Seven Up - By Janet Evanovich Page 0,55

know anything about the shrimp?"

"Nope. Not me."

"How's Bob? He know anything about the chow mein?"

"Bob's fine. He had a stomach problem earlier this morning, but he's okay now."

Connie and Lula did a high five.

"I knew it!" Lula said.

"I'm driving around checking out a few houses," I said. "I was wondering if anyone wanted to go with me."

"Uh-oh," Lula said. "The only time you want company is when you're worried someone's out to get you."

"Eddie DeChooch might sort of be looking for me." Probably other people were after me, too, but Eddie DeChooch seemed the craziest and most likely to shoot me. Although the old lady with the scary eyes was starting to run a close second.

"I guess we can handle Eddie DeChooch," Lula said, getting her handbag out of the bottom file drawer. "He's just a little bitty depressed old man."

With a gun.

Lula and I dropped in on Mooner's roommates first.

"Is Mooner here?" I asked.

"Nope. Haven't seen him. He might be at Dougie's. He's there a lot."

We went to Dougie's house next. I had taken Dougie's keys when Mooner got shot and I'd never given them back. I opened the front door and Lula and I did a walk-through. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I went back to the kitchen and looked in the freezer and refrigerator.

"What's that about?" Lula asked.

"Just checking."

After Dougie's house we drove to Eddie DeChooch's house. The crime-scene tape was gone, and the DeChooch half looked dark and unlived in.

I parked the car and Lula and I did a walk-through in DeChooch's house. Again, nothing out of the ordinary. Just for the hell of it I looked in the freezer and refrigerator. There was a pot roast in the freezer.

"I could see that pot roast turns you on," Lula said.

"Dougie had a pot roast stolen from his freezer."

"Uh-huh."

"This could be it. This could be the stolen pot roast."

"Let me get this straight. You think Eddie DeChooch broke into Dougie's house and stole a pot roast."

Now that I heard it said out loud it sounded kind of dumb. "It could happen," I said.

We drove by the social club and the church, cruised through Mary Maggie's parking garage, cut over to Ace Payers, and ended with Ronald DeChooch's house in north Trenton. In the course of our travels we covered most of Trenton and all of the Burg.

"That's it for me," Lula said. "I need fried chicken. I want some of that Cluck in a Bucket extra spicy, extra greasy. And I want biscuits and cole slaw and one of them shakes that are so thick you gotta suck your guts out to get it up a straw."

Cluck in a Bucket is just a couple blocks from the office. It has a big revolving chicken impaled on a pole that sprouts out of the macadam parking lot, and it has excellent fastfood fried chicken.

Lula and I got a bucket and took it to a table.

"So let me get this straight," Lula said. "Eddie DeChooch goes to Richmond and picks up some cigarettes. While DeChooch is in Richmond, Louie D buys the farm and something gets screwed up. We don't know what."

I selected a piece of chicken and nodded.

"Choochy comes back to Trenton with the cigarettes, drops some off with Dougie, and then gets himself arrested trying to take the rest of the cigarettes to New York."

I nodded some more.

"Next thing Loretta Ricci is dead and Chooch takes off on us."

"Yep. And then Dougie goes missing. Benny and Ziggy are looking for Chooch. Chooch is looking for something. Again, we don't know what. And somebody steals Dougie's pot roast."

"And now Mooner's missing, too," Lula said. "Chooch thought Mooner had the something. You told Chooch you had the something. And Chooch offered you money but no Mooner."

"Yeah."

"That's the dumbest load of shit I ever heard," Lula said, biting into a chicken thigh. She stopped talking and chewing and opened her eyes wide. "Urg," she said. Then she started waving her arms and clutching her throat.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

More throat clutching.

"Whack her on the back," someone offered from another table.

"That doesn't work," someone else said. "You're supposed to do that Heimlich thing."

I ran around to Lula and tried to wrap my arms around her to do the Heimlich, but my arms wouldn't go all the way around.

A big guy walked over from the counter, got Lula in a bear hug from behind, and squeezed.

"Ptoooh," Lula said. And a piece of chicken flew out of her mouth and hit a