AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“So you’re not turning into a vampire,” Connie said.
“Well, I might be, but I don’t have fangs. And I’m feeling much better now that I had the root canal. ’Course, I’m packed full of drugs, so that could have something to do with it.” Lula looked around. “This is nice. It don’t have personality like before, but it don’t feel like the sun died either.”
“Anything for me?” I asked Connie.
“No. None of the new bondees have come up to trial yet. They’ll start next week, and I imagine they won’t all show up for court. Vinnie bonded out some real losers. How did it go on Stark Street?”
“The two warehouses are possibilities.”
Lula snapped to attention. “Stark Street? Warehouses? Did I miss something?”
I filled Lula in on the cockfighting and my plan to get Nick Alpha sent back to jail so he couldn’t kill me.
“That’s a good plan,” Lula said. “He belongs in jail anyway what with doing cruelty to animals. I don’t have patience with people mistreating animals. And I like chickens.”
“Especially when they’re hacked up into pieces and fried,” Connie said.
“Yeah, but that’s a different kind of chicken,” Lula said. “Those are nasty bald, eating chickens. They’re not the Little Red Hen.”
“Eating chickens aren’t bald,” I said.
“I seen them in the supermarket,” Lula said. “And they’re bald.”
“Dude,” Mooner said from the back of the bus. “Something’s wrong with my television. I can’t get it to go on.”
“Imagine that,” Connie said. “Maybe the satellite is behind a cloud.”
“What happens next?” Lula asked. “Are the cops gonna bust up the cockfight tonight?”
“I have to pin down the location before I make the call. And I want to make sure Alpha is there. I don’t want to shut down the operation and not have Alpha involved.”
Lula nodded. “I see what you’re saying. So I’m thinking we’re going out to a cockfight tonight. I gotta put some thought to this. I don’t know if I got a cockfighting outfit at home. I might have to go shopping.”
“I’m not actually going to the cockfight. I’m going to hang around and follow Alpha when he goes out. Then when I’m sure he’s at the cockfight I’ll call Morelli.”
“I could live with that,” Lula said. “What time you want to meet up?”
“Are you sure you feel okay to do this?”
“Hell, yeah. I’m almost a hundred percent.”
This wasn’t something that filled me with confidence. When Lula and I operated at a full hundred percent we weren’t all that great. Almost a hundred percent was getting into Three Stooges territory.
“You need a different car,” Connie said. “You’ll be noticed in the Shelby. Lula’s Firebird isn’t any better.”
“I can get a car,” Lula said. “I’ll borrow my cousin Ernie’s car. He’s got a piece of crap SUV. It’ll blend right in on Stark Street.”
I got into the Shelby, drove to my apartment building, and stopped at the entrance to the lot. I was afraid to park. Regina Bugle could be there. Even worse, Dave could be there. And if they weren’t there now, they might be there when I wanted to leave, and I’d be trapped inside my apartment.
I turned around and idled on a side street, running through my options. I could drop in on Morelli, but there would be complications. I didn’t want to involve Morelli in this stage of the Nick Alpha saga. And he wouldn’t want me to go to Stark Street. There would also be complications if I dropped in on Ranger. Mostly related to vordo or the lack thereof. The bonds bus felt claustrophobic. The new décor was much better, but it was still Mooner’s bus. And I was afraid to go to the mall for fear of falling under the influence of another red dress. That left my parents’ house.
I got there early and sat in the kitchen, watching my mother assemble dinner. I always offered to help, and my mother almost always declined. She’d been doing this for a lot of years, and she had her own rhythm. My grandmother was tuned into the rhythm and pitched in as needed.
“I heard they found Sam Grip,” Grandma said.
There was no need for a newspaper or the Internet in the Burg. News traveled at the speed of light the old-fashioned way … over the back fence and in line at the deli.
I got a soda out of the refrigerator. “He was in his car in the Pine Barrens.”
