One for the Money by Janet Evanovich

she sorted through a stack of manila folders.
“Most of our recovery agents work a bunch of cases simultaneously,” Connie said. “It's more efficient that way.” She handed me a dozen folders. “These are the FTAs Morty Beyers was handling for us. He's gonna be out for a while longer, so you might as well take a crack at them. Some are easier than others. Memorize the names and addresses and hook them up to the photographs. You never know when you'll get lucky. Last week Andy Zabotsky was standing in line for a bucket of fried chicken and recognized the guy in front of him as a skip. It was a good find, too. A dealer. We would have been out $30,000.”
“I didn't know you posted bond for drug dealers,” I said. “I always thought you did mostly low-key stuff.”
“Drug dealers are good,” Connie said. “They don't like to leave the area. They've got clients. They're making good money. If they skip you can usually count on them to resurface.”
I tucked the files under my arm, promising to make copies and return the originals to Connie. The chicken story had been inspiring. If Andy Zabotsky could catch a crook in a chicken franchise, just think of my own personal potential. I ate that crappy food all the time. I even liked it. Maybe this bounty hunter business would work out. Once I became financially solvent, I could support myself by collecting people like Sampson and making an occasional fast-food bust.
I pushed through the front door and caught my breath at the sudden absence of air-conditioning. The day had gone from hot to blistering. The air was thick and muggy, the sky hazy. The sun prickled on exposed skin, and I looked up, shielding my eyes, half expecting to see the ozone hole gaping over me like a big cyclops eye shooting out lethal rays of radioactive whatever. I know the hole is supposedly hanging out over Antarctica, but it seemed logical to me that sooner or later it would slide on up to Jersey. Jersey produced urea formaldehyde and collected New York's garbage offshore. I thought it only fitting that it have the ozone hole as well.
I unlocked the Cherokee and swiveled behind the wheel. Sampson's recovery money wouldn't get me to Barbados, but it would put something in my refrigerator besides mold. Even more important, it would give me a chance to run through the motions of an apprehension. When Ranger had taken me to the police station to get my gun permit, he'd also explained the recovery procedure, but there was no substitute for hands-on experience.
I flipped the switch on the car phone and dialed Clarence Sampson's home number. No one answered. No work number had been given. The police report listed his address as 5077 Limeing Street. I wasn't familiar with Limeing Street, so I'd looked it up on a map and discovered Sampson lived two blocks over from Stark, down by the state buildings. I had Sampson's picture taped to the dash, and every few seconds I checked it against men on the street as I drove.
Connie had suggested I visit the bars on lower Stark. On my list of favorite things to do, spending happy hour at the Rainbow Room on the corner of Stark and Limeing fell just below cutting off both my thumbs with a dull knife. It seemed to me it would be just as effective and a lot less dangerous to sit locked up in the Cherokee and surveil the street. If Clarence Sampson was in one of the bars, sooner or later he'd have to come out.
It took several passes before I found a space I liked at the corner of Limeing and Stark. I had a good view of Stark, and I was also able to see half a block down Limeing. I was a little conspicuous in my suit, with all my whiteness and big shiny red car, but I wasn't nearly as conspicuous as I'd be sashaying into the Rainbow Room. I cracked the windows and slouched down in my seat, trying to get comfortable.
A kid with a lot of hair and $700 worth of gold around his neck stopped and looked in at me while his two friends stood nearby. “Hey babe,” he said. “What