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Lula flushed the toilet. Nothing. She picked the lid up and looked inside. “There's no water in this toilet,” she said. “That's your problem.” Lula reached around and turned the valve on the pipe leading to the toilet. “It's gonna work just fine now,” she said. She flushed the toilet again and the bowl began to fill with water.
The Hispanic woman was waving her arms and talking rapid-fire Spanish.
“What's she saying?” Lula asked me.
I shrugged. “I don't speak Spanish.”
“You're with Ranger all the time. Don't he ever speak Spanish?”
“Yes, but I don't know what he says.”
The toilet bowl was now entirely filled with water and the water was still running.
“Uh-oh,” Lula said. “Maybe I should shut the water off.” She reached behind the toilet, turned the valve, and it came off in her hand. “Hunh,” she said. “This ain't good.” “Don't work,” the Hispanic woman said. “Don't work. Don't work.”
The water was running over the side of the toilet bowl, splashing onto the floor.
“We gotta go now,” Lula said to the woman, giving her the handle to the valve. “And don't worry, we're gonna put this on our report. You'll be hearing from someone.” Lula closed the apartment door behind us and we headed for the stairs. “Maybe we should skip right to the second floor,” she said.
“Don't offer to fix anything this time,” I said. “And let me do the talking.”
“I was just trying to be helpful is all. I saw right off her problem was she didn't have the water turned on.”
“She didn't have it turned on because the valve was broken”
“She didn't communicate that to me,” Lula said.
I knocked on the door to A and my knock was answered by a little black woman with short gray hair.
“We're checking to see if there are any maintenance issues with this building,” I told her.
“I don't have any problems,” the woman said. “Thank you for asking.”
“How about your toilet?” Lula said. “Does your toilet work okay?”
“Yes. My toi
let is fine.”
I thanked the woman and pushed Lula away from the door, over to 2 B.
“I know something's wrong here,” Lula said, sniffing the air. “Smells like a gas leak. Good thing we're going around checking on these things.”
“We're not checking on anything. We're looking for Dickie.”
“Sure, I know that,” Lula said. “That don't mean we can't detect a gas leak.”
The door was answered by a fat guy wearing boxer shorts. “Waddaya want?” he asked.
“We been sent by the gas company,” Lula said. “We smelled a leak.” She stuck her head into his apartment. “Yeah, it's coming from in here all right.”
“There's no gas in here,” he said. “Everything's electric.”
“I guess I know gas when I smell it,” Lula said. “My partner and me are from the gas company. We know these things. How about the oven? Are you sure the oven isn't gas?”
“Waddaya think this is, the Hotel Ritz? The oven don't even work. The oven never worked. I gotta cook everything in the microwave.”
Lula pushed past him. “Stephanie, you go walk around and make sure there's no gas leakin' out of anything.”
