Connie’s eyebrows rose a couple inches. “Are you serious?”
“They’ve got him in a back apartment in Sunflower’s building on Stark Street,” I said. “Lula heard him through the door. They’ve got a guy in there with him, and there’s a guy at the entrance downstairs. There aren’t any bars on the back windows, and there’s a rusted fire escape, but you’d die trying to get Vinnie out that way.”
“Do you have any ideas?” Connie asked me.
“No. None. And I don’t think the stink bomb will work. They’ll haul Vinnie out of the building under armed guard, and they won’t let go of him.”
“We need a diversion,” Lula said. “We need to get the guard out of the apartment. Then someone can go in and drag Vinnie’s worthless ass out of there.”
“A diversion’s a good idea,” I said, “but how are we going to get Vinnie down the stairs and out the door past the door guard?”
“We could disguise him,” Lula said. “Put him in a wig and a dress or something.”
I looked at Connie. “Do you think that’ll fly?”
“Maybe if we have a diversion at the front door, too,” Connie said.
“I can divert the guy at the front door,” Lula said. “He likes me.”
“I’ll be the second diverter,” Connie said. “That leaves Stephanie to get Vinnie out.”
“How are you going to divert him enough for me to get Vinnie down the stairs? I don’t think a wig’s going to do it. And suppose you divert him out of the apartment, but he locks the door behind him? What then?”
“See, that’s the problem with you,” Lula said. “You’re bein’ a glass-is-half-empty person. One of my outstanding qualities is my positive personality. You’ve just gotta take precautions, like you need to bring a gun with bullets in it.”
I PULLED TO the curb in front of the bonds office at precisely nine o’clock. Connie was already there, and Lula slid to a stop behind me. I was dressed in black. I had a loaded gun pressed against my backbone, stuck into the back of my jeans. I had pepper spray in my pocket. I had my cell phone clipped to my jeans waistband, set to dial Rangeman. I had a stun gun also clipped to my jeans waistband. And I had premonitions of disaster. I had no confidence in the mission. Truth is, we sucked at this stuff. We were like the Three Stooges at Camp Commando. The only reason I was attempting it was because I knew Chet would spot me on Stark Street and send out a back up Rangeman car.
We assembled in front of the office to review the plan. Connie was wearing wedge heels, a short, tight skirt, and a sweater that showed about a quarter mile of cleavage. Ditto Lula, substitute thigh-high hooker boots for the wedge heels.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” I said. “Our best shot at this is to get the back door open.” I looked over at Lula. “If you can open the door for Connie and me, we can slip upstairs easier. And then we can bring Vinnie out that way.”
“You can count on me,” Lula said. “What about cars?”
“We’ll take the Jeep,” I told her. “I’ll drop you off on Stark Street, and then I’ll park in the alley behind the building. After we escape with Vinnie, I’ll swing around and pick you up.”
“Okeydokey,” Lula said. “I’ll be waiting for you.”
We all piled into the Jeep, and by the time we got to Stark Street, my stomach was sick and I had a grapefruit-size lump of panic sitting in the middle of my throat. Lula got out at the corner and walked half a block to the apartment building. There was still a guard out front, but it was a different guy. I circled around and parked in the alley as planned.
“This is going to work, right?” I said to Connie. “We won’t get caught, or killed, or anything?”
“Do you have the bottle with you?”
“It’s in my purse.”
“So that should help,” Connie said.
Oh jeez, it was going to come down to the bottle.
Connie got out of the Jeep and adjusted her girls. “Vinnie better appreciate this effort. It’s not like I haven’t got better things to do than to save his ass,” she said.
I reached under my seat and grabbed the two-pound Maglite that was standard equipment on all Rangeman vehicles. It was also the weapon of choice for head-bashing.
There wasn’t a lot of light in the alley. There were streetlights in place, but the bulbs had been shot out. We walked to the back of the building and looked up. Shades were drawn on the fourth-floor windows. The black SUV was parked nose-in to the building. I tried the back door. Locked. We both took a step back and waited in the shadows for Lula to unlock the door.
I heard footsteps, the doorknob turned, and Lula looked out at us. “The coast is clear,” she said. “The door dummy went down the street to get something to smoke.”
“Show time,” Connie said. And she motored through the door, down the short hall, and wasted no time going up the stairs.
I followed close behind, thinking I’d done equally dangerous and stupid things as a bounty hunter, but this was right up there with primo bone-head operations. We reached the fourth floor and looked around. Three doors-4A, 4B, and nothing on the third door. I listened at the unnumbered door. Silence. I carefully tried the knob. Unlocked. Utility closet.
I stepped into the closet and pulled the door almost entirely closed. I heard Connie rap on a door. Heard the door open. Muffled words. Connie was handing the guy a line about her girlfriend passed out on the second floor.
“And she’s naked,” Connie said. “And we’ve both had too many cosmos, and I think we’re in the wrong building.”
I heard the apartment door click closed and then footsteps on the stairs. I slipped out and went to 4B. The door was unlocked. I stepped inside and scanned the room. It was an efficiency with a small kitchenette on one side. Grease-stained pizza boxes on the counter. A card table and a folding chair. An ashtray overflowing with cigarettes. No couch. No television. No wonder Connie had an easy time with the guy who answered her knock. He had to be going nuts in here. I heard something rustle in the other room, and I was hoping it was Vinnie, because the last time I heard something rustle like that it turned out to be an alligator.
I poked my head in and spotted Vinnie handcuffed to a thick chain that stretched into the bathroom.
“Holy shit,” Vinnie said. “What the fuck?”
Vinnie was wearing pointy-toed, shiny black shoes, black socks, and black bikini briefs. Vinnie fully dressed wasn’t all that good. Vinnie in black socks and briefs was a nightmare.
“Where are your clothes?” I asked him.
“I haven’t got any. This is what I was wearing when they snatched me.”
There was a moment where I actually debating leaving him there.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Vinnie said. “And Grandma Plum and Aunt Mim would be very upset if you left me here and they killed me.”
“Okay,” I said, “but how am I supposed to rescue you when you’re chained to the toilet?”
“You don’t have a universal key? What kind of bounty hunter are you?”
“I didn’t think I was going to be uncuffing anyone.”
“You never know when you’ll come across someone,” Vinnie said. “You should always have cuffs on you. This is why I’m losing money.”
“You’re on thin ice here,” I said to Vinnie.
“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry. It was nice of you to try to rescue me. You should get out before Snake comes back.”
“Snake?”
“So sue me, that’s his name. And he moves like a snake. He’s creepy.”
“I’m not leaving without you,” I said. “Pull the chain tight.”
I took my gun out, aimed it at the chain at short range, and pulled the trigger. The chain jumped and a link broke off. I rammed the gun back into my jeans, we ran to the other room, and just as we reached the door, Snake stepped over the threshold, gun drawn. His eyes flicked to Vinnie, and in that instant I whacked him in the head with the Maglite. He went to the floor on hands and knees, and I heard more men thundering up the stairs. I booted Snake out of the room, into the hall, slammed the door shut, and threw the bolt.
