Game On: Tempting Twenty-Eight (Stephanie Plum #28)(31)

“How is it going with Melvin?”

My mom rolled a glob of meat mixture around in her hand and placed the meatball onto a cookie sheet. “He’s no trouble. He’s a little eccentric but that’s not a problem. If your father and I could learn to live with your grandmother, we can learn to live with anyone.”

I went back to the dining room and looked over Melvin’s shoulder for a couple of minutes. There were numbers flashing on his screen. They would stop and Melvin would type something, and the numbers would resume scrolling. I had no clue what he was doing.

“I’m heading out,” I said to Grandma. “Call me if anything important happens.”

“You bet,” Grandma said. “You’ll know as soon as we do.”

“And don’t let him out of the house or out of your sight.”

“No worries,” Grandma said. “I’m on it.”

Lula and I got into the Focus, and I headed for the park.

“I could never be a hacker,” Lula said. “Melvin just sits in front of a computer all day and night with nothing but numbers to look at. I’d go nuts doing that job. Truth is the most stimulating job I had was when I was a pleasure facilitator. I met a lot of interesting people. Every night it was something different trying to figure out how to get the job done.”

“Being a bounty hunter isn’t so bad,” I said. “There’s a lot of variety to it. And we do a service for the community.”

“I guess that’s true, but my wardrobe has gotten boring,” Lula said. “And when I was working on the street, I never got a bat stuck in my hair.”

I pulled into the lot by the duck pond and parked. Lula and I got out and followed the path to where Andy had his camp chair.

“His chair is gone,” Lula said. “And it looks like the area’s been cleaned up. I don’t see any candy wrappers or cigarette butts.”

We walked through the clump of shrubs and flowering trees and came to Andy’s campground. The tent and the camp chair were gone. A guy in a green parks uniform was raking up debris.

“What’s going on?” Lula asked.

“General cleanup,” he said. “Someone was squatting here, but I guess he moved on. Or maybe he got kicked out.”

“Hey, Andy!” Lula yelled. “Are you out there somewhere?”

No one answered.

“Just checking,” Lula said to the cleanup guy.

We walked back around the lake and got into the car.

“That was a bummer,” Lula said. “He was gone one day, and they took his home away.”

“It wasn’t really his home,” I said. “He wasn’t supposed to be there. And he wasn’t supposed to be eating the ducks.”

“I guess that’s true, but I’m feeling sad all the same. I could use a burger with cheese fries to cheer myself up. Besides, it’s almost lunchtime, give or take an hour or two,” Lula said.

“Do you have someplace special in mind?”

“If we head back to the office, I could get a Clucky Burger at Cluck-in-a-Bucket.”



* * *




I was in the Clucky parking lot, waiting for Lula, and my dad called.

“I just dropped Oswald Wednesday off at the train station,” he said. “I thought you’d want to know. I would have called you sooner, but I didn’t get a chance. I didn’t want to talk with him listening.”

“Thanks,” I said. “You did the right thing.”

I hung up, called Diesel, and told him I’d meet him at the train station. I beeped my horn for Lula to hurry and moments later she hustled out with a giant soda and a large takeout bag.

“What’s going on?” she asked, buckling in.

“Oswald’s at the train station.”

“Good deal. I’m ready. How are we doing this? Are we going in guns drawn?”

“No. We’re going in like normal people and we’re going to look around without making a fuss.”

“No worries. I’ll have my gun handy if you need some firepower.”

“I won’t need firepower, and you don’t want to go flashing your gun around in a train station. You’re carrying concealed without a permit.”

“It’s okay,” Lula said. “It’s like common-law marriage. After a certain amount of time, it gets to be legal, and you don’t need the paper. I’ve been carrying since I was nine years old. That’s gotta count for something.”

I reached the train station and parked in the parking garage. We hurried inside and looked at the train schedule. The train to New York was running late. It was due in five minutes. Lula and I strolled through the waiting areas, looking for a pudgy guy with a black ponytail.

“He’s not in here,” I said to Lula. “Let’s split up. You stay inside, and I’ll go out to the platform.”

Lula kept wandering and I went outside. People were congregating at the designated train stop. Some were sitting on benches, but most were standing, queuing up to get a good seat. I spotted Oswald standing off by himself at the end of the platform. I wasn’t sure he would recognize me, but I kept my head down just in case and tried to stay hidden in the crowd. I texted Diesel that I had Oswald in view on the outside platform. I had cuffs in my back pocket and a key chain stun gun in the front pocket of my jeans. I took the stun gun in hand and crept closer to Oswald. I hated to make an apprehension like this. I would be the center of attention, probably the police would be called, and I’d end up on the evening news.