“You need start-up money to do that,” Vinnie said. “You need money to rent an office. Security deposits. Advance money for the lease. We’d have to buy computers and software, file cabinets, staplers.”
“We could get a loan,” Lula said. “Who’s got credit?”
“Not me,” I said. “I’m a month behind on my rent. I can’t get a loan to buy a new car.”
“Not me,” Vinnie said. “I don’t even have credit with my bookie.”
“Hell,” Lula said. “That’s the understatement of the year. Your bookie wants to kill you.”
“I could go to my family,” Connie said.
We all declined on that one. If we took money from Connie’s family, we’d be owned by the Mob.
“What about you?” Vinnie asked Lula.
“I’m in collection,” Lula said. “I overextended a little. I’m worried someone’s gonna come repossess my shoes.”
The Meagan Building was a block away, and my stomach was in a knot. I stopped for a light, and it was obvious traffic was slow ahead. Only one lane was open. The other was barricaded. The light changed, and I crept up to the Meagan Building. Yellow crime-scene tape blocked off the sidewalk. A fire truck and the fire marshall’s SUV was parked nearby. There was a lot of charred debris on the sidewalk in front of the building, and four guys in hard hats stood talking. They were standing in the road, looking up at the Meagan Building. The windows on the fifth floor were completely blown out. Black soot covered the exterior of the top floors, and the lower floors were grime-streaked.
“What floor was The Wellington Company on?” Lula asked.
“The fifth floor,” I told her.
“Guess we know why they aren’t answering their phone,” Lula said.
Connie looked out her window. “Someone was really busy last night.”
“This is crazy,” Vinnie said. “Even the Mob knows enough not to blow up two businesses in one night. Who the heck’s doing this?”
“I don’t know,” Lula said, “but I need chicken. I need doughnuts. I need one of them extra-greasy breakfast muffins with ham and eggs and shit.”
TWENTY-SIX
I STOPPED AT three different drive-through windows, and by the time we got back to the office, we were all feeling sick, not just from the freakish turn our lives had taken, but also from the food we’d managed to snarf down en route.
“I don’t feel so good,” Lula said. “I think I must have got a bad egg. I need a Rolaid.”
“You know what I need?” Vinnie said. “Lucille. I know this is stupid, but I miss Lucille. I never thought I’d say that. She was such a pain in the ass. How can you miss someone that’s a pain in the ass?”
“My ex-husband was a pain in the ass,” Connie said, “and I don’t miss him at all.”
“Ditto for me,” I said.
My marriage lasted about fifteen minutes. I caught my ex-husband naked on my dining room table with Joyce Barnhardt riding him like she was in the Kentucky Derby going for the win.
“Your problem is you’re a jerk,” Lula said to Vinnie. “You got all normal feelings. Like, you love Lucille. But you can’t help from being a jerk. I mean, what kind of a man has a romantic relationship with a duck?”
“I don’t know,” Vinnie said. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“You see?” Lula said. “It’s always a good idea at the time. But you don’t connect the dots between the good idea and the bad ever after. You got no sense of consequences. I learned all about this in my deviant behavior class at the community college.”
“I didn’t know you were going to college,” Vinnie said.
“Of course you didn’t, on account of you don’t listen. You’re not a listener like me. You’d be a better person if you were a listener.”
“I’d listen more if you talked less,” Vinnie said.
“Hunh,” Lula said. “Your ass.”
The crime-scene tape had been stretched across wooden barricades placed close to what used to be the building housing the bonds office. The sidewalk was still passable, and there was still on-street parking. Lula’s Firebird was at the curb, along with Connie’s car and the Love Bus. Mooner and the Hobbits were on the sidewalk, looking at the rubble.
I parked in front of the Firebird, and walked back to Mooner.
“Dude,” Mooner said. “Someone was smoking in bed.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Not much left of the bonds office.”
“Too bad,” Mooner said. “I was gonna plug in. The Hobbits need computer juice.”
“I have to do my blog,” one of the Hobbits said. “I have to Twitter.”
“Bungo Goodchild,” an old Hobbit said. “Where are your manners? Introduce us to this lovely creature.”
Mooner pointed to the old Hobbit. “This is Oldbuck of Buckland. He’s, like, the oldest dude, but he’s cool. The little guy standing next to him is Poppy Proudfoot. Then there’s Fredoc Broadbeam. That’s, like, self-explanatory. Twofoot of Nobottle. Fauxfrodo. And Chicaribbit.”
“That’s a lot of Hobbits,” Lula said.
“Tell me about it,” Mooner said. “It’s like I need rubber walls on the old bus. And I can’t bake brownies fast enough for these dudes. They sure love their brownies.”
The Hobbits were all dressed in a mix of shabby chic Hobbit clothes and assorted footgear. Brown hooded capes, green or brown vests over tunics. Peddle pusher-type pants cinched in with a variety of belts from rope to lizard. Chicaribbit was a girl Hobbit, and her purse matched her pink Converse sneakers. Fredoc Broadbeam was as wide as he was tall. Twofoot of Nobottle was a tall, gangly guy with sandy blond hair and a scraggly beard. Fauxfrodo was nineteen or twenty and covered with tattoos and piercings. And Poppy Proudfoot was the youngest. I was guessing he was seventeen or eighteen.
“How long are the Hobbits going to be with you?” I asked Mooner.
“A week. Hobbit Con starts today, but it doesn’t really start to swing until Tuesday when The High Holy One proclaims it officially in session.”
“I need to charge my phone,” Poppy said. “My mom’s going to freak if she can’t call me.”
“Me, too,” Oldbuck said. “My wife will think I’m fooling around if I don’t answer my phone.”
“You can plug in at my place,” I said.
What the heck, I didn’t have anything else to do.
“Did you hear that?” Mooner said to the Hobbits. “We have juice! Ysellyra Thorney is going to let all you dudes plug in.”
“Three cheers for Ysellyra,” Broadbeam said.
“Hobbit hooray!” they all yelled. “Hooray! Hooray!”
“Let’s do it again,” Poppy said.
“Not necessary,” I told them. “Get in the bus and follow me.”
“Boy, Hobbits know how to have a good time,” Lula said. “Don’t take much to make them happy.”
I drove across town with the Love Bus on my tail. I parked in the lot to my building, and we all trooped into the elevator. Twofoot, Poppy, Broadbeam, Oldbuck, Fauxfrodo, Chicaribbit, Mooner, Vinnie, and me.
“There are a lot of Hobbits in this elevator,” Vinnie said. “Anybody know the weight limit?”
Mooner pushed the button for the second floor and the elevator creaked and shuddered and slowly rose.
“We have lift-off,” Mooner said.
“Hobbit Hooray!” they all yelled. “Hooray! Hooray!”
“This could get old,” Vinnie said to me. “They’re just plugging in, right? Like, an hour and they’re gone?”
I unlocked my door and the Hobbits rushed in. They plugged their phones and their laptops into outlets all over the apartment. They used the bathroom, tested out the couch, turned the television on, cooed over Rex, looked in my refrigerator and cupboards.
I found a relatively quiet corner and called Ranger.
