“I think carnations should be banned from funeral parlors.”

We rode in silence after that. I mean, what was left to say? Gail still showed no sign of noticing our behemoth black SUV close on her tail. She sailed over the bridge and took 73 south. Miles later, I was thinking I was on the road to nowhere. And then Gail slowed and hooked a left off 73. She wound around some, and after a while the road turned to dirt and narrowed. We dropped back as far as possible, although I doubt we could be seen through the dust cloud Gail was kicking up. There were scrubby bushes on either side, and the rutted road twisted around trees and chunks of rock.

Diesel powered forward, into a stand of scruffy pines, and BAM! Something bounced off the front bumper, and we were blinded by a blizzard of feathers and blood.

“Omigod,” I said, my heart beating in my throat. “What was that?”

Diesel stopped the car and looked at the windshield, which was plastered with what could only be bird guts.

“That had to be the biggest bird on the planet,” he said, unbuckling his seat belt, getting out to take a look.

I stayed buckled. I didn’t want to see any more than I was seeing. I was glad I didn’t have a memorial ser vice doughnut to spew.

Diesel kicked at something on the ground and examined the front of the Escalade. He swiped a finger through the red stuff on the windshield and looked at it up close.

“Fake blood,” he said. “I think we hit the Pine Barrens version of a booby-trap piñata.”

“The feathers?”

“Real. But the bird who gave his all for them is long gone.”

“Why would someone booby-trap this road with a feather bomb?”

“I’m guessing Gail did it. Stops people from going forward. Makes a statement of sorts. Doesn’t really hurt anyone. This is probably what war would look like if women were in charge.”

Diesel got behind the wheel and flipped the windshield washers on. The fake blood mixed with the washer fluid and feathers and gummed up the wiper blades.

“What have you got in your bag?” Diesel asked.

“Tissues?”

He took the tissues, got out of the car, and tried cleaning the blades. No good. The tissues were now mixed with the blood and feathers and washer fluid. The whole windshield was a disgusting red smear.

“I’m not happy,” Diesel said.

I was still pawing through the junk in my bag, and I found a travel-size nail polish remover pad. “This should do something,” I said. “I only have one, so don’t waste it.” I tore the foil envelope open and gave the saturated pad to Diesel.

Diesel looked at the two-inch square. “You’re kidding.”

“Do you have anything better?”

“No. I’d stand on the hood and piss on the windshield, but I’m empty.”

“Some superhero.”

Diesel flipped me the bird and went to work with the polish remover. Moments later, he had a small piece of window exposed in front of the steering wheel. He cranked the car over, wheeled it around, and carefully picked his way down the dirt road, turning right when he reached the paved road. He followed signs to the Atlantic City Expressway, and found a gas station just before the Expressway entrance.

I was pumping gas and Diesel was scrubbing the windshield and grille when the Ferrari sped by the gas station and took the Expressway, heading west to the Turnpike.

“Too bad you can’t fly,” I said to Diesel.

“Yeah, rub it in. All through high school I took it for that.”

“Do you want to go back to the dirt road?”

“No. I want to get on a computer and do some research first. We could ride around for days on that road and never find anything. And we’re not even sure Gail means anything to us.”

I WASHED DOWN a sandwich with a soda and fed the last bite of bread to Rex. Better a late lunch than no lunch at all. Diesel was on my computer, looking at aerial views of the Barrens.

“This was taken several months ago,” Diesel said, “but I see a clearing and a house and a fairly large outbuilding at the end of the road we were on. There are a lot of narrow roads intersecting and going off in all directions from that dirt road, but there’s really only one house that can be reached by Jeep.”

“Are you going back now?”

“No. I want to look at more aerial views, and I have a call in to Scanlon’s supervisor.”

“That’s okay by me. I’d like to take another stab at Gordo Bollo.”

“As long as you don’t go out of cell range… and you take the monkey.”

“Why can’t Carl stay here?”

“He’s annoying. It’s nonnegotiable.”

“Okay, fine, but you owe me.”

“Lookin’ forward to settling the score,” Diesel said.

“Boy, you never give up, do you?”

“I wouldn’t be me if I gave up.”

I got Carl settled in the back of the Jeep and I drove to the office.

“I’ll go with you,” Lula said, “but I’m not going inside. I’m not having no more rat experiences.”

“What good are you if you won’t go inside?”

“I can guard the Jeep. Suppose by dumb luck or something you snag Melon Head. You want to make sure the Jeep is still there when you come out, right?”

Twenty minutes later, I left Lula and Carl in the parking lot, put on my game face, and walked into Greenblat Produce.

“If you’re looking for Gordo, you’re out of luck today,” one of the women said. “He called in sick.”

“That was fast,” Lula said when I climbed behind the wheel.

I pulled Bollo’s file out of my bag. “He called in sick.” I thumbed through pages and found his home address. “He lives in Bordentown.”

“I’m cool with that,” Lula said. “Let’s go to Bordentown and root him out.”

The day had started out warm, but clouds had rolled in and the temperature was dropping. Not winter-quality dropping, but enough to notice when there were no windows in your car. I turned the heater on full blast and hunkered down.

“Where’s your windows?” Lula wanted to know.

“They need to get zipped in.”

“Well, zip them in. I’m freezing my ass off.”

I’d bought the Jeep a month before, when it was hot and I didn’t need windows. I’d tried to zip them in once when it rained and had partial success. I was willing to try again. I pulled to the side of the road, and Lula and I grunted and tugged and cussed at the plastic windows. We finally got most of them secure, with the exception of the back window. The back window would zip only halfway.

“Good enough,” Lula said. “We need ventilation anyway since the monkey’s back there.”

Carl gave her the finger.

“That all you got?” Lula asked Carl.

Carl grabbed his crotch and hiked it up.

“That’s disgusting on a monkey” Lula said. “You been letting him watch MTV? You want to monitor his tele vision viewing.”

I checked Carl out in my rearview mirror. He was back to playing with his game.

“Get the map out and find 656 Ward Street in Borden-town,” I told Lula.

Lula opened the map and traced a line with her finger. “You gotta get off Route 206 in about half a mile.”

Ten minutes later, we were on Ward Street, but we couldn’t find Bollo’s house. There was no 656 on Ward Street. The only thing on Ward Street was a cemetery on one side and a ceramic pipe factory on the other.

I called Bollo’s home phone. No answer. No machine picked up. I called his cell phone.

“Yeah?” Bollo said.

“This is UPS. I have a delivery for Gordo Bollo, and I need a correct address.”

“Eat me,” Bollo said. And he hung up.

“I think he knew it was me,” I said to Lula.

“Should have let the monkey make the call.”

I called Connie. “I got a bogus home address for Gordo Bollo.”

“I’ll get back to you,” Connie said.

“You know what?” Lula said. “We’re halfway to Atlantic City. We could go to Atlantic City and make a killing on the slots.”

“Tempting, but I told Diesel I’d be available.”

“Available for what?”

“For bounty hunter stuff.”