Smokin Seventeen - Janet Evanovich [45]
“How do you walk in those shoes for hours on end?” I asked her.
“I can do it on account of I’m a balanced body type,” she said, hustling across the lot to my Escort. “I got perfect weight distribution between my boobs and my booty.”
I drove down Hamilton, past the construction site with Mooner’s bus parked curbside, and pulled into the Cluck-in-a-Bucket parking lot. Lula went inside to get her ice cream, and I stayed behind to take a call from Morelli.
“I just got rid of Terry,” he said. “I have some paperwork to clear out, and then I’m done. I thought I’d stop by.”
“How did it go with Terry?”
“It was a big zero,” Morelli said. “She didn’t recognize the killer. And she couldn’t find a connection between Juki Beck and Lou Dugan. But just so it wasn’t a complete waste of my time she wore a little skirt that had Roger Jackson falling out of his seat across the room.”
“And you?”
“I couldn’t get a really good look from where I was sitting. Not to change the subject, but I spoke to Jerry about Belmen. Jerry picked up on the gun, too. And turns out the gun belonged to the bartender. Jerry went out to talk to him, and the charges have been dropped. Connie should be getting the paperwork tomorrow.”
“Let me take a guess. The bartender shot himself.”
“Yeah, it was an accident, but he thought it wouldn’t play well with the ladies, so he pinned it on Belmen. He figured Belmen was so drunk he wouldn’t know what the hell happened.”
“So I’m off the hook with the bear.”
“Looks that way. Maybe you want to think about getting a different job. Something with better work conditions … like roach extermination or hazardous waste collection.”
“You sound like my mother.”
“After I talked to you earlier I did some checking, and found out that Jimmy Alpha’s brother just got out of prison on an early parole. Until last month he’d been locked away on racketeering charges. I’m told there’s a strong resemblance.”
“Do you think he’d have ties to Lou Dugan?”
“I’m on it.”
“I have to go. Lula’s here with her ice cream.”
“I got an idea,” Lula said, getting into the Escort. “We should hunt down Ziggy while we got all this good juju. We’re so hot with juju right now you could probably walk up to Ziggy and he’d come without a fuss.”
“Are you sure you want to go after Ziggy without your garlic?”
“I could chance it. I’ve been carrying a cross in my pocketbook as backup.”
I motored onto Hamilton and told Lula about Jimmy Alpha’s brother.
“I should have thought of him,” Lula said. “Nick Alpha. He was a bad guy. He had his hand in lots of stuff. You didn’t ho on Stark Street without knowing Nick Alpha. He might not be happy with you for killing his baby brother.”
I turned into the Burg, meandered around, and hit Kreiner Street. The sun had set and streetlights were on. A sliver of moon hung in the sky over the housetops, and light poured from downstairs windows … with the exception of Ziggy’s house. Ziggy’s house was dark.
“He could be in there,” Lula said. “He got those black curtains closed so you can’t tell what’s going on.”
“His car isn’t parked in front of his house.”
“It could be in his garage.”
“He doesn’t have a garage,” I said.
Lula worked at her cone. She’d gotten the giant enormous size and had whittled it down to extra large. “Maybe he sold the car.”
I was parked directly across the street from Ziggy, and my gut told me Ziggy wasn’t home. Ziggy liked to step out at night. When the sun went down Ziggy went bowling, he played bingo, he did his grocery shopping.
Lula leaned forward. “Did you see that? There’s something moving alongside Ziggy’s house. Someone’s creeping along over there.”
I squinted into the darkness. “I don’t see anything.”
“On the right side of his house. He’s coming to the front. It’s Ziggy!”
Lula wrenched the door open, hurled herself out of the car, and took off. She was running flat out in her five-inch heels, and she was still holding her ice cream cone.
I saw the man stand straight when Lula charged him. He was Ziggy’s height