“Yeah, but you paid everything off, right? How much did it come to?”

“A million three,” Connie said.

Vinnie froze, mouth open. “You paid a million three? Where the hell did you get that kind of money?”

“We sold your phone,” I said.

“Yeah, and your bike,” Lula said.

“That’s not nearly adding up to a million three. Where’d you get the rest of the money?”

“I’d rather not say,” I told him.

“Stephanie’s right,” Connie said. “You don’t want to know.”

“I came in to unplug,” Mooner said. “The Alliance wants me to go to the airport to pick up some Hobbits flying in for the big event.”

“Okay, so I don’t have a phone,” Vinnie said. “It’s still good to be here. I tell you, I thought I was going to die. They were serious. I don’t know what the deal is with Bobby Sunflower, but he was gonzo. And then when the house got bombed, everyone was twice as nuts. I was happy when you rescued me from the rattrap apartment, but I figured my time was short. I never thought you’d get me off. I knew Sunflower would track me down and blow my brains out. I figured he’d find me in Antarctica if he had to.”

“He needed money,” I said.

Vinnie opened his middle drawer and rifled through it. “The petty cash is missing.”

“And?” Connie said.

“Well spent,” Vinnie said. “It’s not like I’m not grateful.”

“Why did Sunflower need money?” I asked Vinnie.

“Bad investments, I guess.”

“Like what?”

Vinnie shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t even care. I just want to relax and enjoy not having a contract on me. I want to sit here in my office and watch television for a half hour.” Vinnie looked around. “Where’s my television? Oh crap, don’t tell me you sold my television.”

“I got two hundred dollars for it,” Lula said.

“It was high def!” Vinnie said. “It was a plasma.”

“Well, if you want, I can call Bobby Sunflower and tell him I want two hundred dollars back so you can repo your high def, plasma TV,” Lula said.

“Nope, that’s okay,” Vinnie said. “I’m going to sit here and close my eyes and pretend I have a television. I’m calm. I’m happy to be alive. I’m happy to have gotten out of Joyce’s house without getting my Johnson cut off.” Vinnie opened his eyes and looked over at us. “She’s an animal.”

“Too much information,” Lula said.

Connie went to her desk to answer the phone. “Vinnie,” she called. “It’s Roger Drager, president of Wellington. He’d like to talk to you.”

“What’s Wellington?” Lula asked Vinnie.

“It’s the venture capital company that owns the agency.”

“Oh yeah,” Lula said. “Now I remember.”

Vinnie went to Connie’s desk to take the call.

“Yeah,” he said. “Yessir. Yessir. Yessir.” And he hung up.

“That was a lot of yessirs,” Lula said.

“He wants me to come to his office,” Vinnie said. “Now.”

“Be good if you put some clothes on,” Lula said. “He might not like little Vinnie hangin’ out your shorts.”

“I’ll get them,” Mooner said. “They’re in the Love Bus.”

“What does he want to talk to you about?” Connie asked.

“I don’t know,” Vinnie said.

“Maybe it’s the phantom bonds,” Connie said.

Vinnie’s eyebrows lifted. “You know about that?”

“We scoured the office, looking for money, and I found the file.”

“It started out small. I swear on my mother’s grave I meant to pay Wellington back.”

“Your mother isn’t dead,” I said to Vinnie.

“She will be someday,” Vinnie said. “Anyway, it got out of hand. In the beginning, I just wanted a short fix to pay Sunflower back on some bad bets, but Sunflower came in and wouldn’t let go. Before I knew it, his bookkeeper was helping me keep two sets of books.”

“Is this the dead bookkeeper?”

“Yeah,” Vinnie said. “Sudden death with tire tracks on his back.”

I thought about Victor Kulik and Walter Dunne, executed behind the diner. Life expectancy with Wellington wasn’t good.

Mooner came back with Vinnie’s clothes. “I fixed them for you, dude,” Mooner said. “They’re, like, awesome.”

Vinnie stepped into his slacks and looked down at himself. The slacks had been shortened to just below his knees, and his shirt had been turned into a tunic with a rope belt. It went well with his black dress shoes and black socks. Mooner had printed Doderick Bracegirdle with black magic marker on the shirt pocket. Vinnie looked like a wino Hobbit coming off a three-day binge. His gelled hair was stuck every which way, his clothes were wrinkled and smudged with grass stains, his beard belonged to Grizzly Hobbit.

“I’d kill him,” Vinnie said, glaring at Mooner, “but you sold my gun.”

“Probably, this Drager guy wants to have you arrested for embezzling,” I said to Vinnie. “He’s not going to care that you’re a homeless Hobbit.”

“I haven’t got a driver’s license,” Vinnie said. “I haven’t got a car.”

I hitched my bag onto my shoulder. “I’ll take you. Where are we going?”

“He’s downtown in the Meagan Building.”

THE MEAGAN BUILDING was a black glass and steel high-rise built several years before the commercial real estate market crashed. The Wellington Company was on the fifth floor. We stepped out of the elevator into a carpeted hall. Pale gray carpet, cream walls with cherry chair rails and cherrywood doors. Classy. Wellington occupied the entire floor. It was getting to be late in the day and the Wellington front desk was unmanned. Roger Drager was waiting for us in the small reception area.

Drager was in his forties, nicely dressed, had severely receding brown hair, was around 5’10”, and his body was going soft. His hand was clammy when we shook. He led us through a room with cubicles and banks of file cabinets. There were private offices with windows on the perimeter of the room. Doors were open, and most offices were empty. Desks and chairs. Same with the cubicles. Just a few guys slouched back playing computer solitaire. Not much work going on. No phones ringing.

“Where is everyone?” I asked Drager.

“Flex hours,” he said. “Most everyone prefers to come in early and leave early.”

We followed him down a long hall to his corner office. Large ornate desk and credenza on one side of the office. Seating area with a small couch and two chairs and a coffee table on the other. He directed us to the seating area. So far, he hadn’t seemed to notice Vinnie was a Hobbit.

“Let me get right to the point,” Drager said to Vinnie. “I know you’ve been stealing from Wellington. I want full disclosure, and I want the money you’ve embezzled. I want the names on all the bad bonds you’ve written.”

“Yessir,” Vinnie said. “I’ll cooperate totally. I don’t know where I’ll get the money, but I’ll pay it back somehow. Are you calling the police in?”

“Not if you repay the money.” Drager stood and looked at his watch. “I have another meeting. You can let yourselves out?”

“Absolutely,” Vinnie said. “No problem.”

Drager walked partially down the hall with us, said good-bye, and entered another office. Vinnie and I continued on toward the room with the cubicles. The building was eerily quiet, with the exception of a room to the right. I could hear machinery working on the other side of the closed door. I opened the door and looked in. There was a large paper shredder working. A bored-looking kid stood beside the shredder. Black garbage bags presumably filled with paper were stacked against a wall.

“What?” the kid said.

“Sorry,” I said to him. “Looking for the ladies room.”

“By the elevator.”

I thanked him and closed the door. I didn’t say anything to Vinnie until we got into the car and were out of the parking lot.

“So what do you think?” I asked Vinnie.

“He was nervous,” Vinnie said. “Scared.”

Vinnie might be a creepy human being, but he was an excellent judge of people. That’s one of the reasons Vinnie was a good bail bondsman. Vinnie knew when people were lying, scared, doped-up, dumb, or crazy. When Vinnie wasn’t intentionally scamming, he didn’t write a lot of bad bonds. Vinnie knew who was going to run and who was going to show up for court.