"I have a friend who could get you a suitable car. He's like… a car dealer."
"I'll keep it in mind."
Mooner folded himself into the front seat and hauled out his sunglasses. "Better, dude," he said from behind the shades. "Much better."
THE TRENTON COP shop shares a building with the court. It's a blocky redbrick, no-frills structure that gets the job done-a product of the slam-bam-thank-you-ma'am school of municipal architecture.
I parked in the lot and shepherded Moon inside. Technically, I couldn't bond him out myself, since I'm an enforcement agent and not a bonding agent. So I got the paperwork started and called Vinnie to come down and complete the process.
"Vinnie's on his way," I told Moon, settling him onto the bench by the docket lieutenant. "I have some other business in the building, so I'm going to leave you here alone for a couple minutes."
"Hey, that's cool, dude. Don't worry about me. The Mooner will be fine."
"Don't move from this spot!"
"No problemo."
I went upstairs to Violent Crimes and found Brian Simon at his desk. He'd only been promoted out of uniform a couple months earlier and still didn't have the hang of dressing himself. He was wearing a yellow-and-tan-plaid sports coat, navy suit slacks with brown penny loafers and red socks, and a tie wide enough to be a lobster bib.
"Don't they have some kind of dress code here?" I asked. "You keep dressing like this and we're going to make you go live in Connecticut."
"Maybe you should come over tomorrow morning and help me pick out my clothes."
"Jeez," I said. "Touchy. Maybe this isn't a good time."
"Good as any," he said. "What's on your mind?"
"Carol Zabo."
"That woman's a nut! She smashed right into me. And then she left the scene."
"She was nervous."
"You aren't going to lay one of those PMS excuses on me, are you?"
"Actually, it had to do with her panties."
Simon rolled his eyes. "Oh, crap."
"You see, Carol was coming out of the Frederick's of Hollywood store, and she was flustered because she'd just gotten some sexy panties."
"Is this going to be embarrassing?"
"Do you get embarrassed easily?"
"What's the point to all this, anyway?"
"I was hoping you'd drop the charges."
"No way!"
I sat down in the chair by his desk. "I'd consider it a special favor. Carol's a friend. And I had to talk her off a bridge this morning."
"Over panties?"
"Just like a man," I said, eyes narrowed. "I knew you wouldn't understand."
"Hey, I'm Mr. Sensitivity. I read The Bridges of Madison County. Twice."
I gave him a doe-eyed, hopeful look. "So you'll let her off the hook?"
"How far off the hook do I have to let her?"
"She doesn't want to go to jail. She's worried about the out-in-the-open-bathroom part."
He bent forward and thunked his head on the desk. "Why me?"
"You sound like my mother."
"I'll make sure she doesn't go to jail," he said. "But you owe me."
"I'm not going to have to come over and dress you, am I? I'm not that kind of girl."
"Live in fear."
Damn.
I left Simon and went back downstairs. Vinnie was there, but no Moon Man.
"Where is he?" Vinnie wanted to know. "I thought you said he was here at the back door."
"He was! I told him to wait on the bench by the docket lieutenant."
We both looked over at the bench. It was empty.
Andy Diller was working the desk. "Hey, Andy," I said. "Do you know what happened to my skip?"
"Sorry, I wasn't paying attention."
We canvassed the first floor, but Moon didn't turn up.
"I've gotta get back to the office," Vinnie said. "I've got stuff to do."
Talk to his bookie, play with his gun, shake hands with Mr. Stumpy.
We went out the door together and found Moon standing in the parking lot, watching my car burn. There were a bunch of cops with extinguishers working on it, but things didn't look too hopeful. A fire truck rolled down the street, lights flashing, and pulled through the chain-link gate.
"Hey, man," Moon said to me. "Real shame about your car. That's mad crazy, dude."
"What happened?"
"I was sitting there on the bench waiting for you, and I saw Reefer walk by. You know Reefer? Well, anyway, Reefer just got let out of the tank, and his brother was coming to pick him up. And Reefer said why didn't I come out to say hello to his brother. So I walked out with Reefer, and you know Reefer always has good weed, so one thing led to another, and I thought I'd just relax in your car for a minute and have a smoke. I guess a pod must have jumped, because the next thing your seat was on fire. And then it kind of spread from there. It was glorious until these gentlemen hosed it."