Fearless Fourteen - Janet Evanovich [15]
“Nope.”
“Sounded to me like he was yelling about something.”
“Yep.”
“You want to talk about it?”
“Nope.” What on earth was I supposed to say? He saw Morelli boinking Loretta and getting her pregnant? I could barely think it, much less repeat it.
“Hunh,” Lula said. “I was gonna make you my maid of honor, but I might have to rethink that if you’re gonna go all secret on me.”
“I thought you were going to have a quiet wedding.”
“Yeah, but you gotta have a maid of honor. It’s a rule.”
Vine Street ran off Broad and was at the edge of the Burg. I cruised along, checking off the numbers of the row houses.
“What’s this guy’s name?” Lula wanted to know.
“Andy Gimp.”
“That’s a terrible name. That’s a strike against you right from the start.”
“He’s eighty-one. I imagine he’s used to it.” I pulled to the curb and parked. “Showtime.”
“I hope not,” Lula said. “I finally got me some good stuff. I don’t want to ruin my mental image. I don’t want some old wrinkled wanger burned into my cornea when what I want to remember is Tank and the big boys.”
I took a business card and a small can of pepper spray out of my purse and rammed them into my jeans pocket. “Big boys?”
“Yeah, you know . . . the fuzzy lumpkins, the storm troopers, the beef balls.”
I covered my ears with my hands. “I get it!” I stepped onto the small cement front porch and rang the bell. A little old man with wispy gray hair and skin like a Shar-Pei answered.
“Andy Gimp?” I asked.
“Nope. I’m Bernie. Andy’s my older brother,” the man said. “Come on in. Andy’s watching television.”
“I got a bad feeling about this,” Lula said. “If this is the younger brother, what the heck does the older one look like?”
“Hey, Andy,” Bernie called out. “You got company. You got a couple hot ones.”
I followed Bernie into the living room and immediately spotted Andy. He was slouched into a broken-down overstuffed chair facing the television. He was wearing a white dress shirt buttoned to the neck and black socks and black shoes, and that was it. No pants. He looked like a bag of bones with skin cancer. He was milk-white skin and red splotches everywhere. And I mean everywhere. There was a lot of nose and a lot of ears, and gonads hanging low between his knobby knees.
“Come on in,” he said, gesturing with big boney hands. “What can I do you for?”
“I knew it,” Lula said. “I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. This here’s gonna haunt me forever. This is what I got to look forward to after a hundred years of marriage. This here’s what happens to outdoor plumbing when a man gets old. I don’t know if I can go through with the wedding.”
“Age don’t got nothing to do with it,” Bernie said. “He’s always looked like that.”
“You’re not wearing any pants,” I said to Andy Gimp.
“Don’t like them. Never wear them.”
“Fine by me,” I said, “but you didn’t show up for your court appearance.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yep.”
“I had it marked on my calendar,” Andy said. “Bernie, where’s the calendar?”
“Lost it,” Bernie said.
“They say I didn’t show up for my court appearance.”
Bernie shrugged. “So what? They’ll give you another one.”
Andy was on his feet, looking for the calendar. He walked body bent, arms akimbo, feet planted wide for balance, his nuts practically dragging on the floor.
“I know it’s here somewhere,” he said, shuffling through magazines on the coffee table, rifling through a pile of newspapers on the floor.
“I’m feelin’ faint,” Lula said. “If he bends over one more time, I’m gonna pass out. I can’t stop lookin’. It’s a train wreck. It’s like the end of the universe. You know, when you get sucked into that thing. What do you call it?”
“Black hole?”
“Yeah, that’s it. It’s like staring into the black hole.”
Andy was distracted by the calendar hunt, so I gave my business card to Bernie and introduced myself.
“Lula and I need to take Andy to the courthouse so he can reinstate his bail bond,” I told Bernie. “Can you get him to put some pants on?”
“He don’t own none,” Bernie said. “And I’m not loaning him any of mine. You don’t know where he’s been sitting.”
“Hell,