“This is boring,” I said to him.

“I‘m almost done.”

“Are you finding anything helpful?”

“He was planning on leaving the country. He had a suitcase packed, and his passport is out on his dresser. No travel itinerary. There are computer connections but no computer. And Wulf‘s been here. The place reeks of him.”

“The crime lab might have taken the computer.”

“It‘s possible. Or Wulf might have taken it.”

Diesel wrapped an arm around me and steered me to the foyer and out the front door. We made a halfhearted attempt to reattach the crime-scene tape, but it had lost most of its sticking power, so we left it on the ground and scuttled back to my car.

Halfway home my phone rang.

“Carl‘s here,” Grandma Mazur said. “I went to answer the doorbell, and there he was on the porch looking all dejected.”

“Where is he now?”

“He‘s here in the kitchen, eating cookies.”

“I‘ll be right there.”

Thirty minutes later, Diesel walked into my apartment, went straight to the couch, and flipped the ball game on. Carl scampered up beside him.

“Make yourself at home,” I said.

“I‘m going to pretend that wasn‘t sarcasm,” Diesel said.

“I don‘t suppose you have any chips?”

I brought him a bag of corn chips and a jar of salsa. I took a chip for Rex and dropped it into his cage, along with a baby carrot. I put my mother‘s leftover bag in the fridge, and I shuffled back to the couch.

“I‘m going to bed,” I said to Diesel. “Alone. And I expect to wake up alone.”

“You bet.”

I looked down at Carl. “And I expect you to behave yourself.”

Carl did a palms-up and shrugged.

SIX

I WOKE UP with a heavy arm across my chest. Diesel. I knew from past experiences that Diesel didn‘t fit on my couch and wasn‘t the sort of guy to tough it out on the floor, so I‘d taken the precaution of going to bed dressed in T-shirt and running shorts.

Diesel shifted next to me and half-opened his eyes. “Coffee,” he murmured.

I slithered out from under him, rolled out of bed, and stepped over the clothes he‘d left on the floor, including seafoam green boxers with palm trees and hula girls.

I used the bathroom and shuffled into the living room, where Carl was watching the news on tele vision. I got the coffee going and fed Rex. I wasn‘t sure what monkeys ate in the morning, so I gave Carl a box of Fruit Loops. Diesel ambled into the kitchen and poured himself a mug of coffee.

“What have we got to eat?” he asked.

“Carl‘s eating the Fruit Loops, so that leaves leftovers from last night, peanut butter, hamster crunchies, and half a jar of salsa. Looks like you ate all the chips.”

“I shared with Carl.” He retrieved the leftover bag from the refrigerator and dumped it on the counter. Pot roast, gravy, green bean casserole. No mashed potatoes. He put it all on a plate and nuked it. “There‘s enough here for two.”

I sipped my coffee. “I‘ll pass.”

Diesel dug into the mountain of food and ate it all.

“It‘s not fair,” I said. “You eat tons of food. Why aren‘t you fat?”

“High rate of metabolism and clean living.”

“What are you doing today?”

“I thought I‘d hang out,” Diesel said.

“You and Carl?”

“Yeah.”

Carl gave Diesel a thumbs-up.

“Well, I‘m a working girl,” I told him. “I‘m going to take a shower and go catch a bad guy.”

“Knock yourself out,” Diesel said. “If you get a line on Munch, let me know.”

LULA WAS ON the couch in the bonds office when I walked in. She was wearing a pink sweat suit and sneakers, and she was holding a box of tissues. She didn‘t have any makeup on, and her hair was somewhere between rat‘s nest and exploded canary.

“What‘s up?” I asked.

“I‘m dying is what‘s up,” Lula said. “I got the flu back. I woke up this morning, and I couldn‘t stop sneezing. And my eyes are all puffy. And I feel like crap.”

“Maybe it‘s an allergy,” I said to her.

“I don‘t get allergies. I never been allergic to anything.”

“How‘d it go with Tank last night? Did you set a new date for the wedding?”

“I decided December first is a good time on account of it‘ll be easy to remember for anniversaries.”

“That was okay with Tank?”

“Yeah. He had his eyes closed when I told him, but I‘m pretty sure he was listening.”

Lula sneezed and blew her nose. “I swear, this just came on me. One minute, I‘m doing the nasty, and then next thing, I got the flu again.”

“Maybe you‘re allergic to Tank,” Connie said.

“I gotta get my numbers done,” Lula said. “I think there‘s something wrong with my juju. I‘m gonna call Miss Gloria. This just isn‘t right.”

I pulled Gordo Bollo‘s file out of my bag. “I‘m going to look in on Mr. Bollo. According to his file, he works for Greenblat Produce on Water Street.”

“I‘ll go with you,” Lula said. “I heard about Greenblat. That‘s a big fruit distributor. I could get an orange or a grapefruit for my bad juju while we‘re there. And I‘ll call Miss Gloria from the car.”

We piled into the Jeep and I took Hamilton, driving toward Broad Street. I had my top up but none of the windows zipped in. It was the end of September, and Trenton was enjoying a last-ditch warm spell.

“Hello,” Lula said into her phone. “This here‘s Lula, and I need to talk to Miss Gloria. It‘s an emergency. I‘m sick, and I think it‘s my juju, and I need my numbers done right away before I might die or something.” Lula disconnected and dropped her phone into her purse. “I hate being sick. No one should ever be sick. And if they do have to be sick, there should never be mucus involved.”

I didn‘t want to hear any more about mucus, so I punched the radio on, found a rap station for Lula, and blasted it out. By the time I rolled to a stop in front of Greenblat Produce, Lula was on a rant over my radio.

“You can‘t play rap on this cheap-ass radio,” she said. “There‘s no bass. This is like Alvin and the Chipmunks do Jay-Z. On the other hand, your open-air car got my head cleared out. I can breathe. I don‘t even feel a sneeze coming on.”

Greenblat Produce was housed in a large cement-block ware house with a loading dock in the rear and a small windowless office in the front. There were four desks in the office, and they were occupied by women who looked like Connie clones.

“What?” one of them said to me.

“I‘m looking for Gordo Bollo.”

“Oh damn, what‘d he do now?”

“He forgot his court date. I represent his bail bondsman, and I need to get him rescheduled.”

“I guess it could be worse,” she said.

“Oh boy,” Lula said to me. “This guy‘s in deep doo-doo when he got worse visitors than us.”

“He‘s in the back,” the woman said. “Go through this door behind me. He‘s probably sorting tomatoes.”

Lula and I entered the ware house, and I showed her a photo of Gordo.

“He looks real familiar,” Lula said. “I know him from somewhere. Maybe I knew him in a professional manner from when I was a ‘ho. No wait, that‘s not it. Now, that‘s gonna drive me nuts. I hate when this happens. Okay, I got it. He looks like Curly from the Three Stooges. Same bowling ball head and everything. No wonder his wife divorced him. Who‘d want to be married to a man with a head like a bowling ball?”

“Have you been taking cold medicine?”

“Maybe I had a couple hits this morning for medicinal purposes,” Lula said.

“I think you should wait in the car.”

“What? I‘m not waiting in no car. I want to see the guy with the bowling ball head.”

“Fine, but don‘t say anything.”

“My lips are sealed. See what I‘m doing? I‘m zipping them and locking them. And look at this. I‘m throwing away the key.”

Lula sneezed and farted.

“Oops, excuse me,” Lula said. “I thought I was done sneezing. Good thing we‘re in this big ware house with all this rotting fruit.”