Fearless Fourteen - Janet Evanovich [64]
“We don’t have the money,” I whispered.
“Oh yeah. I forgot.”
“I don’t want Zook to see this,” I told her. “He’s just a kid. He doesn’t need this. And I can’t stand around and let them chop off Loretta’s body parts. We have to find either Loretta or the money.”
“And we’re gonna do this how?”
“I have a lead.”
“Okay,” Lula said. “But what about the pinkie toe?”
“It’s evidence. I’ll put it in the freezer for now.”
_______
I’D SEEN ARMY barracks that were more attractive than Stanley Zero’s apartment complex. Hummingbird Hollow consisted of six cement-block, three-story buildings clustered around a large macadam parking lot. As far as I could see, there were no trees, no flowers, no hummingbirds. And the only hollow was an empty, sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. The mailboxes would lead me to believe that there were twenty-four units to each building. Zero lived on the second floor, in unit 2D, with his windows facing the lot. According to my report, he lived alone. I found his truck in the lot, and I checked the plate to make sure.
“He’s home,” I said to Lula.
We were in Lula’s Firebird. It wasn’t the best surveillance vehicle, but it was better than my Zook car. Lula slid into a space behind and to the left of the F150.
“Now what?” Lula asked.
“Now we wait.”
“I hate to wait. He don’t know me. How about if I go up and ring his bell and ask if he wants some Lula? Then I could look around and see if he got Loretta tied up without her toe in his closet.”
“They don’t have Loretta here,” I said. “It’s not private enough. You can probably hear everything through these walls. I’m hoping he’ll go out and lead us to his partner.”
We sat for an hour, looking up into his windows, watching the building’s back door. Nothing.
“He might not even be in there,” Lula said. “Maybe someone came and picked him up, and we’ll sit here ’til the cows come home.”
“Then we’ll check out the car that drops him off, and maybe that car will belong to the partner.”
“You sure you don’t want me to go up there and poke around?” Lula asked.
I cut my eyes to her. “You’re not going to give up, are you?”
“I should have brought my bride magazines to read. I got nothing to do here. I sit here much longer, I’m gonna get that thing they were talking about on the morning show . . . restless leg syndrome.”
“Okay already, go see if he’s home.”
Lula marched across the lot and into the building. Five minutes later, she was back at the car.
“Nobody home,” Lula said. “I tried the door, but it was locked.”
“That doesn’t usually stop you.”
“I fiddled with the lock a little, but I couldn’t get anything to work. Too bad, because this here’s a good opportunity to snoop.”
I called Ranger. “I’m watching an apartment off Route 1, and I’d like to get in but it’s locked up tight.”
“I’ll send Slick.”
I gave Ranger the address, and Lula and I waited with slightly elevated heart rates. Breaking and entering was always tense. Especially since it was a crapshoot if Lula could squeeze under a bed. A shiny black Rangeman SUV pulled into the lot and Slick got out and went into the building. He was out of uniform, dressed in jeans and a baggy shirt. Wouldn’t be good if he was seen picking a lock in Rangeman black. Five minutes later, he walked through the door, looked my way, and nodded. He got into the Rangeman SUV, and drove away.
“Rock and roll,” Lula said.
We took the stairs to the second floor and went directly to Zero’s apartment. I turned the knob, and the door opened. We stepped inside and closed the door.
“Hello,” I called out.
No one answered.
We were standing in an area that was living room, dining room. Beyond was the kitchen and a hall that would lead to the bedrooms. The furniture was old and collected for comfort with no thought to design. Empty beer cans and Styrofoam coffee cups with days-old coffee still in the bottom were left on end tables. A couple newspapers had been tossed to the floor. Mud had been tracked onto the rug. Not that it mattered. The rug looked like it hadn’t been vacuumed in a long,