“A lot has happened in a week,” Diesel said. “Two grotesque deaths, two geek rescues, you almost got run over by a train, and Lula got shot.”
“We haven’t made any progress on capturing Oswald.”
“We’ve kept him from killing the last two Baked Potatoes. He was having fun in the beginning, but I imagine he’s grinding his teeth down to nubs now. He can’t get to Melvin or Charlotte. And while he’s preoccupied with this he doesn’t seem to be moving forward with his global threat.”
“It’s global?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s not global. Maybe it’s just international.”
“Is the system he hacked back to running normally now?”
“My understanding is that the area of weakness still exists but hasn’t been exploited. The longer Oswald waits to make his big move, the more time my employer has to fix the issue.”
“Okay, that’s sufficiently vague but I get the gist of it.”
“It’s what I know,” Diesel said. “The less I know, the less I can give away if I happen to be in a drunken stupor.”
I finished my grilled cheese and fries and reached for my messenger bag. “We’ve hit up all of Oswald’s known haunts except his rental.”
“The bat house?”
“We assumed it was just being used for a phony address, but what if he decided to move into it? It’s close to town. It probably has good cell service and internet. We never checked back on it.”
Forty minutes later we were on Dugan Street. I parked in front of the two-story house, and we looked up and down the street. A couple of junker cars were at the curb but there were no Porsches or newly washed blue sedans. Diesel and I walked to the door and into the house. We climbed the stairs to the second floor, and I knocked on the door to Oswald’s apartment. No answer.
Diesel opened the door and I softly announced bail bonds enforcement. Always good to cover my ass and go by the book. We walked through the rooms, and it was clear that someone had recently been there. A couch cushion that was misplaced, the television remote left on an end table, a cardboard Starbucks coffee cup in the trash. The bed looked like Goldilocks had tested it out. The pillow wasn’t perfectly plumped, and the quilt was slightly wrinkled.
“There’s nothing personal left lying around,” Diesel said. “No clothes, no bathroom stuff, no computer, no food in the fridge. But someone has been here.”
“I can have Ranger set up a surveillance camera.”
“That would be useful,” Diesel said.
We went downstairs and took the hallway to the back door. There was a small patch of dirt that served as a yard and a three-car garage that opened to the alley. Two of the garage spaces were filled with junk being stored. The third was occupied by a blue sedan.
“Interesting,” Diesel said. “If he isn’t in the house and he isn’t in this car, where is he?”
There was a loud explosion on the street in front of the house.
“It’s just a wild guess,” I said, “but I think he’s laughing his ass off, hiding in someone’s shrubbery.”
“I doubt he’s laughing his ass off,” Diesel said. “I would guess that he’s in a blind rage that we caught him in his house.”
We walked around the house and stood on the front lawn, watching my car burn. A couple of people had congregated across the street, and I could hear a siren in the distance.
Ranger called. “Babe,” he said. “Your GPS just went dead.”
“That’s because someone blew up my car.”
“It was only a matter of time,” Ranger said. “Are you okay?”
“Yep.”
“Do you need a ride?”
“Eventually, but not immediately. I’m at Oswald’s rental house. There are some things I need to take care of here.”
I filled Ranger in on some of the details, asked for the camera, and ended the call. I called Connie next, gave her the plate on the blue car, and asked her to check on it.
A cop car parked a safe distance from my inferno, and a fire truck turned onto Dugan several blocks away.
“I’m going to the garage,” Diesel said. “I don’t want Oswald circling around and escaping in the blue car.”
Connie called back. “The plate you gave me belongs to Fred Mechanti. He has an East Brunswick address, and he reported a blue Toyota Camry stolen four days ago.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I found Fred’s car. Oswald has been driving it.”