Explosive Eighteen - Janet Evanovich [68]
“No shit. I found that out when I tried to pawn my necklace. I didn’t get crap for it.”
I drove away half afraid if I looked in my rearview mirror I’d see Joyce running after me.
I had a bunch of open files in my messenger bag that I should have started working my way through, earning rent money. But having resolved Lahonka, Buggy, and Joyce, I thought it was time to focus my energy on staying alive, and that meant I had to get rid of the photograph hunters. Raz was in the wind, and I had no good way to find him. Brenda was going to stick with her lame fiancée story, at least for now. That left Lancer and Slasher as the weak link. I was convinced they knew nothing beyond their instructions to follow me. I had to go farther up the food chain if I wanted real information.
I called Berger on my way across town. “Anything new on the photograph thing?” I asked him.
“Nothing significant.”
“How about insignificant?”
“Two out of three people polled agree that the second sketch looks like Ashton Kutcher.”
“Anything on Lancelot or Larder?” I asked.
“No.”
“Would you tell me if you had something?”
A moment of silence. “Absolutely.”
I knew from the length of the pause that his answer was actually no. I disconnected and called Morelli.
“Joyce is gone,” I said. “I have my apartment back.”
“Is that an invitation?”
“No. It’s a statement. Would you like an invitation?”
“Maybe.”
“Only maybe?”
“I’m not in good shape here. We’re getting ready to make an arrest in the Korda case.”
“Really? Who?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“You’re teasing me.”
“Cupcake, you’re breathing shallow and begging for more when I tease you.”
“That wouldn’t be now,” I said to him. “Right now, I’m grinding my teeth and my eyes are squinty.”
“I have to go,” Morelli said.
“No! I need a favor.”
“I’m hoping this has to do with teasing.”
“It has to do with the FBI and the fact that three people are possibly trying to kill me.”
“You have my attention,” he said.
“Berger is no help at all. I think he knows something but he’s not sharing. I thought he might talk to you.”
“I’ll get back to you.”
While Morelli worked it from his angle, I thought I’d come at it from a different direction. I drove a quarter mile on Broad, turned right onto a side street, made another right, and found a parking place in front of the bonds office. Connie’s car was there. No Vinnie. No Lula.
Connie was paging through Star magazine when I walked in.
“What’s up?” I asked. “Where is everybody?”
“Vinnie is hiding at home. He’s afraid DeAngelo will demand a Ferrari. Lula’s off somewhere making coochy-coochy sounds at Moron Man. And I’m stuck in this hellhole. I can hear rats running overhead. Honest to God, I think they’re planning an attack.”
“I was hoping you could do some digging for me. We did a search on Mortimer Lancelot and Sylvester Larder, and I need to go deeper. They’re working for someone. I want to know who it is. I’m guessing it’s someone they met while they were security at the casino.”
“That narrows it down to fifty thousand people,” Connie said.
“I’m looking for someone shady.”
“Okay, forty-nine thousand.”
“Any ideas?”
“I can run another credit check, but it’s not going to show anything if they’re getting paid in cash. You might do better if you went to the casino and talked to people.”
“I’d like to take Lula with me, but I can’t get her away from Moron Man.”
“She says he’s her true love,” Connie said. “Something about a love potion.”
I get that Lula would like to find her true love. And I get that she’s giving it her best shot to turn pond scum into noodle soup. And I wasn’t entirely discounting that Buggy was her true love, because I’ve seen some of Lula’s previous boyfriends, and Buggy wasn’t so far off the mark. But true love or not, I couldn’t take much more of Buggy. Buggy had to go. If Lula could convince herself a love potion started this fiasco, she could damn well unconvince herself.
I called Grandma. “I need to talk to Annie Hart,” I said.