“Thanks,” I said.

“You’re not going to visit me, are you?”

“No.”

“Nothing personal, but that’s a relief.”

I left Gritch to his lunch trade and went back to the Jeep. Lula swung in minutes later with two boxes of nachos and two giant-size sodas.

“What about the one diet?” I asked her. “Aren’t you only allowed to have one chip?”

“That diet isn’t real specific about meaning one chip or one box of nachos. I’m thinking of quitting that diet anyway. It don’t work. I think I’m going to have to look for a new diet.”

I finished the nachos, and I was torn between going after Chopper and continuing to look for Vinnie. If I caught Chopper, I might be able to get my car fixed. I loved the Jeep, but it wasn’t mine. Eventually, it would have to be returned to Ranger. Especially if I got back together with Morelli. Using one man’s car and sleeping in another man’s bed didn’t work. At least not when the men were Ranger and Morelli. Of course, if I slept with Ranger, I might be able to keep the Jeep indefinitely.

“What the heck are you thinking?” Lula asked me. “You’re mumbling and rolling your eyes and sighing.”

“I was thinking I need to find Vinnie. He only has two days left.”

“Do you think Sunflower would really kill Vinnie?”

“Yes,” I said. “I think he’d kill Vinnie.”

“I do, too,” Lula said. “Sunflower’s a bad man.”

I finished my soda, collected the trash, and ran it over to the trash can by the door. I ran back and cranked the Jeep over.

“Where we going?” Lula wanted to know. “We’ve already been all over the place.”

“I have a hunch. They had to hustle Vinnie out of the burning house and stash him someplace else. It would have to be someplace easy on short notice. Someplace like an apartment building.”

“The rat house.”

“Exactly.”

In fifteen minutes, we were in front of the apartment building on Stark. The area around the apartment was quiet at this time of the day, but a scrawny guy, who I assumed had a big gun, was slouched on a folding chair by the door.

“That’s like a advertisement Vinnie’s in there,” Lula said.

“Maybe.”

I drove around the corner and turned into the alley. We counted off units, and I idled behind the apartment building. It had six parking spaces marked off in its small lot. The rest of the lot was given over to a Dumpster. The black SUV was parked in one of the spaces. The building had a back door at ground level. One window with bars at ground level. No bars on the windows on the second, third, and fourth floors. A rusted fire escape clung precariously to the back of the building.

“Try the back door,” I said to Lula.

Lula dropped out of the Jeep, crossed the lot, and tried the door. Locked. She got back into the Jeep.