”

“I don’t think so. What about me if you get a new job? What am I going to do?”

“You’d be the office bounty hunter.”

“That sounds pretty good. That’s an important promotion. I like the way that sounds. Only wait a minute, then I’m gonna be the one getting dropped off the bridge. I’d hate that. It’d ruin my hair. And what happens to my Via Spigas when I go off the bridge?”

I drove through the projects, and then because we were close to Fifteenth I drove through Sunny’s neighborhood. We didn’t see Sunny. We didn’t see Kevin. We didn’t see Antwan. I drove back to the basketball court and the court was empty. I made one last pass down Stark Street and dropped Lula off at her car.

“This was a pretty good day,” Lula said. “We didn’t get shot at even once.”

I let myself into my apartment, slumped into my bedroom, flopped onto the bed, and pulled the pillow over my face. I wallowed in self-pity for a couple minutes, did a couple minutes of berating myself, but ultimately it wasn’t working for me. I got up, had a beer and a peanut butter sandwich, and felt pretty good. It’s hard to feel bad after drinking some beer and eating some worthless white bread and peanut butter.

I went to the computer and logged on to Antwan’s Twitter page. There was a lot of tweeting about music. Some chest beating about how tough he was. He had ham and cheese for lunch. Blah, blah, blah. He trash-talked about a girl he’d messed up. His brain-dead friends tweeted back supportive messages. More blah, blah, blah. He hung out with Big Al after basketball.

Eureka. This was exactly what I was looking for. He played basketball. He wasn’t there yesterday, but he was there sometimes. I kept reading, and there was another mention of his usual noontime basketball game. So maybe I knew where to find Antwan. Now I just had to figure out how to capture him. I wondered if Morelli was serious about the SWAT team.

At nine o’clock I followed Grandma’s instructions and signed on to play Bingo. I read the rules and used my credit card to deposit fifty dollars in my Bingo account. I was able to buy cards with this account, and winnings would be deposited in it. I could withdraw my money at any time so it seemed okay. I gave “Luvbaby” as my screen name, and I bought three Bingo cards. It took three minutes for me to lose. I bought three more cards. Lost. Bought more cards. Won a small jackpot.

Morelli called a little before ten o’clock, and I told him I couldn’t talk. I got back to the game and played until midnight, when I had to quit because I’d maxed out my credit card.

I crashed into bed, chanting Stupid, stupid, stupid to myself. The phone rang after I’d thrashed around for fifteen minutes.

“Babe,” Ranger said, “I’m not going to get to you tonight. I have a client with a major security breach and a missing fifteen-hundred-pound safe.”

“No problem,” I said. “I have my own issues.”

TWENTY

I LOOKED AT my reflection in the bathroom mirror at eight A.M. and couldn’t believe what I saw. A Bingo addict was holding my toothbrush. I’d maxed out my credit card playing a game I didn’t even like. What the heck was I thinking?

I rolled into the office a little before nine. Vinnie’s car wasn’t parked behind the office, and his door was closed. Connie was busy on her computer. Lula’s car was parked outside, but she wasn’t in the office.

“Where is everyone?” I asked.

“First thing this morning Vinnie got a threatening message from Harry about Sunucchi,” Connie told me. “Harry’s accountant was going over the books, and he wasn’t happy. So Vinnie took a mental health day and went underground.”

“Where’s Lula?”

“She’s taking inventory in the storeroom.”

“Have you ever played Bingo online?”

“No, but I know lots of people who do. I’m more into poker.”

“What happens if you gamble more money than you have?” I asked Connie. “Would the site put you into collection?”

“I guess they could, but I don’t think that happens. Your credit card would just get declined.”

I called Morelli at work.

“The women who were murdered and tossed into the Dumpsters,” I said to Morelli. “Their bank accounts were cleaned out, right?”

“Right.”

“Are we talking about a lot of money?”

“It ranged from fifteen hundred dollars to just under thirty thousand.”

“Do you suppose they could have been paying off gambling debts?”

“Why were they killed if they were paying off debts? Usually you get killed if you don’t pay off.”

“I haven’t got that part figured out.”

“Do you want to do something tonight?” Morelli asked.

“What did you have in mind?”

“Depends. Do we need to have the aborted relationship discussion?”

“No. I had the discussion all by myself and got it all straight.”

“Did you reach any conclusions I should know about?”

“Nope. It’s all good.”

“So I should stop at the drugstore on the way over?”

“Sure, and pick up some ice cream.”

“Should I also pick up dinner?”

“Wouldn’t hurt.”

I hung up, took a deep breath, and told myself it would all work out. Somewhere, out there in the cosmos, there was a plan for me. Someday I’d get my life under control. My fear was that it might not be someday soon.

Lula came out of the storeroom. “Did I hear you talking to Morelli? Are you seeing him tonight? Because I was hoping we could go out under cover of darkness tonight and look for Kevin.”

“Maybe Connie will go out with you.”

“Pass,” Connie said. “I’m taking my mother to a baby shower for Ann Marie Scarelli.”

Connie comes from a big Italian family that has a baby shower or wedding shower every week. And on the odd occasion that there’s not a wedding shower or baby shower, there’s a jewelry party, makeup party, Botox party, or potluck dinner.

“I’m worried about Kevin,” Lula said. “What if he’s laying in the middle of the road starving? I haven’t been leaving him lettuce.”

“I think someone would notice a giraffe in the middle of the road,” I said.

“Yeah, but what if he’s a magic giraffe, and we’re the only ones can see him?”