“I could be wrong,” Kloughn said, “but crashing down doors might be illegal.”
Vinnie buckled himself into a nylon webbed gun belt. “It's only illegal if it's the wrong house.”
Lula took a Glock out of her purse and shoved it into the waistband of her spandex miniskirt. “I'm ready,” she said. “Too bad we don't have a TV crew with us. This yellow skirt would show up real good.”
“I'm ready, too,” Kloughn said. “I've got a flashlight in case the lights go off.”
I didn't want to alarm him, but that's not why bounty hunters carry two-pound Mag lights.
“Has anyone checked to make sure Bender is home?” I asked. “Anyone talk to his wife?”
“We'll listen under the window,” Vinnie said. “It looks like someone's watching television in there.”
We all tiptoed across the lawn and pressed ourselves against the building and listened under the window.
“Sounds like a movie,” Kloughn said. “Sounds like a dirty movie.”
“Then Bender's gotta be here,” Vinnie said. “His wife isn't going to be sitting around all by herself, watching a porno flick.”
Lula and Kloughn went around to the back door, and Vinnie and I went to the front door. Vinnie drew his gun and rapped on the door, which had been patched with a big piece of plywood.
“Open up,” Vinnie shouted. “Bond enforcement!” He took a step back and was ready to give the door a kick with his boot when we heard Lula break into the house from the rear, yelling at the top of her lungs.
Before we had a chance to react, the front door burst open and a naked guy rushed out at us, almost knocking me off the stoop. Inside the house there was pandemonium. Men were scrambling to leave, some of them naked, some of them dressed, all of them waving guns, shouting, “Outta my way, muthafucka!”
Lula was in the middle of it. “Hey,” she was yelling, “this here's a bond enforcement operation! Everybody stop running!”
Vinnie and I had worked our way into the middle of the room, but we couldn't find Bender. Too many men in too small a space, all trying to get out of the house. No one cared that Vinnie had his gun drawn. I'm not sure anyone noticed in the mayhem.
Vinnie got off a round and a chunk of ceiling fell down. After that, it was quiet because no one was left in the room but Vinnie, Lula, Kloughn, and me.
“What happened?” Lula asked. “What just happened here?”
“I didn't see Bender,” Vinnie said. “Is this the right house?”
“Vinnie?” A female voice called from the bedroom. “Vinnie, is that you?”
Vinnie's eyes opened wide. “Candy?”
A naked woman somewhere in age between twenty and fifty bounced out of the bedroom. She had gigantic breasts and her pubic hair cut into the shape of a thunderbolt.
She held her arms out to Vinnie. “Long time no see,” she said. “What's up?”
A second woman straggled from the bedroom. “Is it really Vinnie?” she asked. “What's he doing here?”
I eased into the bedroom behind the women and looked for Bender. The bedroom was set with lights and a discarded camera. They hadn't been watching a porno . . . they'd been making one.
“Bender isn't in the bedroom or bathroom,” I said to Vinnie. “And that's the whole house.”
“You looking for Andy?” Candy asked. “He split earlier. He said he had work to do. That's why we borrowed his place. Nice and private. At least until you showed up.”
“We thought we was getting busted,” the other woman said. “We thought you was the cops.”
Kloughn gave each of the women his card. “Albert Kloughn, attorney at law,” he said. “If you ever need a lawyer.”
AN HOUR LATER, I pulled into my lot with Kloughn yammering away alongside me. I had Godsmack plugged into my CD player, but I couldn't get the volume loud enough to totally drown out Kloughn.
“Boy, that was something,” Kloughn said. “I've never seen a movie star up close before. And especially naked ones. I didn't look too much, did I? I mean, you couldn't help looking, right? Even you looked, right?”