Seven Up - By Janet Evanovich Page 0,8

Benny said. "Ziggy and Eddie and me go way back. So Ziggy and me are concerned about Eddie's sudden disappearance. We're worried Eddie might be in trouble."

"You mean because he killed Loretta Ricci?"

"No, we don't think that's a big issue. People are always accusing Eddie of killing people."

Ziggy leaned forward in a conspiratorial whisper. "Bum raps, all of them."

Of course.

"We're concerned because we think Eddie might not be thinking right," Benny said. "He's been in this depression. We go to see him and he don't want to talk to us. He's never been like that."

"It's not normal," Ziggy said.

"Anyway, we know you're looking for him, and we don't want him to get hurt, you understand?"

"You don't want me to shoot him."

"Yeah."

"I almost never shoot people."

"Sometimes it happens, but God forbid it would be Choochy," Benny said. "We're trying to prevent it from being Choochy."

"Hey," I said, "if he gets shot it won't be my bullet."

"And then there's something else," Benny said. "We're trying to find Choochy so we can help him."

Ziggy nodded. "We think maybe he should be seeing a doctor. Maybe he needs a psychiatrist. So we figured we could work together being that you're looking for him, too."

"Sure," I said, "if I find him I'll let you know." After I delivered him up to the court and had him safely behind bars.

"And we were wondering if you have any leads?"

"Nope. None."

"Gee, we were counting on you to have some leads. We heard you were pretty good."

"Actually, I'm not all that good . . . it's more that I'm lucky."

Another exchange of glances.

"So, are you, you know, feeling lucky about this?" Benny asked.

Hard to feel lucky when I've just let a depressed senior citizen slip through my fingers, found a dead woman in his shed, and sat through dinner with my parents. "Well, it's sort of too early to tell."

There was some fumbling at the door, the door swung open, and Mooner ambled in. Mooner was wearing a head-to-toe purple spandex bodysuit with a big silver M sewn onto the chest.

"Hey dude," Mooner said. "I tried calling you, but you were never home. I wanted to show you my new Super Mooner Suit."

"Cripes," Benny said, "he looks like a flaming fruit."

"I'm a superhero, dude," the Mooner said.

"Super fruitcake is more like it. You walk around in this suit all day?"

"No way, dude. This is my secret suit. Ordinarily I only wear this when I'm doing super deeds, but I wanted the dudette here to get the full impact, so I changed in the hall."

"Can you fly like Superman?" Benny asked Mooner.

"No, but I can fly in my mind, dude. Like, I can soar."

"Oh boy," Benny said.

Ziggy looked at his watch. "We gotta go. If you get a line on Choochy you'll let us know, right?"

"Sure." Maybe.

I watched them leave. They were like Jack Sprat and his wife. Benny was about fifty pounds overweight with chins spilling over his collar. And Ziggy looked like a turkey carcass. I assumed they both lived in the Burg and belonged to Chooch's club, but I didn't know that for certain. Another assumption was that they were on file as former Vincent Plum bondees since they hadn't felt it necessary to give me their phone numbers.

"So what do you think of the suit?" Mooner asked me when Benny and Ziggy left. "Dougie and me found a whole box of them. I think they're like for swimmers or runners or something. Dougie and me don't know any swimmers who could use them, but we thought we could turn them into Super Suits. See, you can wear them like underwear and then when you need to be a superhero you just take your clothes off. Only problem is we haven't got any capes. That's probably why the old dude didn't know I was a superhero. No cape."

"You don't really think you're a superhero, do you?"

"You mean like in real life?"

"Yeah."

Mooner looked astonished. "Superheroes are like, fiction. Didn't anyone ever tell you that?"

"Just checking."

I'd gone to high school with Walter "MoonMan" Dunphy and Dougie "The Dealer" Kruper.

Mooner lives with two other guys in a narrow row house on Grant Street. Together they form the Legion of Losers. They're all potheads and misfits, floating from one menial job to the next, living hand-to-mouth. They're also gentle and harmless and utterly adoptable. I don't exactly hang with Mooner. It's more that we keep in touch, and when our paths cross he tends to generate maternal feelings in me. Mooner