"You must be tuned in to the cosmic loop this morning," Connie said. "I was just about to call you. Vinnie's bananas over Annie Hart."

Vinnie's ferret face appeared in the doorway of his inner office. "Well?" he asked me.

"Well what?"

"Tell me you've got her locked up nice and neat. Tell me you've got a body receipt."

"I've got a lead," I told Vinnie.

"Only a lead?" Vinnie clapped his hands to his head. "You're killing me!"

Lula was on the faux leather couch, reading a magazine. "We should be so lucky," Lula said.

Lula is a 180-pound black woman crammed into a five-foot, five-inch body. At the moment, she was wearing a red skin-tight spandex T-shirt that said Kiss MY ass in iridescent gold lettering, jeans with rhinestones marching down side seams that looked like they might burst apart at any minute, and four-inch high-heeled boots. Lula does the office filing when she's in the mood, and she rides shotgun for me when I need backup.

"What's the lineup look like?" I asked Connie.

"Nothing new. Annie Hart is the only big bond in the wind. It's always slow at this time of the year. All the serious crackheads killed themselves over Christmas, and it's too cold for the hookers and pushers to stand on the street corners. The only good crime we've got going on is gang shooting, and those idiots get held without bond."

"It's so slow Vinnie's going on a cruise," Lula said.

"Yeah, and the cruise isn't cheap," Vinnie said. "So get your ass out there and find Annie Hart. I'm not running a goddamn charity here. I take a hit on Hart's bond, and I'll have to fake a stroke and cash in my cruise insurance. And Lucille wouldn't like that."