The knock came after a few minutes; there was some muffled conversation, and then came the sounds of scuffling at the back door and the lock being retracted. The door opened and Morris Munson stepped out.
"Hold it," I said, kicking the door shut. "Stay exactly where you are. Don't move a muscle or I'll hit you with the pepper spray."
"You! You tricked me!"
I had the pepper spray in my left hand and the cuffs in my right. "Turn around," I said. "Hands over your head, palms flat against the house."
"I hate you!" he shrieked. "You're just like my ex-wife. Sneaky, lying, bossy bitch. You even look like her. Same dopey curly brown hair."
"Dopey hair? Excuse me?"
"I had a good life until that bitch screwed it up. I had a big house and a nice car. I had Surround Sound."
"What happened?"
"She left me. Said I was boring. Boring ol' Morris. So one day she got herself a lawyer, backed a truck up to the patio door, and cleaned me out. Took every fucking stick of furniture, every goddamn piece of china, every freaking spoon." He gestured to the row house. "This is what I'm left with. This piece-of-shit row house and a used Crown Victoria with two years of payments. After fifteen years at the button factory, working my fingers to the bone, I'm eating cereal for supper in this rat trap."
"Jeez."
"Wait a minute," he said. "Let me at least lock the door. This place isn't much, but it's all I've got."
"Okay. Just don't make any sudden moves."
He turned his back to me, locked the door, whirled around, and jostled me. "Oops," he said. "Sorry. I lost my balance."
I stepped away. "What have you got in your hand?"
"It's a cigarette lighter. You've seen a cigarette lighter before, right? You know how it works?" He flicked it, and a flame shot out.
"Drop it!"
He waved it around. "Look how pretty it is. Look at the lighter. Do you know what kind of lighter this is? I bet you can't guess."
"I said, Drop it."
He held it in front of his face. "You're gonna burn. You can't stop it now."
"What are you talking about? Yikes!" I was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt, tucked in, and a green-and-black flannel shirt jacket-style over the T-shirt. I looked down and saw that my shirttail was on fire.
"Burn!" he yelled to me. "Burn in hell!"
I dropped the cuffs and the pepper spray and ripped the shirt open. I fumbled out of it, threw it to the ground, and stomped the fire out. When I was done stomping I looked around and Munson was gone. I tried his back door. Locked. There was the sound of an engine catching. I looked to the service road and saw the Crown Victoria speed away.
I picked my shirt up and put it back on. The bottom half on the right side was missing.
Lula was leaning against her car when I turned the corner.
"Where's Munson?" she asked.
"Gone."
She looked at my shirt and raised an eyebrow. "I could have sworn you started out with a whole shirt."
"I don't want to talk about it."
"Looks to me like your shirt's been barbecued. First your car, now your shirt. This could be turning into a record week for you."
"I don't have to do this, you know," I said to Lula. "There are lots of good jobs I could get."
"Such as?"
"The McDonald's on Market is hiring."
"I hear you get free french fries."
I tried Munson's front door. Locked. I looked in the street-level window. Munson had tacked a faded flowered sheet over it, but there was a gap at the side. The room beyond was shabby. Scarred wood floor. A sagging couch covered by a threadbare yellow chenille bedspread. An old television on a cheap metal TV cart. A beechwood coffee table in front of the couch, and even from this distance I could see the veneer peeling off.
"Crazy ol' Munson isn't doing too good," Lula said, looking into the room with me. "I always imagined a homicidal rapist would live better than this."
"He's divorced," I said. "His wife cleaned him out."
"See, let this be a lesson. Always make sure you're the one to back the truck up to the door first."
When we got back to the office Joyce's car was still parked in front.
"Would have thought she'd be gone by now," Lula said. "She must be in there giving Vinnie a nooner."
My upper lip involuntarily curled back across my teeth. It was rumored that Vinnie had once been in love with a duck. And Joyce was said to be fond of large dogs. But somehow, the thought of them together was even more horrible.
To my great relief, Joyce was sitting on the outer office couch when Lula and I swung through the door.