Takedown Twenty(9)

“Gotta go,” I told them. “Things to do.”



I called Connie from my car and asked her for a home address for Rita Raguzzi.

“I’ll only give it to you if you come collect Lula,” Connie said. “She’s driving me nuts. We need to ration her coffee in the morning. She won’t stop talking about giraffes.”

I swung by the office and retrieved Lula.

“Here’s the information you wanted,” she said, handing me a computer printout and buckling herself in. “What’s up with this Raguzzi?”

“Grandma says Uncle Sunny keeps his toothbrush at her house.”

“Grandma knows everything. Did you ask her about the giraffe?”

“The giraffe didn’t come up.”

“How could the giraffe not come up? We got a giraffe in Trenton. It’s practically a miracle. And it’s not like he’s some plain-ass horse or cow. A giraffe’s special. It’s the tallest animal. It’s taller than a elephant. A giraffe can get to be nineteen feet tall. And his legs could be six foot. Did you know that?”

“No. I didn’t know that.”

“A giraffe could run thirty-five miles an hour, and they could weigh twenty-eight hundred pounds. And here’s the good part: He got a tongue could measure twenty-one inches. Bet Mrs. Giraffe likes that one.”

“That’s a big tongue.”

“Freakin’ A. In the wild a giraffe lives about twenty-five years, but I think running around Trenton could shorten a giraffe lifespan. I’m worried about poor Kevin.”

“Who’s Kevin?”

“The giraffe. I named him Kevin.”

I scanned the file on Rita. She was fifty-one years old, twice divorced, indeed living in Hamilton Township. She worked out of a downtown Trenton office as a realtor.

“I don’t suppose you want to go look for the giraffe,” Lula said.

“What would we do if we found him?”

“We could talk to him. He might be lonely. And we could make sure he’s getting something to eat. There’s not a whole lot of trees with nice juicy leaves in the neighborhood he picked out.”

“Surely his owner has found him by now.”

“Maybe his owner don’t want him. Maybe he’s an orphan giraffe. Like cats that go wandering around and don’t have a home. What do you call them cats?”

“Feral.”

“Yeah, this here could be a feral giraffe.”

I looked at my watch. “We can take a fast drive down Morgan and scope out the side streets, but then I need to follow up on Rita Raguzzi.”

“That works for me. I’ve just gotta make sure Kevin isn’t laying in the road with a dart stuck in his butt like Ralph Rogers. Lucky for Ralph that was only a tranquilizer dart.”

I nodded. “Lucky him,” I said, thinking this probably wasn’t a good time to tell Lula that Ralph Rogers was dead.

I took Hamilton to Olden and turned off at Morgan. Lula powered her window down so she could listen for giraffe noises, and I cruised up and down the streets.

“Hold on,” Lula said. “What’s that up ahead? Stop the car! I see giraffe poop.”

I jerked to a stop, and we squinted at the mound of brown stuff that was half on the sidewalk and half in the gutter about ten feet in front of us.

“How do you know it’s giraffe poop?” I asked Lula.

“I saw a giraffe taking a poop on YouTube. Once you see giraffe poop, you don’t forget it.”

Lula got out, took a closer look, and returned to the car.

“It’s pretty fresh,” she said. “I bet it’s only about a hour old.”

“You know that by looking at it?”

“It’s my professional opinion. We should get out of the car and look on foot. The little guy must be hiding somewhere.”

“He’s not a little guy, and there’s nowhere he could hide here. You’d need a grain silo to hide a giraffe.”

We were on Sixteenth Street. A door opened toward the end of the block, and Moe stepped out and lit up. He sucked in some tar and nicotine, looked our way, and gave his head a small disgusted shake, as if our presence was ruining his euphoric lung-destroying experience. He stubbed out his cigarette and sauntered over to my car.

“See, here’s the thing,” Moe said, looking in my window. “It’s actually unhealthy for your health that you should be in this neighborhood.”

“We were looking for the giraffe,” Lula said.

“You shouldn’t be looking for that, either,” Moe said. “It’s all detrimental to your well-being.”

“Do you know the giraffe?” Lula asked.

“Not personally,” Moe said.