I tried not to grimace. I didn’t want to ruin her eating experience, but I was getting queasy inhaling the meat and mayo fumes. I had my window down and my head halfway out when the Lincoln pulled up alongside.
Lancer made a gun with his hand, index finger pointed at me. “Bang,” he said.
I still had Lula’s Glock in my lap. I raised it and pointed it at Lancer, and he drove away.
“What was that about?” Lula asked.
“It’s complicated.”
“I’m getting real tired of hearing it’s complicated. Would you say something like that to Ranger? I don’t think so. I bet he calls you Babe and you tell him everything he wants to know.”
I tell Ranger nothing. Ranger isn’t a talker. Ranger reveals very little and doesn’t encourage verbal spewing on the part of others.
“On the way home from Hawaii, I accidentally picked up a photograph of a man,” I said to Lula. “I didn’t know who he was or how I got the photograph, so I threw it away. Turns out it’s one of a kind, it’s tied to national security somehow, and now I’m the only one who knows what the guy looks like. The FBI is searching for the guy, and the two morons who just drove by are searching for the guy. And it’s possible there are other people searching for the guy.”
“And you say you’re the only one who knows what he looks like?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you know where this guy lives?”
“I don’t know anything about him.”
“This makes you real special,” Lula said. “It’s like you’re a reality show, all by yourself.”
Lula finished her sandwich and her tub of potato salad, and we looked over my list of skips.
“I’m just not excited about any of this,” Lula said. “Now that I’m gonna be operating at Ranger level, I need more of a challenge. Where’s the killers and the serial rapists? How come we don’t have any of them? The best we got is Joyce, and she’s not looking so difficult. If she’s not dead, she’s out there with only one shoe and no driver’s license.”
Joyce was weighing on me. She wasn’t my favorite person, but I didn’t like thinking she’d been crushed and discarded. No one should be crushed and discarded. I punched Morelli’s number into my phone.
Morelli answered with a sigh.
“Is that you?” I asked him.
“Yup.”
“Are you busy?”
“I’m up to my knees in blood and paperwork. I don’t know which is worse. What did you have in mind?”
“Have you heard the rumor about Joyce Barnhardt getting compacted?”
Nothing for a beat. “No.”
“Well, there’s a rumor. It originated with Andy Kulicki. He works at the junkyard. I was just there, and Andy said the crusher shook loose a woman’s high heel shoe, a lipstick, and Joyce’s driver’s license. You might want to go over there with a cadaver dog.”
“Boy, I’m really happy to hear that, because I was hoping for another murder.”
“I thought it was my civic duty to pass it on.”
“You give me heartburn,” Morelli said. And he disconnected.
“Well?” Lula’s eyebrow raised.
“He said I gave him heartburn.”
“That’s not real romantic.”
“He has a hard job.”
“Me, too,” Lula said. “I got heartburn, too.”
“You have heartburn because you ate at the Rat Café.”
“You could be right. It tasted okay, but it’s not sitting so good in my stomach. Maybe I just need more soda.” Lula drank more soda and burped. “Oh yeah,” she said, “that’s better.”
“I’m going to take another shot at Lewis Bugkowski,” I said. “This time, I’ll use my stun gun and Flexi-Cuffs.”
Actually, stun guns are illegal in New Jersey as well as Hawaii, but like carrying concealed, Trenton is pretty much unofficially exempt.
“WHAM!” Lula said. “Let’s do it. Where’s he live?”
“Pulling Street.”
Lula turned onto Broad, cut across town, and started to sweat.
“Are you okay?” I asked her. “You’re sweating, and your face isn’t its usual color.”
“What color is it?”
“Asparagus.”
“I might be coming down with the flu.”
“How about food poisoning?”
“I feel like my stomach’s getting all swelled up,” Lula said. “It’s not fitting in my pants no more. And it’s doing funny sounds. I might need a bathroom.”
“Can you make it to the coffee shop?”
“Yeah, I just have to drive faster. You probably want to close your eyes.”