20 Takedown Twenty by Janet Evanovich Read Free Book Online Page B

I thought I detected some sarcasm.”
    I was talking to Lula but I was looking straight ahead,watching a black Lincoln Town Car cruise down the street and swing into Rita’s driveway.
    “Timing is everything,” I said to Lula.
    “Well, shut up,” Lula said, spotting the Lincoln. “You think they’re doing a pickup or making a delivery?”
    “I’m guessing pickup.”
    After several minutes the front door to Rita’s house opened, Uncle Sunny appeared, the door closed behind him, and he got into the backseat of the Lincoln.
    “Now what?” Lula asked, rummaging around in her Brakmin. “I got a gun in here somewhere. You want me to shoot out their tires?”
    “No. I’m going to follow them and wait for a better place to make an apprehension.”
    “Like what better place are you hoping for?”
    “A place without his henchmen.”
    The Lincoln eased out of the driveway and rolled down the street the same way it’d come. They didn’t seem to have noticed us, or maybe they didn’t care. I suspected they thought of me more as a nuisance than a genuine threat.
    We followed at a distance, allowing a couple cars to come between us. The Lincoln took Nottingham Way past Hamilton Avenue and Greenwood and turned onto State Street. Sunny was going back to his home base at Morgan and Fifteenth Street.
    The Lincoln stopped at the corner of Fifteenth and Freeman. Shorty, Moe, and Sunny got out of the car andwalked into a three-story brownstone. A young guy ran out of the building and drove away with the car.
    “Valet parking for the mafia staff car,” Lula said.
    “Sunny owns the building,” I told Lula. “He rents it out to the Chestnut Social Club.”
    “I performed at the Chestnut Social Club when I was a ’ho,” Lula said. “It was a bunch of old Italian geezers who liked talking about the good old days when they could get a boner. We figured the club was named after their shrunken privates, which were about the size of chestnuts.”
    “So you know the building?”
    “Haven’t been there in a bunch of years since I’m not a ’ho no more, but used to be the ground floor was where they played dominoes and cards on a couple cheap-ass card tables with folding chairs. There was a bar on the second floor and a kitchen, which I never saw them use because they got food delivered. They had a big TV there and some leather couches and a back room with a bed. I never got to the third floor. I figured they counted out the day’s receipts up there.”
    “Not an ideal place to make a bust.”
    “It might not be so bad. It’s someplace Sunny feels safe, so he could go upstairs to see what they took in last night, and Shorty and Moe might not feel like climbing all those stairs. Shorty and Moe are probably gonna watch the domino players and scarf down some cannoli.”
    “How would I get to Sunny if he’s on the third floor?”
    “Backstairs. Every floor got a little balcony with stairsconnecting them. It’s an emergency exit they could use if they gotta sneak out. I know about it because it’s the ’ho exit.”

    Lula parked and we walked around the corner and took stock of the back of the building.
    “I only see a window at each balcony,” I said. “No door.”
    “Yeah, you gotta climb through the window and you end up at an inside back stairwell that got a door to each floor. You could go up on the inside or you could go up on the outside. Problem is, if you go up on the inside you could run into one of the Chestnuts.”
    We were standing in a narrow alley that ran the length of the block. The alley was wide enough to accommodate a garbage truck and limited parking, but I didn’t see any cars parked. There were similar two- and three-story row houses on the other side of the alley. People occupying those row houses would be able to see me climbing the outside stairs. Fortunately the two closest houses didn’t look occupied. Their windows were boarded, and there was a construction Dumpster backed up to one of