Explosive Eighteen (Stephanie Plum 18)

Connie looked over at Vinnie. “He’s been here since three this morning. He’s as fried as the bus.”

“Can we still operate?” I asked her.

“Yes. We lost the bus but not much else. I’ve been working off my laptop, and it travels with me. We lost a lot of files in the fire that took out the original office, but we didn’t lose anything with this fire. It’s all electronic now.”

I glanced at Lula. She was dressed in black. Black faux lizard-skin cowboy boots, black jeans that looked like they were painted on her, black tank top with an acre of boob squishing out. Pink hair.

My curiosity was raised. “What’s with the black?” I wanted to know. “You never wear all black.”

“I told you yesterday, I’m gettin’ serious. I’m not takin’ this job lightly no more. I’m channeling my inner Ranger, and I’m wearing black like him. I figure he’s on to something with the black deal.”

“He wears black so he doesn’t have to match socks in the morning.”

“See, that’s what I’m sayin’. It’s about being efficient. Get the job done. Wham. That’s gonna be my new motto. Wham. Now that I’m in black, I’m thinking I could catch Joyce Barnhardt. No problemo.”

“It might not be that easy,” I said. “There’s a rumor going around that Barnhardt’s been compacted.”

“Darn,” Lula said. “That would take all the fun out of capturing her.”

“I heard the same rumor,” Connie said.

“Too bad,” Lula said. “I was ready to be all over Barnhardt. I was ready to wham her.”

“I need to talk to a couple guys downtown this morning,” I said to Lula. “It shouldn’t take long. I’ll pick you up when I’m done, and we’ll go to the junkyard.”

“Being that we don’t have a bonds bus no more, I’ll be at the coffee shop,” Lula said. “I’m thinking about having one of them cinnamon rolls. What would Ranger eat?”

“He’d have half a bagel with a small amount of cream cheese and some smoked salmon.”

Lula shook her head. “That man don’t know much about eating.”

SIX

I LEFT THE FIRE SCENE, drove down Hamilton, and spotted the tail when I turned onto Broad. Black Lincoln two cars back. Most likely they were with me when I left my apartment, and I hadn’t been paying attention. The FBI had offices in a building in the center of the city. There was underground parking, but I chose not to use it. Even when security cameras were in play, I felt vulnerable in a parking garage. I found on-street parking half a block away, locked up, and walked to the FBI building. I waved at the Lincoln as it rolled past, but no one waved back or beeped the horn. Guess Lancer and Slasher were busy thinking up a new cover, since FBI was obviously out.

Berger’s office was on the sixth floor. He had a small cubby with a desk and two chairs. I imagined Gooley had an identical cubby somewhere in the vast room filled with cubbies.

“Did you bring the photo?” Berger asked.

I sat in one of his chairs. “I don’t have the photo.”

Berger blew

out a sigh. “Did you ever have the photo?”

“Yes. I discovered it when I got home. I had no idea how it got into my bag or what it was. There wasn’t any writing on it. No name or address. I assumed I’d grabbed it by mistake when I bought magazines for the flight. So I threw it away.”

“Any chance of retrieving it?”

“No, I tried. The garbage had already been picked up.”

“Was it a man or a woman?” Berger asked.

“You don’t know?”

He shook his head. “To my knowledge, only one person knew the identity of the person in the photo, and that person is dead.”

“Would that dead person happen to be Richard Crick, the doctor who got stuffed into the trash can at LAX?”