“Don’t think I got much of a job description,” Lula said. “Seems to me I do whatever got to be done, and right now I’ve done it all unless I want to sweep the floor and scrub the toilet.”

“She’s a filing maniac,” Connie said. “She was born to file.”

“You haven’t seen anything yet,” Lula said. “Wait’ll you see me be an assistant bounty hunter.”

“Go for it,” Connie said.

Lula packed herself into her jacket and grabbed her pocketbook. “This is gonna be good,” she said. “This is gonna be like Cagney and Lacey.”

I searched the big wall map for Moon’s address. “Okay by me if it’s okay with Connie, but I want to be Cagney.”

“No way! I want to be Cagney,” Lula said.

“I said it first.”

Lula stuck her lower lip out and narrowed her eyes. “Was my idea, and I’m not doing it if I can’t be Cagney.”

I looked at her. “We aren’t serious about this, are we?”

“Hunh,” Lula said. “Speak for yourself.”

I told Connie not to wait up, and held the front door for Lula. “We’re going to check out Louie Moon first,” I said to her.

Lula stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and looked at Big Blue. “We going in this big motherfucker Buick?”

“Yep.”

“I knew a pimp once had a car like this.”

“It belonged to my uncle Sandor.”

“He a businessman?”

“Not that I know of.”

Louie Moon lived on the far perimeter of Hamilton Township. It was almost four when we turned onto Orchid Street. I counted off homes, searching for 216, amused that such an exotically named street had been blessed with a lineup of unimaginative crackerbox houses. It was a neighborhood built in the sixties when land was available, so the plots were large, making the two-bedroom ranches seem even smaller. Over the years homeowners had personalized their carbon-copy houses, adding a garage here, a porch there. The houses had been modernized with vinyl siding of various muted shades. Bay windows had been inserted. Azalea bushes had been planted. And still the sameness prevailed.

Louie Moon’s house was set apart by a bright turquoise paint job, a full array of Christmas lights, and a five-foot-tall plastic Santa strapped to a rusted TV antenna.

“Guess he gets into the spirit early,” Lula said.

From the droop of the lights haphazardly stapled to his house and the faded look to Santa, I’d guess he was in the spirit all year long.

The house didn’t have a garage, and there were no cars in the driveway or parked at the curb. The house looked dark and undisturbed. I left Lula in the car and went to the front door. I knocked twice. No answer. The house was one floor built on a slab. The curtains were all open. Louie had nothing to hide. I circled the house, peeking into windows. The inside was neat and furnished with what I guessed to be an accumulation of discards. There was no sign of recent wealth. No boxes of ammo stacked on the kitchen table. Not a single assault rifle in sight. It looked to me like he lived alone. One cup and one bowl in the dish drain. One side of the double bed had been slept in.