Twelve Sharp

browse mode. 'Look at all those dildos. A whole wall of dildos.' Lula picked one off a shelf and pushed a button and it started to hum and rotate. This here's a good one,' she said. 'It can sing and dance.'

I had no frame of reference for dildos. 'Yeah,' I said, 'it's… nice.'

'It ain't nice!' Lula said, obviously impressed. 'It's a nasty bugger.'

'That's what I meant. Nice and nasty.'

She handed me the dancing dildo. 'Here, you hold it for me while I look around. I want to check out the DVD selection.'

I followed Lula to the DVDs.

'They got a good selection,' Lula said. 'They got all the classics like Debbie Does Dallas and Horny Little People. And here's my personal favorite, Big Boys. Have you seen Big Boys?'

I shook my head, no.

'You gotta see Big Boys. It'll change your life. I'm gonna buy Big Boys for you.'

'That's okay, I don't-'

'It's a present from me.' She handed me the DVD. 'Hang onto it while I keep looking.'

'We're supposed to be working,' I said. 'Remember how we came in here to apprehend Caroline Scarzolli?'

'Yeah, but that's her over there behind the counter, and she don't look like she's going anywhere. She looks just like her picture. I bet she's wearing a wig. Don't it look like a wig to you?'

Caroline was seventy-two years old, according to her bond sheet. She had skin like an alligator and bleached blond hair that was teased into a rat's nest. If it was a wig, she got swindled no matter what she paid. She was wearing orthopedic shoes, fishnet stockings, a tight spandex miniskirt, and a skimpy tank top that showed a lot of wrinkled cleavage. I was guessing she smoked three packs a day and slept naked in a tanning bed.

I glanced at my watch.

'Okay, I can see you're all antsy to make this bust. How about we check out, and then we give her the bad news?'

'Deal.'

Lula took the dildo and the DVD to the register and handed Caroline her credit card.

'We're having a two-for-one sale on dildos,' Caroline said. 'Don't you want to pick out a second?'

'Hear that?' Lula said to me. 'Two-for-one sale. Go get yourself a dildo.'

'I don't actually need-'

'Two for one!' Lula said. 'Pick one, for crying out loud. How many times in life do you get offered a free dildo?'

I took the first one I saw and brought it to Lula.

'That's a beauty,' Caroline said. 'You have good taste. It's our precision replica of the famous adult movie star Herbert Horsecock. It weighs five pounds and it's solid rubber. It's one of our few uncircumsized dildos. It even comes in a special-edition red velvet drawstring carrying sack.'

Lula got her credit card back and took possession of the dildos. 'Okay,' she said to me. 'Do your thing.'

I gave Caroline my card and introduced myself and gave her the baloney about rebonding.

'Who's going to watch the store if I leave now?' she asked.

'Is there someone you can call to come in and babysit?'

'What, like my ninety-year-old mother?'

'You're not exactly doing a lot of business,' I told her.

'Sweetie, I just sold over a hundred dollars worth of shit.'

'You sold it to Lula!'

'Yeah,' Caroline said in her deep smoker's voice. 'Life is good.'

'It isn't that good,' I told her. 'You're going to have to come with me. Now.'

'Okay,' she said. 'Just let me get something.' And she dipped behind the counter.

'What are you getting?' I asked.

She reappeared with a sawed-off shotgun. 'This big gun,' she said. 'That's what I'm getting. Take your dildos and march your ass out of my store.'

Lula and I speed-walked out of the store and rammed ourselves into the Firebird.

'Look on the bright side,' Lula said. 'You got a free dildo. And you got a great movie. Happy birthday early.'

'I don't need a dildo.'

'Sure you do. You never know when it might come in handy. And this Herbert Horsecock dildo's got some heft to it. You could use it as a doorstop, or a paperweight, or you could decorate it with those little twinkle lights at Christmas.'

'I need an apprehension. Vinnie isn't the only one worried about money. I need rent money.' I shuffled through the files. 'I want to do phone work on some of these. Make some calls to verify employment. See if anyone's at the home address. Let's go back to the office.'

***

'Where am I supposed to park?' Lula wanted to know. 'There's not supposed to be people parked in this lot back here. This is a private lot for the bonds office. We should call the cops on these people.' She circled around the block and looked for a spot on the street. 'I swear I've never seen so many cars. They must be having a party at the beauty parlor.'

'Carmen hasn't moved from her spot,' I said.

Lula glanced over as she crept down the street, looking for a parking space. 'She's hunkered in. Ranger really pissed her off.'

I was still having a hard time believing Carmen's story. I couldn't see Ranger married. And I couldn't see Ranger cleaning out the bank account. Ranger played a little loose with the law, but he had a very firm moral code. And from what I could see, he wasn't hurting for money.

I checked my phone to make sure it was on, and I hadn't missed a call.

'Still haven't heard from him?' Lula asked.

'No. He must be underground.'

He'd only been gone for twenty-four hours. It was too early to be worried about his safety. But I was worried all the same. It was all too weird.

Lula parked two cars down from me, and we walked to the office. I watched the black SUV for a protruding gun barrel but saw none. When we got to the office we realized it was packed with people.

'What the heck?' Lula said, pushing through the mob to Connie.

Connie was at her desk, trying to talk to the people crowded directly in front of her.

'I ran an ad in the paper this morning for the bond enforcement agent job,' she said to me. 'And this is the response. And the phone hasn't stopped ringing. I had to turn it over to the answering service so I could try to clear this out.'

'Looks like they emptied out the funny farm and everyone came here,' Lula said. 'Who are these people? They look like movie extras. They all look like that bounty hunter guy on television, only most of them have better hair. I tell you, they should take that TV bounty hunter guy to the beauty parlor.'

Connie handed me a steno pad and pen. 'You take the front of the room, and I'll take the back. Get names and phone numbers and some work information and tell them we'll be in touch. Put a star by anyone who has potential.'

Forty-five minutes later, the last of the BEA wannabes walked out the door, and Connie hung out a CLOSED sign. Two people were left sitting on the couch. Joyce Barnhardt and Melvin Pickle.

Joyce was dressed in black leather, her eyes heavily lined in black, her red hair teased and lacquered, her lips artificially inflated and painted red to match her hair. She had her arms crossed, and her legs crossed, and her foot jiggled impatiently in stiletto-heeled boots.

Joyce was a flesh-eating fungus. She'd been through more husbands than I could count, and each time she chewed them up and spit them out, she got richer. Three months of marriage to Joyce, and a man was willing to