Janet Evanovich - Takedown Twenty

“Vinnie’s going to hound me until I find Uncle Sunny.”

“Yeah, but this looking for Uncle Sunny is making us unpopular, and I think I got a bruise from landing on you. I hear bacon is real good for healing a bruise.”

I thumbed through Sunny’s file. He’d been charged with second-degree murder for running over Stanley Dugan… twice. I suspected he’d done a lot worse to a lot of people over the years, but this time he’d been caught on video by a kid with an iPhone who’d posted it to YouTube. Since everyone who knew Stanley Dugan (including his ninety-year-old mother) hated him, the video only served to enhance Sunny’s popularity.

Two men in their mid-fifties ambled out of the nail salon. They were balding, paunchy, wearing bowling shirts, pleated slacks, and pinky rings. One of the men had “Shorty” embroidered on his shirt above the breast pocket.

“Hey,” Shorty said, eyeballing me. “We hear you been asking about Sunny.”

“I work for his bail bonds agent,” I told him. “Sunny is in violation of his bail agreement. He needs to reschedule a court date.”

“Maybe he don’t want to do that,” Shorty said. “Maybe he got better things to do with his time.”

“If he doesn’t reschedule, he’s considered a felon.”

Shorty snickered. “Of course he’s a fella. Everybody knows he’s a fella. What are you, stupid or something?”

“Felon. Not fella. Felon . A fugitive from the law.”

“Watch your mouth,” Shorty said. “You don’t go around calling good people like Sunny names that could tarnish his reputation. He could sue you for slandering him.”

“So do you know where he is?” I asked.

“Sure. He’s where he always is at this time of the day.”

“And where would that be?”

“I’m not telling you. And you better back off, girlie, or I might have to get rough. I might have to shoot you or something.”

“Blah, blah, blah,” Lula said. “You and who else gonna do that, Shorty ?”

“Me and him,” Shorty said, gesturing to the guy next to him. “Me and Moe. Isn’t that right, Moe?”

“Yeah,” Moe said. “We don’t like people trash-talking Sunny.”

“And furthermore I don’t like the way you said my name,” Shorty said to Lula. “It was like you were implying I was short.”

“You are short,” Lula said. “You’re short. You’re going bald. And unless you just come from a bowling alley, you got no taste in clothes.”

“Oh yeah? Well, you should talk,” Shorty said. “You’re fat .”

Lula narrowed her eyes, rammed her fists onto her hips, and leaned forward so that she was almost nose to nose with Shorty. “Say what? Did I just hear that you think I’m fat? ’Cause that better not be the case on account of then I’d have to pound you into something looks like a hamburger pattie.”

I glanced left and saw the giraffe gallop across the street a couple blocks away. “Holy cow,” I said. “It’s the giraffe.”

Lula whipped her head around. “Where’d he go? I don’t see no giraffe.”

“He galloped across the street at Eighteenth.”

“Gotta go,” Lula said to Shorty. “Things to do.”

We jumped into Lula’s car, took off down the street, turned the corner at Eighteenth and cruised around, but we didn’t see the giraffe.

“This is perplexing,” Lula said. “It’s not like he could get himself in a Subaru and drive away. I bet you couldn’t even get him in a Escalade. He’s a big sucker.”

Morelli called on my cellphone. “Hey, Cupcake,” he said. “What’s doing?”

“Nothing’s doing,” I told him. “My boyfriend is a workaholic.”

“I’ve got fifteen minutes free. Do you want to… you know?”

“Wow, fifteen whole minutes.”

“Yeah, that’s a minute for me and fourteen for you.”

“Tempting, but I’m going to hold out for at least a half hour.”

“I could throw lunch into the deal if you’re up to multitasking.”

“I’ll meet you at Pino’s for lunch, but you’re going to have to take a rain check on the… you know.”

“Better than nothing,” Morelli said. “High noon.”

Morelli was already at Pino’s when I walked in. He had a corner booth, and he was working his way through a bread basket. He was wearing jeans and an untucked black T-shirt that partially hid the Glock at his hip. His dark hair waved over his ears, and his brown eyes were sharp and assessing.

I slid into the booth across from him. “You have cop eyes,” I said.

He pushed the bread basket my way. “That could change if you wanted to have lunch in the parking lot. Between the gunshot and the double shift I’m missing you… a lot.”

“I miss you too.”

I took a piece of bread and studied him. I’ve known Morelli for most of my life, and I was pretty good at reading his moods.

“There’s more,” I said.

Morelli nodded. “There’s Ralph Rogers.”

“The guy with the dart stuck in his butt. What about him?”

“He’s dead.”

“He was alive last time I saw him.”

“He went into cardiac arrest at the hospital and they couldn’t revive him. Apparently the dart contained some exotic kind of poison. And it contained a lot of it.”

“Enough to take down a giraffe?”

“The toxicology report didn’t cover that.”

“Shocking.”

“I know I’m going to regret asking, but why the interest in giraffes?”

“Lula and I were following a giraffe when we found Rogers lying in the road.”

“This isn’t a substance abuse issue, is it?”

“No. We really saw a giraffe. Lula was conducting some business with Jimmy Spit, and we saw a giraffe gallop past us and turn at Sixteenth Street. A black Cadillac Escalade with a satellite dish on its roof drove by seconds later, turned at Sixteenth, and there was gunfire. By the time we got to Sixteenth there was no giraffe and no Escalade. And Rogers was lying facedown in the middle of the road.”

“Are you sure it was a giraffe?”

“Skinny legs with knobby knees, yellow with big brown spots, long neck. Yep, I’m pretty sure it was a giraffe. Hasn’t anyone else reported seeing a giraffe in that neighborhood?”

“Not that I’ve heard. I’d ask dispatch, but I’d feel like an idiot.”

“How’s your leg? Are you in pain?”

“No pain at all. I’m loaded up with pain pills. I could set my hair on fire and I wouldn’t feel it.”

“Is it okay for you to be driving?”

“Yeah, they don’t make me drowsy. They just make me nice and numb. Can’t feel my leg. Can’t feel my fingertips or my tongue.”

“Good to know about your fingertips and your tongue. I’m glad we didn’t waste time getting naked in the parking lot.”

Morelli grinned. “I could have managed.”

The waitress brought two meatball subs with extra coleslaw.

“I ordered for both of us when I got here,” Morelli said. “Hope you don’t mind. I’m on a tight schedule. Did Rogers say anything to you?”

I dug into my coleslaw. “No. He was stretched out with a dart in his butt. That’s it.”

“I don’t suppose you got the license plate on the black SUV.”

“Sorry, it flew past me, but how many Escalades have a satellite dish on the roof?”

“Was it a big dish, like for a news station?”

“It was a small dish, like for an idiot drug dealer or a tricked out rapper.”

Morelli took a bite of his sub, and some red sauce leaked out of his mouth and ran down his chin.

“You might want to cut back on those pills,” I told him.

He wiped up with his napkin. “Just in case you intend to spend the rest of your life with me, this is probably what I’m going to look like when I’m ninety.”