Chapter Four

Lula showed up as promised, the Firebird nearly rattling in place, the music was so loud. Since I heard her before I saw her, I was able to get downstairs fairly fast and avoid the inevitable complaints from my senior neighbors.

"What happened to your car?" she inquired.

I knew she was thinking I blew it up, but nothing of the sort had happened to me in quite a while. "I had borrowed one of Ranger's SUVs a couple of days ago, but returned it yesterday. My car is in the shop being repainted. I just never made it there to pick it up."

Lula nodded. "Hell, I hope you got a good one this time. You should have let me help. I'm damned good at picking out cars. I bet I can pick you one that you won't have any problems with. Your problem is that you always pick wimpy, sissy cars. You need a badass car if you're going to hang with Batman's men.

Had to smile at Lula. She could always break things down to their base and seemingly make perfect sense.

"Yeah, " I replied, "maybe you could help me. I really didn't want to depend on Ranger for transportation. I have got to get to the garage today and they had better have that thing ready. I don't' know how much more of the Buick I can take"

"Damn straight," she grinned. "That sucker is a time warp waiting to happen."

We listened to music, cranked up to rattle windows, until we reached our destination. When she turned off the car, the silence made me shake my head a couple of times to clear out the ringing.

"So what's your plan," I began. I wasn't security detail today, so there was no gun on my person. Since I didn't technically work for Vinnie anymore, I never carried cuffs or mace.

"This FTA is Willard Noble, out on assault and possession of illegal substances. Means he was doped up and real mean most likely."

I thought about what she said for a minute. I read the file that Lula handed me and could see that normally Connie should have given this one to Ranger. Money was in the range he would accept and the potential for danger certainly placed the guy out of Lula's league.

"Why didn't Connie give this file to Ranger?" I asked Lula.

"She tried. Hot stuff wasn't interested. He told her to hand it off to me." Lula looked like she was thinking hard. "Come to think of it, I think Connie thought that was pretty odd too. It's like Ranger come in asking about FTAs and then turns down the choicest one."

I was starting to have a bad feeling, but it wasn't about old Willard Noble. I felt like I was being set up. "Come on, let's get this over with."

Lula came fully prepared and I had to remind her that this wasn't the time to 'pop a cap' in the man's ass. Lula loves to play the tough guy, but she was still having trouble delivering her bounty to the police station. In a past life, Lula was a hooker, a full- bodied one, but she must have done her share of business. While we never talked about it, I was betting that she got rousted by the cops a couple of times. The result was that the cops and the station itself gave Lula the runs.

We walked to the front door of a run down row house just on the edge of the bad part of town. Another two streets over and we would be right on Stark, a place I had no desire to ever visit again. Stark Street was the home of some of the roughest element of Trenton and a couple of gang members that my past career had tended to rub the wrong way. Even the cops preferred to avoid both Stark and Comstock.

"You got the cuffs?" I whispered to Lula. She nodded.

"Girl, you want the front or the back?" she asked, looking just a bit more apprehensive than I felt.

"You take the back. Once I identify myself, if I get the chance, he'll probably high tail it for the rear door."

Lula made her way around the end of the row and after a couple minutes, during which I tried to stay relatively hidden, I decided she must be in place. I knocked on the door.

As luck would have it, the guy was actually there. The door opened to reveal a man who had obviously been drinking or using. His eyes were a demonic red and peered toward me like lasers. I nearly reached up to my forehead thinking he was aiming at some target. I needn't have worried because in no time he was staring up and down my body as if he was sizing me up for dinner.

"Willard Noble?" a weak voice asked. Geez, was that really my voice? I cleared my throat. "Are you Willard Noble?" Of course, I knew the answer to that one.

"Who wants to know? I ain't buying anything you might be selling, sister. Well, maybe if you 're selling that cute little body of yours, I might like a taste." His voice was a little slurred.

I tried not to cringe, but couldn't suppress a slight shutter at the thought of what he had in mind. Oh, this was the gross part of the job. If he said anything else, I was going to really enjoy slapping on those cuffs.

"Mr. Willard, you missed your court appointment. My partner and I need to take you in for rescheduling. It shouldn't take long." How many times had I said that before?

Without a word, the door slammed in my face. I figured that I had better run around to the back and see if Lula was having any more luck than I did. Sure enough, there she was sitting on old Willard's stomach.

I couldn't help but smile. "Should have turned him over before you sat on him," I offered. Lula was having a hard time holding him down.

"Man just slipped coming out the door. Should be careful where he's walking, if you ask me." I looked over by the door and noticed that someone had dumped marbles right in front of the back door. Sure enough, Willard probably did slip.

"New trick?" I asked her. "Did Ranger tell you about that one?" Not that Ranger would ever need this type of trick, but it seemed unlikely that Lula would get that one on her own.

"Hell no," she started. "Me and Connie figured it out."

"Not bad at all, Lula. You may be cut out for this business after all."

"Fuckin' A."

It took a bit of work, but we managed to turn Willard over, cuff him and haul him into Lula's Firebird. I figured this was all only possible because good old Willard was not exactly in possession of all his faculties right now. We rode to the station in silence. When we arrived I told Lula that I would prefer to wait in the car. No one knew anything about Morelli and me and I wasn't looking forward to running into him right now.

I was standing outside the car when Constanza came out, seemingly looking for me.

"Hey Stephanie, you've got to do something about Morelli. He's as mean as a snake. Can't you save your fights for his day off?"

I wasn't sure how to respond. "Sorry, some things can't be resolved on your time schedule. What's Joe up to?"

"Came in this morning so hung over we had to keep him in the office with a pot of coffee. I don't know when I have seen him this bad. One of the guys said he closed down Pino's last night."

I guess Joe had taken my leaving pretty hard, I thought. Hell, of course he did, he had plans for us. I just wasn't sure that they were the kind of plans that I wanted. Of course, that's where it all started last night. I hadn't expected him to go out and get drunk.

"Do me a favor Carl and don't mention that I was here."

"Sure Steph, whatever you say."

Unfortunately, when Lula came back to the car, she wasn't alone.