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“Any ideas?”
“I can run another credit check, but it’s not going to show anything if they’re getting paid in cash. You might do better if you went to the casino and talked to people.”
“I’d like to take Lula with me, but I can’t get her away from Moron Man.”
“She says he’s her true love,” Connie said. “Something about a love potion.”
I get that Lula would like to find her true love. And I get that she’s giving it her best shot to turn pond scum into noodle soup. And I wasn’t entirely discounting that Buggy was her true love, because I’ve seen some of Lula’s previous boyfriends, and Buggy wasn’t so far off the mark. But true love or not, I couldn’t take much more of Buggy. Buggy had to go. If Lula could convince herself a love potion started this fiasco, she could damn well unconvince herself.
I called Grandma. “I need to talk to Annie Hart,” I said.
“Tonight’s bowling night,” Grandma said. “She’s gonna pick me up. I could invite her to dinner again if you want.”
“That would be great. And tell Mom to set three extra plates besides Annie’s.”
I called Lula next.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“I’m at the mall with Sugar Lumps. He needed a Dairy Queen Blizzard and a new leather jacket. And it’s not easy getting a leather jacket for him, since he needs so much leather. You gotta just about use a whole cow for his jacket. Good thing I had my credit card limit raised.”
“Remember when you thought you were a vampire, but it turned out to be an absessed tooth?”
“Yeah.”
“And remember how this morning you thought you were having an allergic reaction to cat ashes, but you really were just fine?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you suppose this attraction to Buggy is another one of those imaginary episodes?”
“I admit I’m an impressionable person, but I’m pretty sure Shrek is my true love.”
“You mean Buggy?”
“Yeah, what did I say?”
“You said Shrek was your true love.”
“Well, Buggy got a lot of Shrekness to him.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” I said to Lula. “Maybe it’s actually Shrek that’s your true love.”
“Something to think about,” Lula said.
“I need to go to Atlantic City to do some research tonight,” I said to Lula. “Are you on board?”
“Damn skippy. I love Atlantic City. Me and Buggy’ll research the heck out of it.”
“I’ll meet you at my parents’ house at six o’clock. We’ll have dinner and head south.”
• • •
Jeans and a T-shirt are perfectly okay gear for an Atlantic City casino, unless you want to get information out of a man. If information, free drinks, or dinner is on the agenda, it doesn’t hurt to show some cleavage.
I went home, changed into skinny designer jeans, a stretchy red sweater with a low scoop neck, and strappy heels. I added dangly earrings and a couple more swipes of mascara. I transferred my stun gun, Glock, cuffs, and all my normal girl stuff into a dressier handbag, and I was ready to
go to work.
