Hot Six by Janet Evanovich

to the end of the town houses, and picked up a macadam bike path. The path ran through the greenbelt behind Ramos's town house, and gave me a nice view of the second-story windows. Unfortunately, there was nothing to see because the shades were drawn. The brick privacy fence obscured the first-floor windows. And I'd bet dollars to doughnuts the first-floor windows were wide open. No reason to draw the drapes there. No one could look in. Unless, of course, someone rudely climbed the brick wall and sat there like Humpty Dumpty waiting for disaster to strike.
    I decided disaster would be slower in coming if Humpty climbed the wall at night when it was dark and no one could see her, so I continued on down the path to the far end of the town houses, cut back to the road, and returned to my car.
    LULA WAS STANDING in the doorway when I parked in front of the bail bonds office. "Okay, I give up, " she said. "What is it?"
    "A Rollswagen. "
    "It's got a few dents in it. "
    "Morris Munson was feeling cranky. "
    "He did that? Did you bring him in?"
    "I decided to delay that pleasure. "
    Lula looked like she was giving herself a hernia trying to keep from laughing out loud. "Well, we gotta go get his ass. He got a lotta nerve denting up a Rollswagen. Hey, Connie, " she yelled, "you gotta come see this car Stephanie's driving. It's a genuine Rollswagen. "
    "It's a loaner, " I said. "Until I get my insurance check. "

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    "Wind. "
    "Oh, yeah, " Lula said. "I should have known. "
    A shiny black jeep Cherokee pulled to the curb behind the wind machine, and Joyce Barnhardt got out. She was dressed in black leather pants, a black leather bustier, which barely contained her C-cup breasts, a black leather jacket, and high-heeled black boots. Her hair was a brilliant red, teased high and curled. Her eyes were ringed by black liner, and her lashes were thick with mascara. She looked like Dominatrix Barbie.
    "I hear they put rat hairs in that lash-lengthening mascara, " Lula said to Joyce. "Hope you read the ingredients when you bought it. "
    Joyce looked at the wind machine. "The circus in town? This is one of those clown cars, right?"
    "It's a one-of-a-kind Rollswagen, " Lula said. "You got a problem with that?"
    Joyce smiled. "The only problem I've got is trying to decide how I'm going to spend Ranger's capture money. "
    "Oh, yeah, " Lula said. "You want to waste a lot of time on that one. "
    "You'll see, " Joyce said. "I always get my man. "
    And dog and goat and vegetable . . . And everybody else's man, too.
    "Well, we'd love to stand here talking to you, Joyce, " Lula said. "But we got better things to do. We got a big important apprehension to make. We were just on our way to go catch a high-bond motherfucker. "
    "Are you going in the clown car?" Joyce asked.
    "We're going in my Firebird, " Lula said. "We always take the Firebird when we got serious ass-kicking lined up. "
    "I have to see Vinnie, " Joyce said. "Someone made a mistake on Ranger's bond application. I checked out the address, and it's a vacant lot. "
    Lula and I looked at each other and smiled.
    "Gee, imagine that, " Lula said.
    No one knows where Ranger lives. The address on his driver's license is for a men's shelter on Post Street. Not likely for a man who owns office buildings in Boston and checks with his stockbroker daily. Every now and then Lula and I make a halfhearted effort to track him down, but we've never had any success.
    "So what do you think?" Lula asked when Joyce disappeared inside the office. "You want to go do some damage on Morris Munson?"
    "I don't know. He's kind of crazy. "

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    "No. "
    "Then he isn't as crazy as most of the people on my block. "
    "Are you sure you want to risk going after him in your Firebird, after what he did to the wind machine?"
    "First off, assuming I'd even be able to get my full figure into the wind machine, I think you'd need to take a can opener to it to get me out. And then, being that there's two