Lula stuck her hand out to Sunshine but he waved it away. No doubt worried about the rash.
“Well, I gotta go,” Lula said to him. “I’ll be back in touch if I can get hold of ten million.”
We swished out of Sunshine’s office, down the hall, and into the elevator.
“How’d I do?” Lula asked. “I was good, right?”
“Yeah. You were great. I almost fell over when you said you wanted to turn The Clinic into a whorehouse.”
“That was genius on my part,” Lula said. “When you think about it the building’s perfect with all those rooms. And it’s even got a lab so you could do your own disease testing.”
We stepped out of the building and found a shiny black GLK-Class Mercedes SUV parked where my Buick had formerly resided. A guy dressed in Rangeman black stepped away from the car and handed me a key.
“Ranger wanted you to have this,” he said.
I looked up and down the street. “Where’s the Buick?”
“Hal took it back to Rangeman.”
Another black SUV rolled down the street and stopped by my new car. The Rangeman guy got into the SUV. And the SUV drove off.
“It’s like you got a hot fairy godfather,” Lula said.
I remoted the Mercedes doors open. “Be careful what you say in here. He’s probably got it wired for audio and video to go straight to the control room.” I looked up to the sky, half expecting to see a Rangeman chopper hovering over my head.
I got behind the wheel, pressed the keyless go button, and the phone rang.
“I have your Buick,” Ranger said. “Do you want it stored here, or do you want it taken back to your parents’ house?”
“Leave it at Rangeman. Tiki is in the backseat. Make sure nothing happens to him.”
“There’s a gun in the drawer under your seat. My recommendation is to carry it with you.”
“I have my own gun.”
“Is it loaded?”
I did a mental groan. “No. I forgot to get bullets from Connie.”
“Babe,” Ranger said. And he disconnected.
“I bet he finds you exasperating,” Lula said.
“Mostly I think I’m an amusement.”
I pulled into traffic and headed for Cranberry Manor. I now had hands-free capability so I called Grandma.
“Were you able to get a name for me at Cranberry Manor?” I asked her.
“Not exactly, but Binney Molnar’s granddaughter used to work there, and she said Bill Smoot is the only one with a car. Seems like he’d be a good place to start on account of they had to get to the hospital somehow.”
“Thanks.”
“Over and out,” Grandma said.
Lula and I entered Cranberry Manor through a side door, by-passing the reception lady, and located the lounge. A woman was sitting off to one side, reading. Two men were playing Scrabble. And people were watching television. I walked over to some cardplayers and told them I was looking for Bill Smoot.
“Figures,” one of the men said. “The chicks always want Smooty. It’s because he’s got a car.”
“Why don’t you have a car?” Lula asked.
“I used to have one but it was a pain in the keester. This place is lousy with pigeons. They crap all over everything. I got better things to do than wash pigeon crap off my car.”
“Like what?” Lula asked him.
“Like this. I got a lot riding on this game. Loser has to get tested for Alzheimer’s.”
“I guess that’s assisted-living humor,” Lula said.
“About Bill Smoot,” I said. “Where can I find him?”
“He’s probably sitting outside the dining room. He gets there early so he can get a good seat.”
Lula and I left the lounge and followed the corridor to the dining room. The dining room doors were closed, and the sign on the door stated that lunch would be served at noon. Noon was a little over an hour away but people were already lining up.
“Your granny is right,” Lula said. “It’s good living here. You get to watch television, and someone makes your food, and it’s real pretty. And everyone looks happy unless they’re talking about Cubbin. I bet they give out good pharmaceuticals.”
“What about the pigeons?”
“That would be a problem.”
There were four men sitting on a couch by the dining room door.
“Would one of you be Bill Smoot?” I asked.
“Yep, that’s me,” one of them said.
He was about 5'7' with white hair and thick glasses. I put him at late seventies, possibly early eighties. He was wearing tan slacks and a three-button white knit shirt.
“I’d like to talk to you about Geoffrey Cubbin.”
All four men leaned forward, eyes narrowed.
“Asshole,” one of them said.
“I understand you went to see him?”
They exchanged glances, and I knew I’d found the hospital contingent.
“What’s this about?” Smoot asked.
“I’m looking for Cubbin and I thought you might be helpful.”
“Why are you looking for him? Are you a cop?”
“Fugitive apprehension agent.”
“Hah!” one of them said. “Bounty hunter.”
There were smiles all around. “All right then,” Smoot said. “What do you want to know?”
“Did you go to the hospital to see him?”
“Yeah,” Smoot said. “We were gonna beat the snot out of him until he told us where he had the money stashed.”
“You’d beat up a guy who’d just had his appendix removed?”
Everyone sort of shifted in his seat.
“We didn’t have a clear-cut plan,” Smoot said. “We might have just slapped him around a little.”
“So what happened?”
“Ernie over there spent some time on that floor a couple months ago so he knew the drill,” Smoot said.
Ernie shrugged. “Gallbladder. Easy come, easy go.”
“The night nurses come on at eleven. They punch in, skim over the charts, and then they watch movies on their iPads. Central isn’t exactly an award-winning hospital,” Smoot said. “So we figured we could sneak in after visiting hours when the nurses were snarfing down vodka-laced chocolate candies and tuning in to
“So what did you do?”
“We left. We got stopped by the night guard on the way out. I guess he caught us on one of the monitors. We acted all dumb and demented and confused and he helped us get to our car. And then we went to the diner on Livingston and then we went home.”
“I know that diner,” Lula said. “They got amazing rice pudding.”
“I always get grilled cheese,” Smoot said. “It’s nice and greasy. They don’t give you a lot of grease here at the Manor.”
“Well, that’s a strike against them,” Lula said. “That and the pigeons. The bad news is adding up.”
“I don’t suppose any of you have any idea where Cubbin might be?” I asked.
“Vanished off the face of the earth,” Smoot said.
Lula and I left through the side door and got into the Mercedes.
“I’m out of ideas again,” I said.
