“Oh crap,” I said.
“Yeah,” Lula said. “Bob’s doing the nasty with Sally Belle. He’s not just fooling around either. He’s doing some impressive thrusting.”
“We should try to separate them.”
“That don’t seem right,” Lula said. “He’s banging his brains out. Seems like he should at least get to finish.”
“He’s neutered. How much of a finish can he get?”
Lula found her cell phone in her giant handbag and went to Google. “It says here that he can finish. He just can’t make puppies.” She turned her attention from Bob to me. “You’re a mess. You got blood all over you.”
“It’s my blood from when Trundle’s girlfriend hit me in the nose.”
“She got away from me and ran out of the house, and while I was getting myself up off the floor, I heard a car crash. What happened out there?”
“They rammed my Cherokee out of the way and took off.”
Bob had stopped thrusting, but he was still attached to the poodle doodle.
“Now what?” I said. “Is he done, or what?”
Lula went to Google again. “Sometimes this happens, and they stay stuck together. Good thing this don’t happen with people. When I was a working ho it would have cut into my profit margin if I had to delay my exit. I guess I would have had to go to an hourly rate.”
“How long do they stay stuck? Should we take them to a vet?”
“Google says you just have to wait for Bob to shrink.”
I left Lula to keep an eye on the dogs and I went to the bathroom to wash the blood off my hands and face. Most of the bleeding had stopped, but there were still some dribbles, so I stuffed some tissues up my nose to help things along. Not much I could do about the blood on my sweatshirt and T-shirt.
The dogs were apart when I returned to the front room.
“Are they okay?” I asked Lula.
“Yeah,” Lula said. “The poodle doodle’s walking a little funny, but we’ve all been there.”
So true.
We locked the doors, I gave the poodle doodle fresh water and left her a dog treat, and we vacated the house. The front of my Cherokee was bashed in, but the car was still drivable.
“Are you sure you can see okay with all that tissue stuck up your nose?” Lula asked.
“No problem,” I said. “My eyes are fine.”
“They don’t look fine,” Lula said. “They’re turning black and purple and they’re looking puffy.”
* * *
I dropped Lula off at the office, and Bob and I went back to my apartment. I changed my clothes, pulled the tissue out of my nose, and made myself a peanut butter and olive sandwich for lunch. I made a peanut butter and deli ham sandwich for Bob because he doesn’t like olives. I knew I should put ice on my nose, but I was lacking motivation. I was debating taking a nap when Morelli called.
“I only have a few minutes before I have to get back to court,” he said. “I just wanted to check in. Is everything okay?”
“Yep. Bob’s doing great. He had an amorous adventure with a poodle doodle today.”
“How amorous?”
“As amorous as a dog could get.”
“He’s neutered,” Morelli said.
“Apparently, some dogs can overcome that handicap.”
“Bob actually did it with the poodle doodle?”
“Yep.”
“All the way?”
“All the way and then some.”
“That’s my boy. Any other good news?”
“That’s as good as it gets,” I said. “While I have you on the phone, were you aware that Duncan Dugan and Nutsy knew each other?”
“I didn’t know that. I’ve only seen Nutsy a couple times since high school, and I’m not really involved in the Plover case. You might want to share that with Jonesy since he’s the principal. I have to go. They’re waving at me. I’ll call you tonight.”
I shuffled into the bathroom and looked at myself again. Two black eyes and a slightly swollen nose. Not my finest hour, and I had no hope of ever making a decent popover.
“What do you think?” I asked Bob.
Bob looked up at me as if I were pretty. And that’s why I’d take a bullet for Bob.
“When the going gets tough, the tough get going,” I said to Bob. “Let’s go to the office and see what we can dig up on someone. Anyone.”
Bob was all for it. He followed me out of my apartment and down to the parking lot and jumped into my crumpled Cherokee. When we walked into the office, Connie was cleaning her gun and Lula was on the couch reading Star magazine.
“I like the way you coordinated your black and purple eye with a poison-green T-shirt,” Lula said to me. “It totally works but you need to change your nail polish. I’d go with black.”
“I have some information on the girlfriend,” Connie said. “Maxine Polinski. Works as a personal trainer at Manny’s Gym. Forty-seven years old. Owns the house on Carlory Street. Divorced three times. Currently single. Operates as a pimp for three girls working Stark Street.”
“I didn’t recognize her,” Lula said. “I’m out of the Stark Street loop. I don’t even know who’s working my corner now.”
“She throws a good punch,” I said.
“She’ll be going back to the house,” Lula said. “The poodle doodle is there and anyways, it’s her house. Probably Trundle will be going back with her. He has to shack up somewhere and her house is better than his house.”
“I might want to take Ranger with me next time,” I said.
“Yeah, that would be a good idea,” Lula said. “Taking Ranger anywhere is a good idea, but maybe you want to wait for the eyes to calm down first.”
“Not attractive?” I asked her.
“Horror movie,” Lula said.
I took Oakley mirrored wraparounds out of my bag and put them on. “Better?”
“Freakin’ A,” Lula said.
“Do we have anything new on Duncan Dugan?” I asked Connie.
“Zero,” Connie said. “It’s like he dropped off the earth since he left the hospital. But I heard a disturbing piece of news at Giovichinni’s. I went to get lunch and ran into Shirley Greeley. She lives next door to the Manleys, and she said last night someone blew up the Manleys’ Corolla. Fortunately, the Manleys weren’t in it. It was an IED that detonated a little after midnight. Shirley said the Manleys are pretty shook up and their cats are completely freaked out.”
“I heard about the bombing from Ranger,” I said to Connie. “I saw him this morning.”
“Shirley didn’t know much, so I called my cousin Lorraine,” Connie said. “She’s working dispatch. She said as far as she knew there were no persons of interest.”
The Manleys weren’t the sort of people who got car bombed. They weren’t controversial. They weren’t activists. They didn’t object to anything, and they didn’t alienate anyone. They fostered cats. I guess if you really hated cats you might want to bomb the Manleys, but other than that, I couldn’t see it.
“I’m thinking this might be clown related,” Lula said. “There are people out there who have real strong feelings about clowns. Not everybody likes them. If you look close at a clown, they could be creepy. I think this could be an act of clown terrorism. There’s all kinds of terrorists running around out there these days. The terrorists I’m talking about would be anti-clown. Only thing is, they would be low on the terrorist top ten since they weren’t smart enough to know the Corolla belongs to Nutsy’s parents and not Nutsy.”