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“I’m all about dinner,” Lula said. “I’m even free for tonight.”
“Bob and I are going to wait in the car,” I said to Lula. “I have some emails to catch up on.”
Lula came down a half hour later. “We got everything all straightened out,” she said. “He has good ideas and insurance is going to pay for some of it, and my landlord is going to pay for some of the improvements. And we’re going to discuss it at dinner tonight at his house. It turns out that he likes to cook. It’s a wonderful quality in a man. He said he learned to cook from his mama. Having his own house is another wonderful quality. Plus, he has an excellent tool belt. I noticed it contained a big hammer. It’s always a good sign when a man has a sizable hammer.”
I hadn’t noticed Julio’s hammer, but I felt like I was supposed to comment.
“No doubt,” I said. “He had a hell of a hammer.”
“Damn skippy.”
Lula took the Scargucci file from me and paged through it. “Scargucci lives on Makinnon Street,” she said. “And he’s a car mechanic at that fancy foreign-car dealer on Route 33. Probably he’s at work now.”
I left Lula’s neighborhood, got onto Hamilton, and followed it to Route 33. The dealership was just past the Regal Diner and the Dirty Car Wash.
“I would have dressed different if I knew we were coming here,” Lula said. “I would have worn something with a little glam.”
Lula was wearing a magenta wrap top that had a deep V-neck and some shimmer to it. Her giant boobs were barely contained in the top, so that there was a lot of flesh oozing out of the neckline and about a quarter mile of cleavage showing. Her skirt was black spandex and ended a couple inches below her hooha. She was wearing black six-inch FMPs and a glittery metallic magenta wig. This was her standard for casual work wear.
It was no surprise that Julio asked her to his house for dinner. He’d looked like his eyes were going to fall out of his head and roll around on the ground when he spied Lula.
I parked in the car dealer’s area reserved for service, and Lula and Bob and I strolled into the six-bay garage. I asked for Henry Scargucci and was directed to the third bay.
Scargucci was average height, string-bean thin, and he reminded me of my cousin Vinnie, who looked like the human version of a ferret. He had a vintage Porsche on the lift behind him, and he was looking at data on the computer in front of him. I assumed he was reading the car’s vital signs.
“Excuse me,” I said. “Henry Scargucci?”
He turned and looked at me, and then he looked at Lula and dropped the wrench that had been in his hand. Hard to tell if it was over the cleavage or the hair. It would definitely have been about the skirt if she’d bent over.
“Yeah,” he said, after he retrieved his wrench. “What’s up?”
I gave him my name and my mission.
“We need you to come downtown with us to re-up,” I said. “It won’t take long. And I’d rather not cuff you in front of your coworkers, so it would be good if you could explain to your boss than you need an hour off and just walk out with us.”
“Okay, I get that,” he said. “I don’t want to make a big deal of this. I like my job.”
Ten minutes later, we were in the Rangeman SUV with Scargucci.
“You look like you’re not too stupid,” Lula said to him. “Why were you trying to sell hot stuff to a cop?”
“I didn’t know he was a cop. He didn’t look like a cop. My fixer set it up, just like always.”
“Bummer,” Lula said.
“Yeah, no kidding.”
“Are you married?” Lula asked him.
“No,” he said. “Divorced.”
“Do you have a house?”
“Yeah. It’s nice. The bitch wife didn’t want it. She said the bathroom lighting was all wrong. She got the dog, and I got the house. It was a good deal. The dog had an attitude. She was ten pounds, and she barked all day.” Scargucci looked at Bob. “Don’t get me wrong. I like dogs, and you seem like a nice dog. It’s just that dogs decide who they like and who they don’t like, andthis dog didn’t like me. Peed on my side of the bed and ate my underwear. I was nice to it too, but it didn’t matter.”
I could see that Bob was considering the part about eating underwear. Eating underwear was one of Bob’s favorite pastimes.
“Can you cook?” Lula asked him.
