Two for the Dough (Stephanie Plum 2)

It was Connie, the secretary from the bond office. “I've got an easy recovery for you,” she said. “Stop by the office when you get the chance, and I'll give you the paperwork.”

“How easy is easy?”

“This one's a bag lady. The old babe at the train station. She lifts undies and then forgets her court date. All you have to do is pick her up and get her to the judge.”

“Who posts her bond if she's homeless?”

“Some church group has adopted her.”

“I'll be right over.”

Vinnie had a storefront office on Hamilton. Vincent Plum Bail Bonding Company. Aside from his penchant for kinky sex, Vinnie was a reputable person. For the most part he kept black-sheep miscreants from hardworking blue-collar Trenton families out of the holding pens at police headquarters. Once in a while he got a genuine slimebag, but that sort of case rarely fell into my hands.

Grandma Mazur had a Wild West image of bounty hunters breaking down doors with six shooters blazing. The reality of my job was that most of my days were spent coercing dummies into my car and then chauffeuring them to the police station, where they were rescheduled and rereleased. I picked up a lot of DWIs and disorderlies and occasionally I got a shoplifter or recreational car thief. Vinnie had given me Kenny Mancuso because in the beginning it had looked very straightforward. Kenny was a first-time offender from a good burg family. And besides, Vinnie knew I'd do the takedown with Ranger.

I parked the Jeep in front of Fiorello's Deli. I had Fiorello make me a tuna on a kaiser and then went next door to Vinnie.

Connie looked up from her desk that sat like a guardhouse blocking the way to Vinnie's inner office. Her hair had been teased out a good six inches, framing her face in a rat's nest of black curls. She was a couple years older than me, three inches shorter, thirty pounds heavier, and, like me, she'd gone back to using her maiden name after a discouraging divorce. In her case, the name was Rosolli, a name given a wide berth in the burg since her Uncle Jimmy had been made. Jimmy was ninety-two now and couldn't find his dick if it glowed in the dark, but still he was made all the same.

“Hey,” Connie said. “How's it going?”

“That's a pretty complicated question right now. Do you have the paperwork ready for the bag lady?”

Connie handed me several forms stapled together. “Eula Rothridge. You can find her at the train station.”

I leafed through the file. “No picture?”

“You don't need one. She'll be sitting on the bench closest to the parking lot, soaking up rays.”

“Any suggestions?”

“Try not to get downwind.”

I grimaced and left.

Trenton's placement on the banks of the Delaware River made it ripe for industry and commerce. Over the years, as the Delaware's navigability and importance dwindled, so did Trenton's, bringing the city to its present-day status of being just one more big pothole in the state highway system. Recently, though, we'd gotten minor league baseball, so could fame and fortune be far behind?

The ghetto had crept in around the train station, making it virtually impossible to get to the station without passing through streets of small, yardless, depressed row houses filled with chronically depressed people. During summer months the neighborhoods steeped in sweat and open aggression. When the temperature dropped the tone turned bleak, and animosity sat behind insulating walls.

I drove along these streets with my doors locked and my windows shut tight. It was more out of habit than conscious protection, since anyone with a paring knife could slash through my canvas roof.

The Trenton train station is small and not especially memorable. There's a curved drop-off driveway at the front entrance where a few taxis wait and a uniformed cop kee

ps his eye on things. Several municipal-style benches line the driveway.

Eula was sitting on the farthermost bench, dressed in several winter coats, a purple wool cap, and running shoes. Her face was lined and doughy, her steel gray hair was chopped short and stuck out in ragged clumps from the cap. Her legs were ankleless, feeding into her shoes like giant knockwursts, her knees comfortably spread for the world to see sights better left unseen.

I parked in front of her, in a no-parking zone, and received a warning glare from the cop.

I waved my bond papers at him. “I'll only be a minute,” I yelled. “I'm here to take Eula to court.”

He gave me an oh yeah, well, good luck look and went back to staring off into space.

Eula harrumphed at me. “I ain't goin' to court.”

“Why not?”

“The sun's out. I gotta get my vitamin D.”