Game On: Tempting Twenty-Eight (Stephanie Plum #28)(3)

“You need to find Oswald Wednesday,” Connie said to me. “It’s a high-money bond and Vinnie’s bottom line isn’t going to look good this month if Oswald is in the wind.”

“Diesel dropped in last night,” I said. “He’s also looking for Oswald.”

“Is that going to be a problem?” Connie asked.

“Possibly.”

“That’s a problem I wouldn’t mind having,” Lula said. “Diesel’s that big, sexy, scruffy blond guy, right?”

“Right,” I said. “You left out annoying.”

“It’s just I got priorities,” Lula said. “Big, sexy, scruffy, and blond are high on my list compared to annoying.”

I stuffed the two new FTA files into my messenger bag. “Run a credit check on Oswald one more time,” I said to Connie. “It would help if a new address popped up.”

Lula followed me out and stopped at my car. “Someone spray painted ‘wash me’ on your car in pink paint,” Lula said.

“It’s been like that for a couple weeks.”

“I never noticed.”

“It partially got absorbed into the top layer of dirt, but it rained last night and washed some of the dirt off.”

“Goes to show you there could be benefits to dirt,” Lula said, wrenching the door open. “Where are we going?”

“Dugan Street. I want to see Oswald’s apartment.”

“Inside?”

“Yes.”

“I’m all about it.”

Dugan Street’s glory faded fifty years ago. At one time the large homes housed large, wealthy families, but times have changed. The grand old houses are now in disrepair and the interiors have been carved up into low-income apartments.

I took Hamilton Avenue to Chambers Street, turned at Greenwood Avenue, and after several blocks I left-turned onto Dugan. I parked across the street from Oswald’s house and Lula and I watched the house for a couple of minutes.

“Doesn’t seem like anything’s happening here,” Lula said. “There’s some cars parked on the street but nobody’s moving around.”

“Let’s look inside.”

Oswald’s apartment was one of three on the second floor of the two-story house. The front door wasn’t locked, so we let ourselves in, climbed the stairs, and I knocked on Oswald’s door. No answer. I knocked again and tried the doorknob.

“It’s unlocked,” I said to Lula.

“Seems like they don’t lock anything here,” Lula said. “It looks to me like this neighborhood might be sketchy and if it was me, I wouldn’t be so trusting.”

I opened the door, stepped inside, and yelled “bond enforcement.”

Still no answer. We were standing in a small living room with a couch, a club chair, and a television. There were no personal items lying around. We moved into the kitchen. Nothing in the fridge. Minimal pots and pans, silverware, plates, and bowls.

“This is what you would find in a rental unit with no one living in it,” Lula said, walking into the bathroom. “There isn’t even a toothbrush here.”

The bedroom also seemed untouched.

“Only one thing here doesn’t make sense,” Lula said, standing by the perfectly made bed. “There’s a stepladder under the trapdoor in the ceiling. I think someone’s going in and out up there. I bet Oswald might even be living there. Who knows what’s in the attic? It could be all fixed up into another apartment. You hold the ladder steady, and I’ll look into this.”

Lula was wearing five-inch spike-heeled sling-backs, a black spandex skirt that barely covered her ass, and a yellow knit tank top with a scoop neck that was low enough to be in nipple territory. She looked like a giant bumble bee with blue hair.

“Are you sure you want to climb the ladder in those shoes?” I asked her.

“Hell yeah. These are good ladder-climbing shoes. And I’m not necessarily going into the attic. I just want to take a peek.”

Lula went up the ladder and examined the latch.

“This isn’t even locked,” she said.

She unlatched the trapdoor and let it swing open. She climbed a couple more steps on the ladder and looked into the attic.

“It’s dark in here,” she said. “There’s no light that I can see.” She pushed the flashlight app on her cell phone and flashed the beam of light around. “Hello?” she shouted. “Anybody home up here?”

Chirping and fluttering sounds carried down to me and in seconds a hundred bats rushed out of the trapdoor and into the bedroom.

“Holy hell!” Lula screamed. “What the fork!”

She came down the ladder in a cloud of bats, missed a rung, and broke the heel off one of her shoes. She hit the floor, shrieking and dancing in place. “Eeeeeee!”

I grabbed Lula by the arm and pulled her into the living room. I slammed the door to the bedroom shut, leaving most of the bats behind.

Lula was bug-eyed, waving her arms, still dancing. “I got bat cooties. I can feel them. They’re crawling all over me. Lordy, Lordy. And I got the rabies. I can’t breathe. I can’t swallow. Look at me, I’m drooling. Am I drooling? Am I getting all foamy at the mouth?”

“I don’t see any foam and you’re only drooling a little. You haven’t got rabies. You have to get bitten by an infected bat to get rabies.”