Page 62 of Now or Never

“We’re at a rest stop,” I said. “Herbert got hungry.”

“Where’s Jug?”

“Lou came and got him.”

“Are you kidding me? When did this happen?”

“A couple minutes ago.”

“I missed it!”

“There wasn’t much to miss,” I said. “The helicopter landed in the parking lot, Lou and another guy got out and repossessed Jug, and the helicopter flew away with them.”

“That’s a bitch,” Lula said. “Is this the rest stop with Chick-fil-A?”

Twenty minutes later we were all back in the car with our bags of food. I wolfed down a double cheeseburger followed by a venti caffè mocha. Plus, I had an additional caffè mocha in the driver’s-side cupholder. I pulled out of the lot with Lula riding shotgun next to me, eating at a more leisurely pace.

“There’s something voodoo going on with Jug,” Lula said. “It’s not normal the way we keep almost bringing him in and thenwhoosh, he gets snatched away. And this is going on at the same time we got a vampire on the loose and we can’t find him. There’s stars in misalignment somewhere. It’s like when all those spooks got set loose inGhostbusters.”

I thought an alternative explanation might be that I sucked as a bounty hunter.

“Call Connie,” I said to Lula. “Tell her she can stop trying to get a judge for Jug.”

I dropped Herbert off at the office and helped him transfer his equipment into his Prius. “Thanks for flying the drone,” I said. “It was really helpful.”

“This was great,” Herbert said. “Usually, I’m looking at a building or a park or something boring. This was like private investigator or CIA stuff. I’m sorry I didn’t see the helicopter land. That had to be exciting. I’ve never seen a helicopter land in person. At least I saw it leave. I was coming out of the building, and I saw it lift off. You probably see stuff like that all the time.”

“Not all the time,” I said.

“So, call me if you need anything,” Herbert said. “They were supposed to hang your television today. I hope they did a good job. I would have supervised, but since I couldn’t be there, I asked your building super to make sure everything was okay.”

“Television?”

“I hope it’s not too big, but I figure big is always better. Except for ears and noses. Mine might be borderline too big, but my mother thinks they’re perfect. I guess she should know, right?”

“Right.”

“I got you a premium package and it’s paid up for a year, so you don’t have to worry about anything. You can watch Netflix and Amazon Prime and all that stuff. I watch a lot of shows on BritBox. Maybe sometime we can watch some shows together. I could come over now to get you started if you want.”

“Jeez.”

“If tonight is bad, I could come over tomorrow.”

“I’ll call you,” I said. “I have to check my schedule. And I might be coming down with something. Maybe COVID.”

“Yeah, you look a little feverish. I thought it was just the caffè mochas. I get blotchy if I have too much caffeine.”

I got back behind the wheel and looked at myself in the rearview mirror. “Do I look feverish?” I asked Lula.

“You look fried,” Lula said. “I think you had too much mocha. Your one eye is twitching.”

I put my finger to it to make it stop.

“Maybe I should drive you home,” Lula said.

I pulled away from the curb. “You drank half a bottle of wine.I’mdrivingyouhome.”

“Okay, but then you have to pick me up tomorrow for whatever it is that we’re gonna do, because I won’t have my car.”

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