Explosive Eighteen

She took another hit. “I’m trying to get off menthol, and it’s a real bitch. I swear, I’m just inches away from trying one of those electronic things.”

“You wanted to see me about Richard Crick?”

“Yeah. Poor Ritchy. It’s so sad.” She squinted at me through the smoke haze. “The worst part is he was bringing me a picture. He said it was a special present for me, but they didn’t find it when they dug him out of the garbage can. So I was wondering if you knew anything about it, because it would be real sentimental for me. It would help with the pain of losing Ritchy.”

“What kind of picture are we talking about?”

“A picture of a person.”

“Man or woman?”

“This is sort of embarrassing, but poor Ritchy didn’t say.”

“And it’s important, why?”

“Because Ritchy took the photo. And it was, like, his last wish that I have it. And now he’s dead.” She sniffed and contorted her face like she might cry. “I just want something to remember Ritchy. Something he did for me, you know?”

“Ritchy must have been a sweet guy.”

“Yeah, and he liked photography. He was always taking pictures.”

“I’d love to help you out,” I said, “but I don’t have the photograph.”

“Maybe you have it stuffed somewhere, and you don’t even know it. Like, have you emptied all your suitcases and bags?”

“Yes. I don’t have it.”

“Okay, here’s the thing. Ritchy called me from LAX, and he said he might have misplaced the photo, and he was sitting next to you, and he was pretty sure he might have accidentally put it in your bag.”

“Why didn’t Ritchy just get back on the plane?”

“He wasn’t feeling good. And then he was… you know, dead.”

“Jeez.”

“Shit happens,” Brenda said. “So where’s the photograph?”

“Don’t know. Don’t have it.”

Her lips compressed. “You want money, right? How much?”

“I don’t want money. I don’t have the stupid photograph.”

Brenda stuck her hand into her hobo bag and pulled out a little silver gun. “I want the photograph. We all know you have it. So get smart and hand it over.”

I looked down at the gun. “Is that real?”

“You bet it’s real. It’s pretty, right? And it’s light. I bet you carry some piece of shit like a Glock or a Smith and Wesson. Those guns ruin your whole look. You get a neck spasm, right?”

“Yeah, I have a Smith and Wesson.”

“They’re dinosaurs.”

“Who are you?”

“Boy, you don’t listen. I already told you. I’m Brenda Schwartz. And I want the photograph.”

“Shooting me isn’t going to get it.”

“I could shoot you in the knee for starters. Just so you know I’m serious. It hurts a lot to get shot in the knee.”

Lula swung through the coffee shop door and came over to us. “Is that a gun?”

“Oh, for Crissake, who’s this?” Brenda said.

“I’m Lula. Who the heck are you?”

“This is a private conversation,” Brenda said.

“Yeah, but I want to take a look at your little peashooter. It’s kinda cute.”

“It’s a gun,” Brenda said.

Lula pulled her Glock out of her bag and aimed it at Brenda. “Bitch, this is a gun. It could put a hole in you big enough to drive a truck through.”

“Honestly,” Brenda said, “this is just so boring.” And she huffed off to her car and drove away.

“She was kinda snippy, being I just wanted to see her gun,” Lula said.

Snippy was the least of it. She was a perfect addition to my growing collection of homicidal misfits.

“She’s in mourning,” I told Lula. “Thanks for stepping in.”

“She didn’t look like she was in mourning,” Lula said. “And she didn’t look like no doctor’s fiancee.”

Lula and I returned to Connie, and I called Bill Berger.

“I’ve got a third party interested in the photograph,” I told him. “Do you care?”

“Who’ve you got?” Berger asked.

“Brenda Schwartz. Says she was Crick’s fiancee. Blond, five foot five, in her forties. Carries a little bitty gun.”

“As far as we know, Crick didn’t have a fiancee.”

I ended the call with Berger and turned to Connie. “Can you find her?”

“Brenda Schwartz is a fairly common name,” Connie said. “Do you have an address? Did you get her license plate number?”

“The first part was ‘POP,’ and I didn’t get the rest. She was driving one of those cars that looks like a toaster.”

“It was a Scion,” Lula said.

Connie plugged the information into a search program and started working her way through it. I got a black- and-white cookie and a Frappuccino, and came back to the table.

“I think I’ve got her,” Connie said. “Brenda Schwartz. Age forty-four. Hairdresser, working at The Hair Barn in Princeton. Divorced from Bernard Schwartz, Harry Zimmer, Herbert Luckert. One child. Jason. Looks like he’s twenty-one now. Most current address is West Windsor. Renting. No litigation against her. Picked up for possession of a controlled substance five years ago. Got a slap on the wrist. There’s more personal information. I’ll print it for you later. I haven’t got a printer here.”

I wrote down Brenda’s address, ate my cookie, and sipped my drink, wondering what I should do about the photograph mess. Probably, I should tell Ranger, but he might kill everyone, and that wouldn’t help his karma issue. I glanced out the big front window and realized my car was gone.

“Damn! Shit! Sonovabitch!” I said.

“That’s a lot of swearin’,” Lula said.

“He took my car again.”

Everyone turned and looked out the window.

“Yep, it sure looks gone,” Lula said.

I called the Rangeman control room. “Where’s my car?” I asked the tech who answered.

“It’s on Hamilton. Looks like it just parked at Cluck-in-a-Bucket.”

I stood at my seat. “Let’s roll,” I said to Lula. “He’s at Cluck-in-a-Bucket.”

“WHAM!” Lula said. “Turn me loose on him.”

“I have two guys I’d like you to run through the system for me,” I said to Connie. “Mortimer Lancelot and Sylvester Larder.” I wrote the Town Car’s license plate number on a napkin. “And I’d love to know who owns the car.”

Five minutes later, we were in the Cluck-in-a-Bucket lot, and Lula was idling behind my RAV. We could see Buggy inside, standing in line at the counter.

“Now what?” Lula said. “You got any ideas how we’re gonna do this? Maybe we should go to the packing plant and borrow a cattle prod.”

“I just want my car. At this point, I don’t care if Buggy stays in the wind forever.”

“Yeah, but how are you gonna keep him from taking it again if you don’t get him locked up?”

“I’ll trade the RAV in. I give up. I can’t get the key away from him, so I’ll get another car.”

“Wow, that’s smart thinking.”

“I’m probably done working for the day,” I said to Lula. “I’ll call if anything changes.”