22 Tricky Twenty-Two Read Online Free PDF Page A

one in the lab.
    “Avi?” I asked him.
    “Yes.”
    “I represent Vincent Plum Bail Bonds, and I’m looking for Ken Globovic.”
    “Everyone calls him Gobbles,” Avi said. “I haven’t seen him since he was arrested.”
    “Do you have any idea where he might be hiding?”
    “No, but I suspect he’s in the area. There have been sightings of him on campus. Mostly late at night.”
    “I was told he has a girlfriend.”
    “Julie Ruley,” Avi said. “She’s really nice. I think she’s a journalism major. She came here with Gobbles a couple times.”
    “So what do you think of this Gobbles guy?” Lula asked him.
    “I like him. And I can’t see him breaking into Dean Mintner’s house without good cause, if that’s what you want to know.”
    I gave him my card and told him to call or text if Gobbles turned up.
    Three girls were loitering in the hall when we left the lab.
    “I can see why the ladies like him,” Lula said. “Besides being cute, he’s got a nice way about him.”
    “Charismatic.”
    “Yeah, that’s it. Charismatic. Gobbles sounds like he’s charismatic too. And I could tell you who
isn’t
charismatic. It’s that Dean Mintner. He don’t sound like no fun at all. And if you ask me, Professor Pooka is batshit crazy.”
    “I’d like to talk to the girlfriend,” I said to Lula.
    “How’re you going to find her?”
    “The dean of students is going to help us.”
    “Oh boy, that’s gonna be a treat. You sure you don’t want to go after Billy Bacon first? Get ourselves fortified with egg salad before talking to Mr. Cranky Pants again?”
    “No. I want to get this wrapped up. If we can get one decent lead, this guy shouldn’t be hard to snag. He’s an amateur, and I’m sure the police confiscated his baseball bat. How hard can this be?”
    •••
    I looked in at Mintner and did a little finger wave. “Hi. Remember me?”
    Mintner was behind his desk. He leaned forward and squinted at me. “Yes. Now what?”
    “I was hoping you could help me find Mr. Globovic’s girlfriend, Julie Ruley.”
    “Unfortunately I know this young woman,” Mintner said. “She’s trying to turn the school paper into the
Enquirer.
Everything is a crusade. It’s all so sensational. And she has tattoos.”
    “Well, that’s a sin against nature right there,” Lula said.
    “Exactly,” Mintner said. He focused on Lula. “Are you being sarcastic? Do you have tattoos?”
    “I don’t have any tattoos on account of they don’t show up that good on my fabulous dark chocolate skin. And yeah, I’m being sarcastic as hell.”
    Mintner mumbled something that I thought might have sounded like
dumb bitch
and turned to his computer. He typed in
Julie Ruley,
and moments later printed out her class schedule and dorm address.
    “After classes she’s most likely at the newspaper office,” Mintner said. “I’m helping you because Globovic is a menace. He needs to be found and taken off the streets.”
    “You bet your ass,” Lula said. “And we’re the ladies who are gonna do it.”
    I took the printout and thanked Mintner. I picked up a campus map on the way out of the building and studied it. The newspaper office wasn’t listed, but I guessed it would be either in the journalism department or in the student center. According to Julie Ruley’s schedule she was currently in a twentieth-century literature class in the Steinart building. No doubt doing an in-depth comparison of James Joyce’s
Ulysses
with
Harry Potter.
    “She’s in class now,” I said to Lula. “Then she’s free for the afternoon. Since we don’t know what she looks like, beyond being Malibu Barbie with tattoos, I guess we should try the newspaper office after lunch.”

FOUR
    K STREET IS in a sketchy part of town. Not nearly as bad as the blighted blocks of upper Stark, but bad enough that you want to keep your eyes open for big mutant rats and drugged-out old men. Mixed in with the rats and the dopers are decent citizens,