“You fell asleep watching television, so I carried you in here and figured you wouldn’t mind if I joined you. I don’t fit on your couch, and I’m not in love with sleeping on the floor. Did you put in for a wake-?up call?”
“That was Morelli coming off a triple shift. Checking in.”
I got up and peeked into the living room. No horse. No Snuggy. I went to the bedroom window and pulled the curtain aside. Snuggy and Doug were on a patch of grass at the back of my parking lot. Doug limped when he walked.
“Doug’s leg is bothering him,” I said to Diesel. “It makes me feel sad to see him limping. I bet he was a sight when he was young and healthy.”
“He’ll be okay,” Diesel said. “We’ll find a way to get him healed.”
I nodded and blinked to keep from tearing up. Between
Doug and Grandma, I had a lot of painful emotions clogging my throat.
“I’m going to take a shower,” I said to Diesel.
“Would you like company?”
“No, but thanks for offering.”
“The least I could do,” Diesel said.
I got clean clothes, locked myself in the bathroom, and stepped into the shower. When I got out, I felt reenergized.
“I got an idea while you were in the shower,” Diesel said. “We need money, right? Who has money sitting around? Delvina. I watched the duffel bag get carried into the car wash, and I didn’t see it come out. I’m guessing Delvina has the money in the car wash safe.”
“And?”
“And we steal the money from Delvina. Then we can give it back to him to get Grandma. I swear, sometimes I’m so brilliant I can hardly stand it.”
“Only problem is, how do we steal the money without getting caught?”
“We need a diversion.”
“Oh boy. Been there, done that.”
“It’s going to have to be a much better diversion. Something clever. Let me jump in the shower and change my clothes and we’ll go do some recon.”
Snuggy, Diesel, and I sat in my car across from the car wash and watched the action. Friday was senior citizen discount day, and at eight o’clock, business was already jumping.
“This is going to be tough,” I said to Diesel. “Too many people. We should have done
this last night, when it was dark.”
“I didn’t think of it last night. Let’s get out and walk around. Get a different perspective. See if we can come up with an angle.”
Diesel crossed the street, walked half a block down, and then doubled back, coming up behind the building. Snuggy and I walked in the opposite direction on the other side of the street.
A Doberman was sitting in a small front yard, watching traffic. He was wearing a collar with a little box attached.
“Invisible fence,” Snuggy said. “There’s a wire buried under the ground, and he gets zapped if he crosses it.” He smiled at the dog. “How’s it going?”
The dog looked at Snuggy.
“Wow, no kidding,” Snuggy said.
“What?” I asked.
“He says he ate a sock, and he’s waiting to crap it out. That’s why he’s outside. Ordinarily, he’s inside at this time of the day.”