skin was dark, but her eyes had an Asian tilt. Much too pretty for Anton Ward, and much too young to be pregnant.
'Yeah?' she said.
'Lauralene Taylor?'
'You're either a cop or social services,' she said. 'And we don't want none.'
She tried to close the door, but my foot was in the way.
'I represent Anton's bond agent. Is Anton here?'
'If Anton was here, you'd be dead.'
Lauralene sounded like she thought that would be a good thing, giving me pause to rethink my opinion of her. 'Anton needs to reschedule his court date,' I said.
'Yeah, like that's gonna happen.'
'Your mother used this house as collateral. If Anton doesn't show up for court your mother will lose her house.'
'Anton will take care of us.'
Mrs Taylor came to the door, and I introduced myself.
'I have nothing to say to you,' Francine Taylor said. 'You're talking about the father of my unborn grandchild. You need to take this up with him.'
'You signed the bond document,' I said. 'You used your house as collateral. If Anton doesn't show up for court you'll lose this house.'
'He won't let that happen,' Francine said. 'He has connections.'
'He has no connections,' I said. 'If he stays in the area we'll catch him, and he'll go to jail. His only other option is to run. And if he runs, he's not going to take a pregnant woman with him. And he's not going to care if you keep this house. You'll be on the street with nothing.'
It was the truth. And I could see that Francine knew it. She wasn't as dumb as her kid.
'I knew I shouldn't have put the house up for him,' Francine said. 'It was just I wanted him to turn out good for Lauralene.'
This dump isn't worth nothing anyway,' Lauralene said.
'I work hard to make my payments on this house,' Francine said.
'It's a roof over your head. And it's gonna be the only roof over your baby's head. And I'm not losing it for no worthless Anton Ward.'
'It don't matter what anyone thinks,' Lauralene said. I'm not giving up Anton, and there's nothing you can do about it. He's gonna marry me. And he's gonna take me out of this hole. We got plans.'
I gave Francine my card and asked her to call if she had information on Ward. I wished Lauralene luck with the baby, and she told me to kiss her ass. I try not to be judgmental, but it was a little frightening that Lauralene Taylor and Anton Ward were reproducing.
I returned to the Lincoln and sat there awhile, watching the Taylor house. I'd had a bowl of rabbit food for breakfast and nothing for lunch. I was starving and there was no food in the Lincoln. No Krispy Kremes, no Big Mac, no supersize fries.
I had two new skips, but I wasn't motivated to find them. And Harold Pancek was out there, but truth is, I didn't care much about him either. I cared about Anton Ward. I wanted to see Ward locked up. I would have preferred not to be the one doing the capture, but at the moment I felt relatively safe. So I decided to sit tight.
I was still watching the Taylor house at four o'clock. I was bored out of my mind and hungry enough to eat the upholstery. I called Lula, told her I was on Hancock, and asked her to bring me something nonfattening to eat.
Five minutes later, the Firebird pulled to the curb behind me, and Lula got out. 'What's happening?' she asked, handing over a brown paper lunch bag. 'Did I miss anything?'
'I'm hanging out to see if Lauralene has a date tonight.'
I looked in the bag. It contained a bottle of water and a hard-boiled egg.
'You gotta stay away from the carbs,' Lula said. That's how I lost all my weight. I went on that protein diet. Then I sort of fell off the wagon and gained all the weight back, but it was still my favorite diet, except for the time I ate two pounds of bacon and threw up.'
I ate the egg and drank the water. I thought about eating the bag, but I was worried it was carbohydrate.
'I guess I should stay with you in case something dangerous happens, and you need someone to squish somebody,' Lula said.
I looked over at her. 'Nothing better to do?'
'Not a damn thing. I'm between men right now. And there's nothing on television worth watching.' She pulled a deck of cards out of her purse. 'I figured we could play rummy.'
At six o'clock Lula said she had to have a bathroom break. She took off in the Firebird, and she returned a half hour later with powdered sugar on her shirt.
'That's really rotten,' I said. 'You've got a lot of nerve sneaking out to get food and not bringing any back for me.'
'You're on a diet.'
'It's not the starvation diet!'
'Well, I was going to stop home to use the bathroom, and then I thought why not use the bathroom at Dunkin' Donuts? And then I couldn't very well use their bathroom without buying some doughnuts. That'd be rude, right?'
I gave her an Italian hand signal that didn't mean left turn.
'Boy, you get cranky when you don't get a doughnut,' Lula said.
A little over an hour later, streetlights were on, and Hancock Street was settled in for the night. Lula and I couldn't play cards in the dark, so we were passing the time with twenty questions.
'I'm thinking of something that's animal,' Lula said. 'And my ass is asleep. What makes you so sure Lauralene's gonna have a date tonight?'
'She's got news for Anton, and I'm betting she's going to use it to make him come see her.'
Just then, the Taylors' front door opened and Lauralene stepped out.
'You're pretty smart,' Lula said. 'You're always thinking. You know all about manipulative female shit.'
Lauralene looked right and left, and Lula and I froze. We were just a couple houses down. Easily in sight. Fortunately, we weren't under a streetlight, and Lauralene didn't appear to have picked us out. She was wearing the same pink sweat suit. She wasn't carrying a purse. She set off down the street, walking away from us.
'She's going to meet him,' Lula said. 'And she don't want her mama to know.'
Lauralene turned the corner, and I started the car engine. I left my headlights off, and I carefully followed after Lauralene. She walked two blocks and got into the back seat of a parked car. The car was in shadow, hard to tell the make, impossible to see the occupants at this distance. It looked to be a compact, possibly dark green.
I stopped several houses back and idled at the curb. There were no cars parked between Lauralene and me.
'We're sort of exposed, sitting here like this,' Lula said. 'She could turn around and see us.'
I agreed, but I didn't want to drive past Lauralene and risk having her recognize me. Better to take our chances being parked in the dark.
After a short time, the car in front of us started to rock.
'Look at this,' Lula said. 'She's seven months pregnant, and they're doing the nasty in the back seat of a friggin' compact. They didn't even bother to go out of the neighborhood.'
'They must have been in a hurry,' I said.
'Well, excuse me, but I think that's tacky. He could at least of had the courtesy to steal something with a bigger back seat. This here's a pregnant woman he's slippin' it to. I mean how much effort does it take to find a Cadillac? All those old people over in Hamilton Township got Caddies. Those cars are just sitting around waiting to get stolen.'
'He's doing more than slippin',' I said. 'I've never seen a car rock like that.'
'He's gonna ruin the shocks if he keeps this up.'
Some loud groaning sounds carried back to us, and Lula and I rolled our windows down so we could hear better.
'Either he's real good or else she's going into labor,' Lula said.
