She leaned forward and squinted. 'Am I looking at a moon? What the hell is he doing? How'd he get his ass plastered against the rear window like that?'
The sight was both horrifying and mesmerizing.
'Maybe we should go get him before he finishes up,' Lula said.
'It'll be easier to get the cuffs on him when he's got a boner and can't move real fast.'
Lula was probably right, but I couldn't see myself slapping cuffs on Anton Ward while his flag was flying. Last month Morelli and I rented a porno flick, and there was some boinking in it. And okay, so it was fun in a car-crash kind of way. But that was film, and this is Anton Ward in the flesh, rocking the car with pregnant Lauralene Taylor. Yikes. I was as close as I wanted to get.
'Uh oh,' Lula said. The car's stopped rocking.'
We stuck our heads out and listened. Quiet. He don't impress me as being the type to stick around,' Lula said.
We jumped out of the Lincoln and scurried up to Ward's car. I had cuffs shoved into the waistband of my jeans, and I was holding Ranger's Maglite in one hand and pepper spray in the other. Lula was fumbling in her purse, looking for her gun as she ran.
I took a deep breath, prayed to God that Anton and Lauralene had their clothes on, and flashed the Maglite into the car interior.
'What the fuck?' Anton Ward said, bare ass gleaming under the Maglite.
'Oops,' I said. 'Sorry, I thought you were done.'
'Guess they must have been changing positions,' Lula said, looking into the car.
'You fat cow,' Ward yelled at Lauralene. 'You set me up.' And he punched her in the face.
I dropped the Maglite and the spray, and reached into the car to secure Ward, but he was a man in motion, and I only succeeded in grabbing his pants. He wriggled out of the pants, hurled himself out of the opposite side of the car, and took off running.
I ran after him, down the street to the corner. He turned the corner and kept going. He was younger and probably in better shape than me, but he was running buck naked with the exception of socks. I figured eventually the socks were going to slow him down, not to mention the outdoor plumbing swinging in the breeze.
I could hear Lula pounding the pavement half a block back. Nice to know someone was slower than me.
Ward cut through a narrow alley between houses, jumped a fence, and fell when he caught his foot on the top of the fence. He scrambled to his feet, but he'd lost ground to me. I went over the fence and tackled him.
He wasn't a real big guy, but he was a nasty fighter. We rolled around on the ground, swearing and clawing. Turns out it's not that easy to grab hold of a naked guy. Not that I was feeling fussy about where to grab, mostly I just couldn't get a grip on anything. He caught me with a knee to the stomach, and I rolled off him in a rush of pain.
'Stand clear,' Lula yelled. 'I've got him!' And Lula fell on top of Anton Ward, doing a perfect repeat of Roger Banker.
There was a woof of air that got squished out of Anton Ward's body when Lula made contact, and then Ward didn't move. He was on his back, spread-eagled, eyes open and fixed.
Lula toed him. 'You aren't dead, are you?'
Ward blinked.
'He isn't dead,' Lula said. 'Too bad, huh?'
I cuffed him, and Lula and I hauled him to his feet.
'Guess we don't have to search him for weapons,' Lula said.
That's a big advantage to chasing down a naked guy.'
'Come on,' I said to Ward. We're going back to the car.'
'I'm not going nowhere,' he said.
'Don't mess with me,' I told him. I've only had an egg to eat today, and I'm feeling really vicious.'
'Not only that, but I wouldn't mind having a reason to sit on you again,' Lula said. 'I'm working at perfecting my technique. That was my new special move. I'm even going to give it a name. You know how the Rock has all them wrestling moves like the People's Elbow and the Rock Bottom? I'm gonna call mine the Lula Bootie Bomb.'
Ward did some mumbling and started walking. 'You're as good as dead,' he said to me.
'We're so scared, we're shaking,' Lula said. 'Look at me. I'm shaking. We're getting threatened by some ugly- ass naked guy. You think we're scared of you? You can't even keep your baggy-ass clothes on.'
'You mess with me, and you mess with the Nation,' Ward said.
'Only reason bounty hunter bitch hasn't tasted the brothers so far is she's being saved for Junkman.' Ward smiled at me. 'You're gonna like Junkman. They tell me he's got a way with bitches.'
We turned the corner, and I could see the Lincoln at the curb, but not Ward car. 'Fuck,' Ward said. 'That cow took off with my car.' No big disaster, except his clothes were in the car. Lula and I both looked at Ward.
'He isn't going in my Firebird like this,' Lula said. 'I'm not sitting his nasty bare ass on my Firebird seat.'
I didn't want his bare ass on my upholstery, either. I wasn't in love with the Lincoln, but it was all I had right now.
'I'll call Morelli,' I said. 'They can come pick him up.'
'You have Ward in cuffs?' Morelli said, after a deadly pause.
'Yeah, and I thought you could come get him.'
'You were supposed to call me for the takedown.'
'I forgot. It happened kind of fast. You know, took me by surprise.'
Ten minutes later, two squad cars pulled up. Robin Russell got out of the first car and walked over to me. 'Oh man,' she said, 'he's naked. I'm not getting paid enough for this job.'
'Wasn't our fault he's naked,' Lula said. 'We caught him in the act. He was in the back seat of a Hyundai, humping like a big dog.'
Carl Costanza followed Russell. He checked Ward out and grinned at me. 'You want to tell me the details?'
'No,' I said. 'You're going to have to make them up as you go.'
'Joe's gonna love this,' Costanza said.
'Where is he?'
'He's waiting at the station. He was afraid he'd be up for homicide if he didn't calm down before he saw you.'
Robin slung a friendly arm around Costanza's shoulders. 'I have a real big favor to ask you.'
'No way.'
Robin Russell narrowed her eyes. 'You don't even know what I was going to say.'
'You were going to try to sweet-talk me into putting this guy's bare ass in my squad car.'
'I was not,' Russell said. 'Well, all right, I was.' She locked eyes with Costanza. 'What would it take?'
Costanza smiled at her.
'You're a disgrace to the uniform,' Russell said to Costanza.
'I try.'
Russell wrapped her hand around Ward's arm and tugged him forward. 'I'm going to sit you on my Trenton Times,' she said to Ward. 'And I don't want to see your butt move off that newspaper.'
That was fun,' Lula said. 'That was worth waiting for.'
It was satisfying to have captured Ward, but I don't know if I'd classify the experience as fun. I dropped Lula at her Firebird, thanked her for her help, and then I went on to the police station.
I would have preferred to crawl back to Ranger's apartment and let my mind go numb in front of his big-screen TV, but I had to make sure I was credited for the capture. And I had to pick up my body receipt.
The police station isn't in the high-rent part of town, and the public lot is across the street and unguarded. It was too late, too dark, and I was too worried to take a chance on the public lot, so I parked illegally in the lot reserved for cop cars. I had myself buzzed in through the back door, and I went directly to the desk. Ward was there, chained to a wooden bench, still naked. Someone had draped a towel over his lap.
'Hey, bitch,' Ward said to me. 'Want to take a peek under the towel? Take one last look at the big boy?'
Then he made slurpy kissy sounds at me.
I'd already seen more of the 'big boy' than I wanted, and it wasn't that big or that fascinating. And the kissy
