“How did you do that?” Lula asked. “Did you have a secret cell phone on you?”
“No. The eye screw wasn’t cemented in. I was able to work it loose.”
“Did it take you days to get it loose?” Lula asked.
“No,” Marjorie said. “About twenty minutes, I think. I was motivated to get out of there before he came back.”
“Lucky for you that you had a stupid kidnapper,” Lula said. “He wasn’t smart enough to know that someone with hands instead of paws would be able to get that screw thing out of the ground.”
“I couldn’t get the chain off my ankle, so I carried it with me, and I walked out to the cross street, where I was able to flag someone down,” Marjorie said.
“Awesome,” Lula said. “You’re like your own hero. Did you feel empowered?”
“No,” Marjorie said. “I felt like a ninny. Like a stupid victim. It was terrifying and embarrassing. I was sobbing when the car stopped to help me. Sobbing! It was horrible. Not my finest hour.”
“What was your finest hour?” Lula asked.
“I made popovers for a dinner party once and they were perfect,” Marjorie said.
“Did you get your car and your earrings back?” I asked her.
“My car, yes. Not the earrings. He said he had a girlfriend down the street. He said he was going to trade them off for a good time. That was when he took it out and waved it at me.”
We left Marjorie Katz and returned to my Jeep Cherokee and Bob.
“I expected Marjorie Katz to be an old lady,” Lula said. “She didn’t even look that old. Mostly she looked rich.”
“Seventy-three is the new fifty-three,” I said.
“Does that make thirty the new ten?”
“No. Thirty is the new forty-five,” I said.
I got behind the steering wheel and saw that it had some tooth marks in it.
“What’s with the tooth marks in my steering wheel?” I asked Bob.
Bob played dumb and looked happy to see me.
“No dog treats for you, mister,” I said.
Bob still looked happy to see me, so I pulled a couple dog biscuits out of my bag and gave them to Bob.
“That’s rewarding bad behavior,” Lula said to me. “How’s he gonna learn what’s right and what’s wrong if you keep giving him biscuits?”
“It was a wash because he looked happy to see me.”
“Okay, I get that,” Lula said. “That’s a validating condition.”
“We need to take another look at Carlory Street.”
“Trundle’s girlfriend, right?”
“Right.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
I drove past Trundle’s property and went a quarter mile down the road, heading toward the junkyard. I picked out a black Range Rover parked in a driveway that led to a gray bungalow. I pulled to the side and grabbed Trundle’s file out of my bag. He’d listed his personal vehicle as a black Range Rover. I scanned the file and found Trundle’s license plate. It matched the plate on the SUV in the driveway.
“I don’t know if we’re so happy about this,” Lula said. “He doesn’t sound like such a nice guy.”
“True. But we know he’s not especially smart, so that gives us an advantage.”
“Yeah,” Lula said. “We’re totally smart. We got smart in spades. And I got a gun.”
I turned into the driveway and parked behind the Range Rover.
“You’re parking behind him so he can’t drive off,” Lula said to me. “That already shows how smart we are.”
I had a dilemma now. What to do with Bob. I didn’t want to bring him to the house and put him in harm’s way. I also didn’t want to leave him alone in the car one more time.
“This is the plan,” I said to Lula. “You take Bob and stay behind me when I go to the door. I don’t want to bring Bob into the house.”
“Yeah, but what if Farcus is in there and things get dangerous?”
“Then I especially don’t want Bob involved.”
I handed Bob’s leash to Lula, and I walked to the bungalow’s front door. I rang the bell and a woman answered. She was midforties with a mess of red hair and a nose ring. She was wearing a tank top that showed off some gym muscle and a lot of tattoos. She had diamond studs in her ears that were about two carats each.
“What?” she said.
“I’m looking for Farcus,” I said. “I saw his Range Rover in the driveway.”
“And?”
“I owe him some money,” I said. “He wasn’t at his house.”
“He isn’t here.”
“His car is here.”
The woman leaned to one side and looked behind me. “What’s with the dog and fatso?”
“Excuse me?” Lula said.
“No insult intended,” the woman said. “I happen to be a personal trainer and I could get that fat off you, in case you’re interested.”
“I’m not fat,” Lula said. “I’m a big voluptuous woman and you’re a skinny bitch. No insult intended.”
“None taken,” she said, “but you’ve gotta get the dog out of here. My Sally Belle doesn’t like other dogs.”
“What kind of dog is Sally Belle?” Lula asked.
“She’s a purebred poodle doodle,” the woman said. “And she’s very sensitive.”
“This here is Bob,” Lula said. “And he’s very orange.”
“About Farcus,” I said to the woman.
“I told you. Farcus isn’t here.”
“Then you wouldn’t mind if I look around.”
“Freaking A, I’d mind,” she said. “Take your orange dog and get your ass off my property.”
I showed her the badge I bought on Amazon and told her I was representing Vincent Plum Bail Bonds and that I had a right to search her house.
“Over my cold dead body,” she said.
“Hunh,” Lula said. “Do the world a favor.”
“You want a piece of me?” the woman said to Lula. “You think you got what it takes?”
“I got more than what it takes,” Lula said. “You’d be a puddle of rancid grease when I was done with you.”
“No rancid grease puddles,” I said. “Let’s keep this civil and professional.”
The woman tried to shut the door, but I got my foot in the way. Lula put her weight to the door and muscled it open. I stepped in first, the woman sucker punched me in the face, and Lula let go of Bob and took the woman down to the floor. The poodle doodle ran in to see what was going on and Bob lunged at the poodle doodle.
“Run, Farcus,” the woman yelled. “Run!!”
I caught a glimpse of Farcus heading for the back of the house and I took off after him. I chased him around the house and saw him jump into his Range Rover. The woman ran out of the house and barely got in the Rover before Farcus put it in reverse and rammed my Cherokee into the road and out of his way. Under more normal circumstances I might have been able to catch him, but I was hampered by the blood dripping out of my nose.
I pinched my nose shut, tipped my head back a little, and walked into the house. Lula was on her feet, arranging the girls and tugging her tiny spandex skirt over her plus-size ass. Bob was in the middle of the room humping the poodle doodle.