I looked Johnson's phone number up on the bond sheet and called him from my cell.

'Yeah?' a man said.

'Lonnie Johnson?'

'What the fuck you want? Fuckin' bitch calling me at this hour. You think I got nothin' better to do than answer this phone?' And he hung up.

'Well?' Lula asked.

'He didn't feel like talking. And he's angry.'

A shiny black Hummer with tinted windows and bling wheel covers rolled down the street and stopped in front of Johnson's house.

'Uh-oh,' Lula said. 'Company.'

The Hummer sat there for a moment and then opened fire on Johnson's house. Multiple weapons. At least one was automatic, firing continuous rounds. Windows blew out and the house was drilled with shots. Gunfire was returned from the house, and I saw the nose of a rocket launcher poke out a front window. Obviously the Hummer saw it too because it laid rubber taking off.

'Maybe this isn't a good time,' I said to Lula.

'I told you to go for the pervert.'

Melvin Pickle worked in a shoe store. The store was part of the mall that attached to the multiplex where he'd been caught shaking hands with the devil. I didn't have a lot of enthusiasm for this capture, since I had some sympathetic feelings for Pickle. If I had to work in a shoe store all day I might go to the multiplex to whack off once in a while too.

'Not only is this going to be an easy catch,' Lula said, parking at the food court entrance, 'but we can get pizza and go shopping.'

A half hour later, we were full of pizza and had taken a couple new perfumes out for a test drive. We'd moseyed down the mall and were standing in front of Pickle's shoe store, scoping out the employees. I had a photo of Pickle that had come with his bond agreement.

That's him,' Lula said, looking into the store. 'That's him on his knees, trying to sell that dumb woman those ugly-ass shoes.'