Takedown Twenty(73)

“I’m going to ask them about Kevin,” Lula said.

The kids stopped playing when we approached.

“I’m looking for a giraffe,” Lula said. “I lost him, and I heard he was here in the neighborhood. Any of you kids see a giraffe?”

“What does he look like?” one of the kids asked.

“He looks like a giraffe,” Lula said. “Have you seen him?”

“Maybe, but how do I know it’s yours?”

“You’re not supposed to be saying anything,” a second kid said to the first. “I’m telling Mom on you.”

“Where’s your momma at?” Lula asked.

The kid pointed to one of the row houses. “Second floor.”

I followed Lula into the house and to the second floor, and waited while she knocked.

A woman answered, with a toddler hanging on to her leg and another under her arm. “Yes?”

“I’m looking for my lost giraffe,” Lula said. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen him. He’s about eighteen feet tall, and he’s got spots on him.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” the woman said. “And you should leave it alone. Go get a new giraffe.”

“They don’t have any more at the pet store,” Lula said. “It’s not like giraffes grow on trees.”

The woman closed and locked the door.

“I think she knows something about Kevin,” Lula said to me. “I think there’s a conspiracy here.”

“A conspiracy to hide a giraffe?”

“How else do you explain it? It’s not normal to have a giraffe running around a neighborhood and nobody’s seen it. I say these people are all conspiring to hide a giraffe.”





TWENTY-FIVE




LULA’S PHONE RANG just as we reached the Firebird. It was Connie.

“She wants me to bring food,” Lula said, plugging the key into the ignition. “It’s been a real busy day and she couldn’t get out to get lunch.”

We stopped at Cluck-in-a-Bucket and got a super-sized Clucky Salad with Spicy Clucky Nuggets. There was a disclaimer on the box of nuggets saying they were processed in China.

“Isn’t that special,” Lula said. “These nuggets started out with a chicken in Maryland, went to China, and now here they are in Trenton. It’s like a combination of the Travel Channel and the Food Network all in one.”

Connie was waiting at the door when we rolled in.

“I’m so hungry I could gnaw my own arm off,” she said.

“We got you the salad and the nuggets like you wanted,” Lula said. “And they even gave us extra packets of sauces. There’s soy sauce, and ranch dressing, and special sauce. I don’t know what the special sauce is made of. The lettering’s real small so it’s hard to read. It might be antibiotic in case you get sick from the chicken.”

“Where’s Vinnie?” I asked Connie. “Is he still in hiding from Harry?”

“Vinnie had to go downtown to bond out Randy Berger. Turns out he was caught with a truckload of hijacked hooch.”

Randy Berger was in jail! That meant his garage was unguarded. “When did Vinnie leave?”

“A couple minutes ago.”

“Quick,” I said to Lula. “Get bolt cutters.”

Ten minutes later Lula and I were parked in the alley behind Berger’s Bits, at work with the bolt cutters on the garage padlock. The lock snapped off and we rolled the door back enough to squeeze under.

“Holy crap!” Lula said. “Will you look at this! I feel faint.”

I’d been hoping to find evidence that Randy was the old lady killer. What I found was more evidence that he was hijacking trucks. The garage was filled with boxes stacked floor to ceiling. A large percentage of the boxes contained computers. And there was a corner devoted to boxes stamped “Brahmin.”

“I died and I’m in heaven,” Lula said, caressing one of the Brahmin boxes. “I don’t even know what bag’s in here, and I love it already.”

“This is all stolen merchandise,” I told her. “You don’t need a Brahmin bag this bad.”

“It feels like I do.”

We crawled back out, and I rolled the door down and secured it as best I could.

I ran across the alley and tried the deli’s back door. It was locked, but I knew the four-digit thumb code to unlock it.

“What are we doing now?” Lula asked. “Are we going to look for Venetian blind cord in there?”

“No. I need pork chops.”

“You’re gonna rob a butcher shop of pork chops? Don’t that sound like the pot calling the kettle black when you wouldn’t let me take one of them handbags?”