tick of the spinning game wheels and the highpitched Eeeeeeee of thrill seekers being hurtled down the log flume.
Rock stars, pickpockets, homies, pimps, pushers, pregnant women in bikinis, future astronauts, politicians, geeks, ghouls, and droves of families who buy American and eat Italian all come to the Jersey shore.
When I was a little girl, my sister and I rode the carousel and the whip and ate cotton candy and frozen custard. I had a stomach like iron, but Valerie always got sick on the way home and threw up in the car. When I was older, the shore was a place to meet boys. And now I find myself here on a manhunt. Who would have thought?
I stopped at a frozen custard stand and flashed Maxine's photo. "Have you seen her?"
No one could say for sure.
I worked my way down the boardwalk, showing the picture, distributing my cards. I ate some french fries, a piece of pizza, two chunks of fudge, a glass of lemonade and a vanilla-and-orange-swirl ice-cream cone. Halfway down the boardwalk I felt the pull of the white sand beach and gave up the manhunt in favor of perfecting my tan.
You have to love a job that lets you lie on the beach for the better part of the afternoon.
THE LIGHT was frantically blinking on my answering machine when I got home. If I had more than three messages my machine always went hyper. Blink, blink, blink, blink—faster than Rex could twitch his whiskers.
I accessed the messages and all were blank. "No big deal," I said to Rex. "If it's important, they'll call back."
Rex stopped running on his wheel and looked at me. Rex went nuts over blank messages. Rex had no patience to wait for people to call back. Rex had a problem with curiosity.
The phone rang, and I snatched it up. "Hello."
"Is this Stephanie?"
"Yes."
"This is Sugar. I don't suppose Sally is with you."
"No. I haven't seen Sally all day."
"He's late for dinner. He told me he'd be home, but he isn't here. I thought maybe he was off doing some bounty hunter thing since that's all he talks about anymore."
"Nope. I worked alone today."
I OPENED the curtains in my bedroom and looked out across the parking lot. It was mid-morning and already the heat was shimmering on the blacktop. A dog barked on Stiller Street, behind the lot. A screen door banged open and closed. I squinted in the direction of the barking dog and spotted a black Jeep Cherokee parked two houses down on Stiller.
No big deal, I said to myself, lots of people drive black Jeep Cherokees. Still, I'd never seen a Cherokee there before. And it really did remind me of the car that had been tailing me. Best to check it out.
I was wearing cut-off jeans and a green Big Dog T-shirt. I stuck my .38 into the waistband of the jeans and pulled the shirt over the gun. I walked around like this for a few minutes, trying to get used to the idea of carrying, but I felt like an idiot. So I took the gun out and returned it to its place in the brown bear cookie jar.
I rode the elevator to the small lobby, exited from the front entrance and walked one block down St. James. I hung a left at the corner, continued on for two blocks, turned and came up behind the Cherokee. The windows were tinted, but I could see a shadowy form at the wheel. I crept closer and knocked on the driver's-side window. The window rolled down and Joyce Barnhardt smiled out at me.
"Ciao," Joyce said.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"I'm staking you out. What does it look like I'm doing?"
"I suppose there's a reason?"
Joyce shrugged. "We're both after the same person. I thought it wouldn't hurt to see what pathetic attempts you've made to find her . . . before I take over and get the job done."
"We aren't after the same person. That simply isn't done. Vinnie would never give the same case to two different agents."
"A lot you know."
I narrowed my eyes.
"Vinnie didn't think you were making any progress, so he gave Maxine Nowicki to me."
"I don't believe you."
Joyce held her contract up for me to see. "Authorized by the Vincent Plum Agency to apprehend Maxine Nowicki . . ." she read.
"We'll see about this!"
Joyce made a pouty kissy face.
"And stop following me!"
"It's a free country," Joyce said. "I can follow you if I want to."