Page 56 of Now or Never

I was ready to give sleep another try when I heard noise in the parking lot. Car radio, I thought. Some drunken idiot coming home, blasting his lame music. I shut my computer down and got myself a glass of milk and a Pop-Tart. I ate the Pop-Tart and drank the milk, and the noise continued. High-pitched squawking. Sounded a little like Paul Simon’s “Graceland” followed by “Do-Re-Mi” fromThe Sound of Music. I walked into my dark living room, looked out my window, and sucked in some air. It was Herbert, standing in the parking lot, under one of the overhead lights, playing his clarinet. A cop car turned into the parking lot and stopped just short of Herbert. Two cops got out and walked over to him. There was a short conversation, Herbert pointed up at my window, and I instantly jumped out of sight. The jumping away from the window was instinctive and most likely not necessary since my living room was dark and I wouldn’t be visible from the parking lot. I peeked out and saw Herbert get into his Prius and drive away. I felt kind of bad that someone called the cops on Herbert, but at the same time, I was happy to see him leave. I padded back to my bedroom, crawled into bed, and fell asleep with “Do-Re-Mi” playing in my brain.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I parked in front of the bail bonds office and saw Lula and Connie at the big storefront window. They were still on their feet when I walked in.

“Well?” Lula said. “Today is the day. What is it? We’ve been waiting for you to get here. We thought you’d never show up. What’s the result?”

“It was a negative result, which is meaningless at six days. I’ll try again at ten days.”

“You’re killing me,” Lula said. “I can’t wait four more days to find out if I’m going to be an auntie. Are you sure the test was negative? Maybe you should take another one just in case you got a defective pee stick.”

“The tests are expensive, and anyway, I don’t have time. I’m going after Jug today. I’m ninety-nine percent sure he’s at the vineyard on Long Island. I want to get on the road at nine or ten o’clock, so I miss the worst of rush-hour traffic.”

“I guess I’m going with you,” Lula said.

“I guess you are,” I said. “I’m counting on this being a day trip. It’s a three-and-a-half-hour drive, so it’ll be a long day, but it’s better than staying overnight.”

“Do you have a plan?” Lula asked.

“Not exactly. We need to find out how many people are in the house with him. And we need to do surveillance, but the way the house is set on the property is going to make it difficult to see anything.”

The front door opened and closed, and Herbert walked over. “I saw all the cars out front so I thought I would come in to say hello.” His eyes went to the open doughnut box on Connie’s desk. “Are those bakery doughnuts? I love doughnuts. There’s nothing like a doughnut in the morning. I mean, I try to eat healthy, but there’s nothing wrong with a doughnut once in a while, right?”

“Help yourself,” Connie said.

“I’m a sprinkles kind of guy,” Herbert said. “This is a problem because there’s one with chocolate sprinkles, and one with rainbow sprinkles, and one with pink sprinkles. I’m secure in my manhood so I could eat the pink sprinkles if I wanted but I’m not sure I’m in a pink-sprinkles mood today.”

“Oh, for the love of Pete, just pick a doughnut,” Lula said.

Herbert snatched up the doughnut with the rainbow sprinkles. “This doesn’t mean that I’m gay,” he said. “Not that there’s anything wrong with being gay. I have some friends who are gay.”

“Nobody cares,” Lula said.

“I heard you talking about planning your day when I walked in,” Herbert said. “You said you were going after Jug. Is that Bruno Jug, the pervert? I heard about him on the news last night.”

“Yeah, but he hasn’t been proved to be a pervert yet,” Lulasaid. “He’s just up on tax evasion charges. He’s a tycoon in the fruit business and we know him personally.”

“I see his trucks all over the place,” Herbert said. “I wouldn’t mind meeting him. I never met a fruit tycoon.”

“We’re going after him, but it’s a secret,” Lula said. “He’s hiding out and nobody knows where he is but us.”

“Wow. That’s so cool. Can I go with you? I wouldn’t be any trouble. I’d just stand back and watch. Is this going to be a takedown like onDog the Bounty Hunter? That was a great show. I used to watch that all the time. It was almost my favorite show. So, what’s the plan? How are we going to get this guy?”

“We don’t know,” Lula said. “Stephanie hasn’t told us yet. We got a problem on account of it’s a vineyard with a mansion and maybe bodyguards.”

“You need to do surveillance,” Herbert said.

“Yes!” Lula said. “That’s exactly what Stephanie was thinking, but she don’t know how. The property setup is a problem.”

“You need a drone,” Herbert said.

We all went raised eyebrows. He was right. We needed a drone. “Anyone know how to fly a drone?” I asked Lula and Connie.

“I tried once,” Lula said. “It isn’t that easy.”

“I can fly a drone,” Herbert said. “I’m an expert drone flyer. People are always complimenting me on my drone flying. I use one for work sometimes.”

“What kind of work do you do?” Lula asked.

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