14bis Plum Spooky (9 page)

“What do you think about death?” I asked Diesel.

“I like the buffet. After that, it’s not my favorite thing.” He looked over at me. “What do
you
think about death?”

“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.”

My phone rang and I heard labored breathing and a whispered
hello.

“Yes?” I said.

“Is this the bounty hunter?”

“Yes.”

“Thank God. I had your card in my pocket, and I didn’t know who to call. They think I’m still unconscious. I couldn’t call the police. I’m afraid they’d take my animals. But you find people, right?”

“Gail?”

“You have to help me. Please. They’re taking me somewhere.” It was clear she was struggling to talk, trying not to cry, but a sob escaped before she reigned herself in. “I’m in terrible trouble,” she whispered. “You have to find me. And take care of my poor animals. Oh God,” she moaned. “It’s Wulf. He’s coming back. He’s coming to get me.” And the line went dead.

“You don’t look good,” Lula said to me. “You just turned white. What was that call about?”

“It was Gail Scanlon. It sounded like Wulf has kidnapped her.”

I dialed Diesel’s cell. No answer. I left a message to call me, and I called my home phone. No answer there, either. I put the Jeep in gear and called Ranger.

“Do you have my Jeep bugged?”

“Bugged?”

“You know, the gizmo you always put on my cars so you can find me.”

“Yeah.”

“Can you find me anywhere?”

“Pretty much. Where are you going?”

“I’m heading for the Pine Barrens to check out a woman in trouble, and I’m afraid I’ll get lost.”

“Babe,” Ranger said.

“There isn’t cell service in some spots, so if you don’t hear back from me for a couple days, you should come get me.”

“I’ll make a memo on my calendar.”

I hung up, and Lula was shaking her head. “I swear, if I was gonna ask a favor of Ranger, it wouldn’t be to come rescue my ass. And I don’t believe he’s got a tracking device on your junk of a car. What’s that about?”

“He has them on all his fleet vehicles, and he puts one on mine because I sometimes work for him.” And because he cares for me … a lot. The caring is mutual, but Ranger, like Diesel, is out of my relationship comfort zone.

“So now what? Are we gonna go after Gail Scanlon?” Lula wanted to know.

“Yeah. I have a pretty good idea where she lives. We’ll start there.”

Lula had the map in front of her again. “You got an address?”

“Yup. It’s follow the dirt road.”

I
TOOK ROUTE
206 to Marbury Road and turned left. Route 206 was a slower road than the Turnpike but more direct. Carl was happy in the backseat with a bucket of fried chicken parts. Lula had a bag of burgers and fries. I had a vanilla milk shake. I left Marbury Road, and my confidence level dropped. I was going as much on instinct as memory relieved when something looked familiar. I reached the dirt road and slowed. I didn’t want to create a dust cloud announcing my approach.

Lula peered through the Jeep’s small windshield. “Are you sure we’re in Jersey? This don’t look like Jersey to me. This don’t even look like America.”

“How much of America have you seen?” I asked her.

“In person or on tele vision?”

I crept around a stand of pines and saw the massacred faux bird bomb on the ground in front of me. Hooray. I was on the right path.

“This is as far as I got with Diesel,” I said to Lula. “We lost Gail Scanlon here.”

“You know how to get out of this hellhole, right?”

“Piece of cake.”

“I don’t like all these trees and no strip malls. It don’t seem normal.”

I followed the dirt road for a half mile and came to a fork. Both sides of the fork looked exactly the same. I got out of the car and examined the dirt like I was Tonto running point for the Lone Ranger.

“Well?” Lula asked.

I got back into the Jeep. I hadn’t a clue. “Left,” I said.

“Boy, you’re good,” Lula said. “I didn’t see nothing in that dirt.”

Carl was on his feet in the backseat, peering over my shoulder, looking worried.

“What do you think?” I asked Carl. “Left?”

“Eeep,” Carl said.

I took the left fork, and after a while, I came to another fork in the road. And then another.

“All I can see is trees and sand,” Lula said. “It’s like the end of the world. There’s no sidewalks. Where’s the cement? And I haven’t got no bars on my cell phone. What’s with that? I don’t like being without bars.”

I looked at my phone. She was right. No bars. I hoped Diesel wasn’t trying to reach me.

“Maybe we should turn around,” Lula said. “I’m freaking. These trees are closing in on me. I need bars on my phone.”

“The road’s too narrow to make a U-turn. I’ll turn as soon as it widens.”

“What if it don’t widen?”

“It’ll widen!”

Truth is I had no confidence it would widen. And I had no idea where I was. I was lost beyond being lost. My plan was to go forward and keep turning left, and eventually I thought it had to take me somewhere.

“I gotta go to the bathroom,” Lula said. “I shouldn’t of had that super-size soda. You need to find a gas station or McDonald’s or something.”

An hour later, I was still creeping along in the Barrens. No golden arches in sight.

“I’m gonna burst,” Lula said. “I gotta go.”

I came to a stop. “Pick a tree,” I said.

“What?”

“This is as good as it’s going to get. We’re lost, and we’re out of gas.”

“I don’t want to hear that,” Lula said. “It’s gonna get dark. I don’t like the idea of being here in the dark. It’s creepy. And the Jersey Dev il comes out at night.”

“There’s no Jersey Dev il.”

“I heard about it. It got wings.
Big
wings.”

Carl had climbed over the seat and was sitting hunched on the gearshift. Carl didn’t like talk of the Jersey Dev il.

“Are you sure we’re out of gas?” Lula asked.

I turned the key, but the engine didn’t kick over.

“I can’t believe you got me into a situation where we’re out of gas and there’s no restroom,” Lula said. “I’m going down this road, and I’m finding a place on my own.”

Lula heaved herself out of the car and set off down the road.