Top Secret Twenty-One (20 page)

“That’s just sad,” Lula said. “A man finds a nice box to live in, you’d think he could put it someplace better than that corner.”

“Vinnie bonded out a homeless person?” I asked Connie. “How did this guy secure his bond?”

“A relative in Cleveland wired the money.”

I took the file and shoved it into my bag. “I’m going to mooch lunch from my mom,” I said. “I’ll probably stop back later this afternoon.”

“I got a better idea,” Lula said. “How about if I go with you, and then after you mooch lunch we can look for Forest? His box is a block away from the pizza place in Buster’s building. If we get there in the middle of the afternoon, I bet there’s no line, and we can waltz right in and get pizza.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

My mother was ironing when Lula and I walked into the kitchen.

“Hey, Mrs. P.,” Lula said. “How’s it going?”

“She’s ironing,” Grandma said. “That’s how it’s going. She’s been ironing for four hours.”

“I guess you’re needing some mental health time, eh?” Lula said to my mom. “I know how that is. And ironing is real calming. Although you might want to think about how you’re scorching that shirt you’re working on.”

“She’s been ironing the same shirt for forty-five minutes,” Grandma said. “She’s run out of clothes.”

“Maybe you want to switch her over to alcohol before she starts to smoke,” Lula said.

“It’s Bella,” Grandma said. “Even though she has no good proof that I was the one who pied her, she’s going all over telling everyone I did it.”

“Well, were you the one?” Lula asked Grandma.

“I don’t want to admit to anything, but I might have done it.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“Everyone’s scared she’ll put the eye on them, so we got disinvited to Amy Shute’s wedding shower, and I got a phone call that the Bingo game was all full tonight, and when your mother went to mass this morning, no one would sit on that side of the church with her.”

“Before you know it, everyone will forget about it,” I said.

“As long as you’re already getting the heat, I think you should hit her again,” Lula said. “I think you should TP her house.”

My mother looked up, wild-eyed, and took off after Lula with the iron. “That’s the devil talking!” she shouted.

The plug popped out of the wall, and Lula put the kitchen table between herself and my mom.

“Take it easy, Mrs. P.,” Lula said. “You’re gonna get your blood pressure up and you’ll burst a blood vessel. That happened to my Aunt Celia, only she was working at the time being a ’ho.”

“No kidding?” Grandma said. “I guess it can be hard work being a ’ho.”

“You’re all lunatics,” my mother said.

“I don’t mean to be disrespecting or nothing, but you’re the one who got the iron,” Lula said. “How about we get you a pill or something?”

“I didn’t realize I still had it in my hand,” my mother said, looking at the iron.

“Happens to me all the time,” Lula said, “but usually it’s a gun or a donut.”

“Do you want me to go get the blood pressure machine?” Grandma asked my mom. “I got one upstairs for when I watch
Naked and Afraid
.”

“Not necessary,” my mother said. “I just had a moment.” She put the iron back on the ironing board. “Ironing doesn’t do it for me anymore. Maybe I’ll take up knitting again.”

“I don’t know if you want to be handling knitting needles while you’re having another one of them moments,” Lula said. “How about baking cupcakes? That’s a real good activity.”

“And my daughter’s a real good cupcake maker,” Grandma said. “Did you girls come over for something special?”

“Nope,” I said. “We were in the neighborhood and thought we’d say hello.”

“Yeah, just stopped by to say hello,” Lula said.

Grandma walked us to the door. “Are you going after bad guys now?”

“Yep,” Lula said. “We’re going to make the city a safer place.”

I wasn’t sure rousting a homeless guy out of his cardboard box was all that noble, but it was my job, and I was going to do it … probably.

We got into the Buick, and I turned to Lula. “I didn’t think this was a good day to mooch lunch.”

“Hell,” Lula said. “I’m not even hungry no more. And that hardly ever happens.”

We roared off with the V8 guzzling gas at a furious rate. I drove through town on autopilot and turned up Stark. Buster lived in a manageable part of Stark, not the best and not the worst. Forest Kottel lived two blocks up in an area that was not the worst but getting there fast. It was open range for gangs, crazies, and drugged-out zombies. Geneva Street was the demarcation line for Lula and me. We didn’t stop the car beyond Geneva if we could possibly avoid it. No FTA was worth it.

We passed the pizza place, drove two more blocks, and didn’t see a cardboard box on the corner of Stark and Geneva. I left-turned onto Geneva, and half a block in we ran into a city of cardboard boxes, plastic tents, and patched-together one-man shanties that had been erected in the alley cutting the block.

“Used to be you had to get on a plane to see a slum of this quality,” Lula said. “This is better than the tent city they got going under the bridge abutment.”

I parked the Buick at the corner and shoved pepper spray into one pocket and my stun gun into another. I hung handcuffs from my waistband and slung my messenger bag across my chest. For the most part I’ve found that homeless people aren’t violent, but many of them are crazy and unpredictable, especially when they live this far up Stark.

“Do you have your gun with you?” I asked Lula.

“Hell, yeah.”

“Do you have it someplace you can reach it in a hurry?”

Lula searched through her huge purse, found the gun, and shoved it into the waistband of her black spandex skirt.

Forest Kottel’s photo was stapled to the second page of his file. Weathered face. Lots of tangled hair. Squinty eyes. His description had him at 5′ 10″ and 170 pounds. Caucasian. Connie had listed the color of his eyes as red.

We approached the first box and were at a loss what to do next. No doorbell. No name on the box. Lots more boxes in the alley. No way to know if there was something alive in the box.

“Knock, knock,” I said.

No answer.

“I’m not touching it,” Lula said. “That box got the skeebies. I can tell just by looking at it.”

I toed the box with my sneaker.

“Go away,” said someone from inside the box.

“I’m looking for Forest Kottel.”

“Well, you haven’t found him.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Sorry to disturb you. Have a nice day.”

“He lives in a box,” Lula said. “How nice could his day get?”

We tiptoed past several bedraggled tents and stopped at another box.

“Hello,” I said. “Anybody home?”

I walked around the box and looked inside through a door cut into the cardboard. Empty.

“Hey, look at that beauty of a box that’s alongside the dumpster,” Lula said. “It must be from one of them doublewide refrigerators. Now,
that’s
a box a man could be proud of.”

She took a step toward the box, and a little brown creature with big ears crept from behind the dumpster. It was followed by a second and then a third creature, all with teeth bared, softly growling.

“Chihuahuas!” Lula said. “It’s the rabid Chihuahuas from hell!
Run for your life!
”

Lula took off in her five-inch heels, waving her arms and shrieking, and I ran after her. She reached the Buick, wrenched the door open, and jumped inside.

“Did you see them?” she asked when I got behind the wheel. “Did you see their glowing eyes?”

“No. I didn’t see any glowing eyes.”

“They were from hell.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I think they were from someone’s cardboard box.”

“Yeah, but they looked ferocious.”

“They were only three pounds each.”

“Like big rats.”

“They didn’t look like rats. I thought they were kind of cute with their big ears.”

“I did like their ears,” Lula said. “But what about the creeping and growling?”

Okay, I had to admit I was freaked about the creeping and growling.

“Now that I’m thinking about it, I bet those dogs just need some bacon,” Lula said. “Everybody feels happy when they got bacon.”

“So you think if we gave them bacon, they’d be friendly?”

“Remember when we had to get past that alligator in whatshisname’s apartment? We just kept feeding him chicken wings. Our problem was we didn’t bring enough wings.”

I drove back down Stark, turned onto State Street, and pulled into a fast-food drive-thru. They didn’t list bacon on their à la carte menu, so I did the next best thing and got a bagful of bacon cheeseburgers.

“Those cheeseburgers smell pretty good,” Lula said. “I might have to test drive one or two of them. And personally, I think those Chihuahuas would have liked some fries.”

“You can have
one burger
. The rest are for the dogs.”

Kottel wasn’t a high-end bond, but when added to the Poletti capture money, my recovery fee would keep me going for a while. Problem was, I was having a hard time focusing on Forest Kottel when Ranger was tracking a psychopathic assassin who had me at the top of his hit list. I wanted to get Kottel as quickly as possible so I’d be free to help Ranger or maybe to go underground if necessary.

I returned to the alley off Geneva, parked the car, and set off with my bacon cheeseburgers. We approached the big box next
to the dumpster, and two attack Chihuahuas circled the box and growled at us. I tossed a burger at them, and eight more dogs instantly appeared. All ten dogs pounced on the burger, devoured it, and then sat back on their tiny haunches looking at me expectantly.

“You got their attention,” Lula said. “You just better hope they don’t figure out there’s more burgers in the bag or they’ll be on you like white on rice.”

A shaved bald head popped out of a flap on the top of the box, followed by a lanky body dressed in a grungy black bathrobe. It was Forest Kottel.

“Who goes there?” he asked. “Who approaches my private lair and disturbs my minions?”

“This guy’s a whackadoodle,” Lula said. “We should have brought the butterfly net.”

“Stephanie Plum,” I said. “I represent your bail bondsman. You missed a court date, and you need to reschedule.”

“You remind me of someone,” Lula said.

Forest stood ramrod straight. “You may remember me from when I stole the moon. Or from when I saved the world from El Macho.”

“That sounds real familiar,” Lula said. “Like I read it somewhere or saw it on the news.”

“It’s an animated movie,” I said. “He’s Gru from
Despicable Me
.”

“Lies!” Forest said, wild-eyed. “All lies. El Macho turned my minions into Chihuahuas using a top-secret formula
known as Chihuahua Maker Number 42. They might look like Chihuahuas, but underneath they’re one hundred percent minion.”

“That explains it,” Lula said. “You want a burger? We brought some burgers for you and your minions.”

Forest disappeared inside the box, a door scraped open on the other side, and he crawled out. He unfolded a red and white checkered plastic tablecloth, laid it on the ground, and sat cross-legged on it. The dogs trotted over and sat beside him.

“Will you ladies be joining us for dinner?”

“Actually,” I said, “I thought you could feed your minions and then eat your burger while I drive you to the police station to reschedule.”

“I can’t leave Daisy,” Forest said. “Daisy gets anxious when I leave. And Ronald and Scooter will go off and chew the corners off other people’s boxes. And then there’s Mitzy and Brownie and Puddles and Boomer …”

“Boy,” Lula said. “You got a lot of minions.”

“I started with two.”

“You might want to think about minion birth control,” Lula said.

“How do you feed all your minions?” I asked Forest. “How do you feed yourself?”

“There’s a church truck that comes around and gives out sandwiches. If I get in line twice, there’s enough for all of us. The minions don’t eat a lot.”

“Suppose I found good homes for the minions,” I said. “Would that work for you?”

“It would be okay with me, but the minions have minds of their own, and they’re very attached to me.”

“That’s on account of minions are loyal,” Lula said, “but that don’t mean deep down inside they wouldn’t rather go with the guy with the bag of bacon cheeseburgers.”

I handed the bag of burgers to Forest. “I’ll be back,” I said. “I need to look into some options for the minions. They’re housebroken, right?”

“Perfectly. They have never once piddled in my box.”

Lula and I returned to the Buick and drove back to the office.

“How are you going to find homes for those minions?” Lula asked. “Do you know anyone who wants a minion?”

“I need to give it some thought.”

“You need to start asking around,” Lula said. “There’s Morelli’s dog, Bob, who could use a minion. And there’s your granny. I could see her with a minion.”

“How about you?”

“It seems like a big responsibility,” Lula said. “I don’t know if I could take that on. I’d have to feed him and walk him and pick up minion poop. Of course, minion poop would be real small. I might have to get reading glasses just to see it. And reading glasses would ruin my image of perfection.”