Munch was arrested and booked, but the magnetometer was never recovered. In a moment of insanity, Vinnie wrote a bond for Munch, and now Munch is playing hard to get with his contraption.
“This is a white-?collar guy,” Connie said. “He hasn‘t grown up in a crime culture. His friends and family are probably horrified. I can‘t see them hiding him.”
“He hasn‘t got a lot of friends and family,” I told her. “From what I can determine, he has neighbors who have never spoken to him, and the only family is a grandmother in a retirement home in Cadmount. He was employed at the research facility for two years, and he never socialized. Before that, he was a student at Princeton, where he never got his face out of a book.
“His neighbors tell me a couple months ago a guy started visiting Munch. The guy was a little over six feet tall, with an athletic build and expensive clothes. He drove a black Ferrari and had shoulder- length black hair and pale, almost white skin. Sometimes Munch would leave with him and not come back for several days. That‘s the whole enchilada.”
“Sounds like Dracula,” Lula said. “Was he wearing a cape? Did he have fangs?”
“No one said anything about a cape or fangs.”
“Munch must have come in when I was out sick last week,” Lula said. “I don‘t remember him.”
“So what was it?” I asked her. “The flu?”
“I don‘t know what it was. My eyes were all swollen, and I was sneezing and wheezing, and I felt like I had a fever. I just stayed in my apartment, drinking medicinal whiskey and taking cold pills, and now I feel fine. What‘s this Munch look like?”
I took his file from my Prada knockoff messenger bag and showed Lula his mug shot, plus a photo.
“Good thing he‘s a genius,” Lula said, “on account of he don‘t have much else going on.”
At five-?feet-?two-?inches tall, Munch looked more like fourteen than twenty-?four. He was slim, with strawberry blond hair and pale freckled skin. The photo was taken outdoors, and Munch was squinting into the sun. He was wearing jeans
and sneakers and a SpongeBob T-?shirt, and it occurred to me that he probably shopped in the kids‘ department. I imagine you have to be pretty secure in your manhood to pull that one off.
“I‘m feeling hot today,” Lula said. “I bet I could find that Munch. I bet he‘s sitting home in his Underoos playing with his whatchamacallit.”
“I guess it wouldn‘t hurt for us to check out his house one more time,” I said. “He‘s renting one of those little tiny row houses on Crocker Street, down by the button factory.”
“What are you gonna do with the monkey?” Lula wanted to know.
I looked over at Connie.
“Forget it,” Connie said. “I‘m not babysitting a monkey. Especially not that monkey.”
“Well, I don‘t let monkeys ride in my car,” Lula said. “If that monkey‘s going with us, you‘re gonna have to drive your car. And I‘m sitting in the back, so I can keep an eye on him. I don‘t want no monkey sneaking up behind me giving me monkey cooties.”
“I‘ve got two new skips,” Connie said to me. “One of them, Gordo Bollo, ran over his ex-?wife‘s brand-?new husband with a pickup truck, twice. And the other, Denny Guzzi, robbed a con ve nience store and accidentally shot himself in the foot trying to make his getaway. Both idiots failed to show for their court appearances.”
Connie shoved the paperwork to the edge of the desk. I signed the contract and took the files that contained a photo, the arrest sheet, and the bond agreement for each man.
“Shouldn‘t be hard to tag Denny Guzzi,” Connie said.
“He‘s got a big ban dage on his foot, and he can‘t run.”
“Yeah, but he‘s got a gun,” I said to Connie.
“This is Jersey,” Connie said. “Everyone‘s got a gun… except you.”
We left the bonds office, and Lula stood looking at my car.
“I forgot you got this dumb Jeep,” Lula said. “I can‘t get in the back of this thing. Only Romanian acrobats could get in the back of this. I guess the monkey‘s gotta ride in back, but I swear he makes a move on me, and I‘m gonna shoot him.”
I slid behind the wheel, Lula wedged herself into the passenger-?side seat, and Carl hopped into the back. I adjusted my rearview mirror, locked onto Carl, and I swear it looked to me like Carl was making faces at Lula and giving her the finger.
“What?” Lula said to me. “You got a strange look on you.”
“It‘s nothing,” I said. “I just thought Carl was . . . never mind.”