We sat at the small table in front of the bakery and ate our doughnuts while I read through the files on Mickey Gritch and Bobby Sunflower.

“We have home addresses for Gritch and his sister, but I can’t see Gritch stashing Vinnie in either of those places,” I said to Lula. “That leaves Bobby Sunflower’s businesses. The pawnshop is on Market Street, the car wash is in Hamilton Township, and the rest are on Stark Street. Let’s do drive-bys and see if anything jumps out at us.”

“Might as well do the car wash first,” Lula said. “If I like the looks of it, I might let them wash my Firebird.”

TWO

BOBBY SUNFLOWER’S CAR wash was next to Figaroa Diner. It didn’t look like it had a lot of room for holding a bail bondsman hostage, but it advertised brushless washing and personal attention, so Lula got into line.

“I don’t know about this car wash,” I said to Lula. “I don’t like the looks of the attendants.”

“You mean on account of they’re waggin’ their tongues at us and making kissey sounds?”

“Yeah.” Plus the multiple piercings, tattoos, ridiculous homey pants, and I was pretty sure one of them had a boner.

“They’re just bein’ boys,” Lula said.

I looked in my bag to see if I had pepper spray or a stun gun.

The pack of idiots swaggered over to us, and one leaned in the window at Lula.

“Hey, momma,” he said. “We gonna wash your car like it never been washed before.”

“This isn’t no ordinary car,” Lula said. “This is my baby. I don’t want to see no scratches on it when you’re done.”

“You be nice to me and my boys, and we’ll wash your baby by hand.”

“How nice do I gotta be?” Lula asked.

“Real nice,” he said, smiling wide so we could see he had industrial-grade diamonds embedded in his decayed teeth.

“That’s disgusting,” Lula said. “You need to show some respect and act like professional car washers. And get your head out of my window.”

“I think me and my boys need to show you what we got and maybe we teach you some respect.”

Lula pulled her Glock out of her purse and stuck it in his face.

“You got ten seconds before I blow your nose off,” Lula said.

“Yow, momma!” the guy said.

They all turned and ran, and Lula squeezed off six rounds, managing to miss all of the car washers at pretty much point-blank range.

“Hunh,” Lula said, rolling her window up and driving out of the lot. “They don’t make these guns like they used to. I can’t believe I didn’t hit a single one of those fools.”

Next stop was the pawnshop. Lula parked on the street, and we got out and looked around. There was an apartment above the shop, but so far as we knew, it wasn’t owned by Sunflower. A consignment store was to one side of the pawnshop and a pizza place was to the other side.