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“In some ways.”
“That’s pretty scary right there.”
Ranger leaned in and kissed me. “You have no idea.”
I left Ranger and trudged off to my apartment. Diesel was sprawled on the couch when I walked in.
“I’m taking a shower,” I said on my way to the bathroom.
“Good move,” Diesel said. “You smell like an outhouse.”
I stopped and looked at him.
“Lucky guess,” Diesel said.
“How’s the disturbance in the force? Is it getting better?”
“It’s getting worse.”
I gave up a sigh and locked myself in the bathroom. I stuffed my clothes into a plastic trash bag, shampooed my hair three times, and stepped out of the shower feeling like a new woman. I got dressed, pulled my hair into a ponytail, and set out to start my day . . . again.
Diesel was gone when I walked out of the bedroom. No doubt he was skulking around somewhere, checking on the force. I made myself another peanut butter sandwich and looked out my living room window, down at the parking lot. There were two black SUVs idling near the building’s back door. One was clearly a Rangeman vehicle. The other was smaller. Hard to tell the make from my vantage point. A Rangeman guy stood by the smaller car. I grabbed my messenger bag and went downstairs.
“From Ranger,” the Rangeman guy said, handing me the key.
It was a Lexus NX 330 F Sport. Shiny new. Didn’t smell like an outhouse. I got behind the wheel, and Ranger’s men drove off. My plan was to retrieve Lula from the bonds office, take a pizza to Ethel, and hunt down Johnny Chucci.
Lula was pacing when I got to the office.
“I’ve got the creeps,” she said. “I feel like I’m being followed. Like someone’s spying on me.”
“Who?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Lula said. “It’s just one of them feelings.”
Connie looked at me and rolled her eyes. This was just short of making one of those circular motions with your finger alongside your head to signify crazy.
“Maybe you’re hungry,” I said to Lula. “I promised Ethel I’d bring her a pizza. We could get one for you too.”
“I’d never refuse a pizza,” Lula said. “Especially if it was a Pino’s pizza.”
Twenty minutes later I was on my way to Diggery’s. Lula had a pizza with the works in a box on her lap, and there was a sausage and extra cheese on the back seat for Ethel. I had her figured for a meat lover.
“I’m feeling better already,” Lula said, selecting a second piece. “I don’t know what came over me. It was like my skin was crawling. You ever get that? I mean, I’m not necessarily a nervous person. I don’t have any of them panic attacks, so this was weird. I just knew something was wrong.”
“But it’s not wrong now?”
“Not so much. I’m settling in with the pizza. You could always count on melted cheese to have a calming effect.”
I turned onto Diggery’s road and cringed when I passed the demolished outhouse. Not one of my finer moments.
“It was a lucky break that Ethel decided to go home,” Lula said. “I have to tell you until that happened I wasn’t sure it was Ethel.”
And it was still possible that it wasn’t Ethel. The only thing I knew for certain was that the snake liked hot dogs.
I parked close to Diggery’s front door and did a fast scan for snakes and zombies. I didn’t see either, so I gave the pizza to the snake in residence and took off.
“I suppose we’ll go looking for Zero Slick now,” Lula said. “How do you think he came up with a name like that?”
