“Maybe I should call roadside assistance,” I said to Lula. “Or the fire department.”

“I don’t feel so good,” Lula said. And she farted.

“Jeez Louise,” I said. “Could you control yourself? This is Ranger’s Porsche.”

“I can’t help it. I’m just a big gasbag. I still got leftover barbecue gas.” She squeezed her eyes shut tight and did a full minute-long fart. “Excuse me,” she said.

I was horrified and impressed all at the same time. It was a record-breaking fart. On my best day, I couldn’t come near to farting like that.

“I feel a lot better,” Lula said. “Look at me. I got room in the window opening.” She wriggled a little and eased herself back into the SUV. “I’m not so fat after all,” she said. “I was just all swelled up.”

My cell phone buzzed, and I saw from the screen that it was Morelli.

“Did I miss a call from you?” he asked.

“Yeah. Marco and his partner were parked in front of the bonds office. They were in a black Lincoln Town Car. I didn’t get their license. I followed them to Olden and then lost them.”

“I’ll put it on the air.”

“Thanks.”

Ten minutes later, Lula and I trudged into the office with the casserole and came face-to-face with Joyce Barnhardt.

Joyce had been a pudge when she was a kid, but over the years the fat had shifted to all the right places. Plus, she’d had some sucked out and added some here and there. Truth is, most of the original equipment had been altered one way or another, but even I had to admit the end result was annoyingly spectacular. She had a lot of flame-red hair that she did up in waves and curls. Hard to tell which of it was hers and which was bought. Not that it mattered when she swung her ass down the street in spike-heeled boots, skintight low-rider jeans, and a black satin bustier. She wore more eye makeup than Tammy Faye and had lips that were inflated to bursting.

“Hello, Joyce,” I said. “Long time no see.”

“I guess you could say that to Morelli, too,” Joyce said.

Lula cut her eyes to me. “You want me to shoot her? ’Cause I’d really like to do that. I still got a few bullets left in my gun.”

“Thanks, but not today,” I said to Lula. “Some other time.”

“Just let me know when.”

“So what are you doing here in the slums?” I asked her.

“Ask Connie.”

“Vinnie hired her again,” Connie said. “He decided you weren’t bringing the skips in fast enough, so he brought Joyce in to take up the slack.”

“I don’t take up slack,” Joyce said. “I take the cream off the top.”

From time to time, Joyce had worked for Vinnie, mostly because she was good with a whip and once in a while Vinnie felt like a very bad boy.

“What’s in the casserole?” Joyce asked.

I opened the lid. “It’s barbecue. Grandma Mazur made it for me for dinner. She knows how I love this recipe.”

Joyce spit on the pulled pork. “Just like old times,” she said. “Remember when I used to spit on your lunch in school?”

“How about now?” Lula asked. “Can I shoot her now?”

“No!”

Joyce took the casserole dish from me. “Yum,” she said. “Dinner.” And then she sashayed out of the bonds office, got into her black Mercedes, and roared off down the street with the barbecue.

“I got a dilemma here now,” Lula said. “I don’t know whether I want her to like my barbecue sauce or get the squirts from it.”

Vinnie stuck his head out of his office. “Where is she? Did she leave? Christ, she scares the crap out of me. Still, there’s no getting around it. She’s a man-eater. She’ll clean up the list.”

Connie and Lula and I did a collective eye roll because Joyce had tried her hand at bounty hunting before and the only man she ate was Vinnie.

“Am I fired?” I asked Vinnie.

“No. You’re the B team.”

“You can’t have an A team and a B team going after the same skips. It doesn’t work.”

“Make it work,” Vinnie said.

“We should have saved the barbecue for Vinnie,” I said to Lula.

“Wasn’t me that gave Barnhardt the barbecue,” Lula said. “I wanted to shoot her.”

I hiked my bag onto my shoulder. “I’m out of here. I’m going to see if Myron Kaplan is home.”

“I’m with you,” Lula said. “I’m not staying here with this Barnhardt-hiring idiot.”

“What about the filing?” Vinnie yelled at Lula. “There’s stacks of files everywhere.”

“File my ass,” Lula said.

ACCORDING TO THE information Connie had given me, Myron Kaplan was seventy-eight years old, lived alone, was a retired pharmacist, and two months ago, he robbed his dentist at gunpoint. Myron’s booking photo was mostly nose. Several other photos taken when bail was written showed Myron to be slightly stooped, with sparse, wild gray hair.

“There it is,” Lula said, checking house numbers while I crept down Carmichael Street. “That’s his house with the red door.”

Carmichael was a quiet little side street in the center of the city. Residents could walk to shops, restaurants, coffeehouses, corner groceries, and in Myron’s case… his dentist. The street was entirely residential, with narrow brick-faced two-story row houses.

I parked at the curb, and Lula and I walked to the small front stoop. I rang the bell, and we both stepped aside in case Myron decided to shoot through his door. He was old, but he was known to be armed, and we’d been shot at a lot lately.

The door opened, and Myron looked at me and then focused on Lula in the yellow stretch suit and black flak vest.

“What the heck?” Myron asked.

“Don’t mess with me,” Lula said. “I’m off doughnuts, and I feel mean as a snake.”

“You look like a big bumblebee,” Myron said. “I thought I slept through October, and it was Halloween.”

I introduced myself and explained to Myron he’d missed his court date.

“I’m not going to court,” Myron said. “I already told that to the lady who called on the phone. I got better things to do.”

“Like what?” Lula wanted to know.

“Like watch television.”

Myron had a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He was gumming it around, sucking in smoke and blowing it out, all at the same time.

“That’s disgustin’,” Lula said. “You shouldn’t be smoking. Didn’t your doctor tell you not to smoke?”

“My doctor’s dead,” Myron said. “Everybody I know is dead.”

“I’m not,” Lula said.

Myron considered that. “You’re right. You want to do knicky-knacky with me? It’s been a while, but I think I can still do it.”

“You better be talkin’ about some kind of card game,” Lula told him.

“We need to go now,” I said. “I’m kind of on a schedule.”

“Listen, missy,” Myron said. “I’m not going. What part of not going don’t you understand?”

I hated capturing old people. If they didn’t cooperate, there was no good way to bring them in. No matter how professional and respectful I tried to act, I always looked like a jerk when I dragged their carcass out the door.

“It’s the law,” I said. “You’re accused of a crime, and you have to go before a judge.”

“I didn’t commit a crime,” Myron said. “I just got a refund. This quack dentist made me false teeth. They didn’t fit. I wanted my money back.”

“Yes, but you got it back at gunpoint.”

“That’s because I couldn’t get an appointment to see him until January. Couldn’t get past his snippy receptionist. When I went in with the gun, I got to see him right away. It’s not like I have forever to wait for money. I’m old.”

“What about the teeth?” Lula asked him. “Where’s the teeth?”

“I left them with the dentist. I got my money back, and he got his teeth back.”

“Sounds fair to me,” Lula said.

“The court decides what’s fair,” I said. “You have to go to court.”

Myron crossed his arms over his chest and narrowed his eyes. “Make me.”

“This is gonna get ugly,” Lula said. “We should have left this for Barnhardt.”

“I’ll make a deal,” I said to Myron. “If you come with me, I’ll get you a date with my grandmother. She’s real cute.”