Janet Evanovich: Smokin Seventeen

“Maybe I should be more careful what I eat,” Lula said. “I don’t mind being a big woman, but I don’t want to get to be a huge woman. I don’t want no couch slopin’ in my direction.”

Here’s the thing I’ve noticed about Lula. I’ve seen her when she’s on a healthy eating plan, holding her calories down, I’ve seen her on ridiculous fad diets, and I’ve seen her when she eats everything in sight. And so far as I can tell, her weight never changes.

“He’s in Building B,” I told Lula. “Third floor. Apartment three-oh-seven.”

“Who we gonna be? Pizza delivery? Census taker? Local ho?”

“I thought I’d just ring his bell and see what happens.”

“He might be happy to see you. Going to jail might be a treat after living here.”

We entered a small lobby with a bank of mailboxes on one side and an elevator on the other. There was a sign next to the elevator that said it was out of service. The sign looked like it had been up there for a long time. Lula pushed the elevator button anyway, and we waited a couple minutes. Eventually we heard groaning and creaking and the elevator doors opened. We looked into the dark interior of the elevator and decided to take the stairs.

“This isn’t so bad,” Lula said when we got to the third floor. “So far I haven’t seen any rats or blood splatter. No alligators, either. Mostly from what I can tell the problem is this place don’t have amenities, aside from the recreational area by the dumpster.”

We walked halfway down the hall and stood outside unit 307, listening at the door. A television was droning inside the apartment.

“Probably he’s got a gun,” Lula said, “being that he’s wanted for armed robbery. I guess if I’m turning into a vampire I don’t have to worry so much about getting shot, so maybe I should be the one to go through the door first.”

“Okay. You can go first.”

“But then suppose I’m not turning into a vampire? There might not have been any vampire venom transferred since I just got a hickey.”

“No problem. I’ve got it.”

I knocked on the door, and Lula stood to one side. The door opened, and Merlin looked out at us.

“What?” Merlin said.

Merlin Brown was 6?2? and built like a linebacker for Dallas. His skin was a shade past Lula’s, he had a lightning bolt carved into his forehead, two gold teeth in the front of his mouth, and he’d answered the door buck-naked. His Mr. Happy was hanging at half-mast and was about the size of a wanger on a champion stud Clydesdale.

Lula looked Merlin up and down. “Mother of God!”

“B-b-bond engorgement,” I said. I blew out some air and corrected myself. “Bond enforcement.”

“I’m busy,” Brown said.

That was pretty much stating the obvious.

“You got a lady friend here?” Lula asked him.

“Nope.”

“Boyfriend?”

“Nope.”

“You always walk around like this?”

“Pretty much. I got laid off a couple months ago and I haven’t got a lot to do. I rob a store once in a while but that’s about it. So I pass the time doing … you know.”

“Well this here’s your lucky day,” Lula said. “We got a activity for you. All you gotta do is put some clothes on and come with us.”

“I go with you and I’m gonna end up in jail. I already been in jail and I didn’t like it. Anyways, I got a better idea,” Brown said. “How about you take your clothes off and we stay here. In fact, how about if I help you. How about if I start off helpin’ myself to Miss Skinny Ass Bounty Hunter here.”

I took a step back and talked out of the side of my mouth to Lula. “Do you have your g-u-n with you?”

“Yeah,” Lula said. “You think it’s time to use it?”

“I know what you spelled,” Brown said. “You spelled gun. Like you’d shoot me, right? First off, you’re girls. And second you can’t shoot an unarmed man. I could do whatever I want and you can’t shoot me.”

Lula pulled her 9mm Glock out of her purse, aimed it at Brown’s foot, and fired off a shot. It missed by about six inches, so she made a course correction and squeezed off another round. The second round was also off the mark. No surprise since Lula was the world’s worst shot. Lula couldn’t hit the side of a barn if she was standing three feet away from it.

“You fat chicks can never shoot worth anything,” Brown said. “It’s been one of my observations.”

“Excuse me?” Lula said, eyes narrowed, nostrils flaring. “Fat chick? Did you just call me a fat chick? I better have heard wrong because I don’t like being called a fat chick.”

And then Lula got lucky, or unlucky depending on your point of view, and she shot Brown’s pinky toe off.

“YOW!” Brown yelled. “What the fuck? Are you fuckin’ nuts?”

And he fainted. Crash. Flat out on his back with his foot bleeding, and his flagpole standing at attention.

Lula stared down at Brown’s stiffy. “He must have taken one of those pills on account of that’s just not normal.”

“You’ve got to stop shooting people!” I said to Lula. “It’s against the law.”

“He said I was a fat chick.”

“That’s not a good reason to shoot someone’s toe off.”

“Seemed like it at the time,” Lula said. “What are we gonna do now? We gonna drag his ass out to the car?”

“If we bring him in now we’ll have to take him to the hospital first. And then we’re going to have to explain the missing toe.”

“Yeah, and the giant boner. I don’t mind so much taking responsibility for the toe, but I don’t want nothin’ to do with the boner.”

His cell phone was lying on the coffee table. I dialed 911, gave a phony name, reported a shooting, and gave the address.

“Uh-oh,” Lula said. “Mr. Big got his eyes open.”

Brown blinked up at Lula. “What happened?”

“You fainted.”

“My foot hurts.”

“You must have stubbed your toe on the way down,” Lula said. “That’s why you should be wearing shoes.”

“Now I remember,” he said. “I didn’t stub my toe. You fuckin’ shot me.”

Lula stuffed her hands on her hips. “You said I was fat. I got a mind to shoot you again.”

Brown catapulted himself off the floor and lunged at Lula. “Arrrrgh!”

I grabbed Lula by the back of her shirt and yanked her to the door. “Go! Run!”

“Outta my way,” Lula said, rushing past me. “He got crazy eyes.”

Between the missing toe and the male enhancement issue, after the initial lunge Brown wasn’t able to move all that fast. Lula and I thundered down the stairs, chugged across the parking lot, threw ourselves into the car, and took off.

Lula was breathing heavy. “Do you think he’ll tell the police on me?”

“No. Brown doesn’t want to have anything to do with the police. By the time the police get to his apartment he’ll be long gone.” Good for Lula, I thought, checking the pimple out in the rearview mirror, but not so good for Vinnie.

“You keep lookin’ at your pimple and we’re gonna have an accident,” Lula said.

“Now that I know it’s there I can’t get it out of my mind.”

“At least you don’t have a vampire hickey on your neck. I got a date with a hunk of lovin’ tonight. He might be Mr. Wonderful.”

“Maybe you could put a scarf around your neck.”

“What happens when hunk of lovin’ undresses me?”

“Maybe you could decorate it to look like a tattoo gone bad.”

TO GET BACKto the bonds office from Merlin Brown’s apartment, I had to drive down Stark, past the junkyard, and cut through the combat zone. This was a mixture of graffiti-covered, rat-infested, three-story brick rooming houses, garbage-strewn empty lots, and sketchy businesses operating out of barred storefronts and back alleys. It was shocking to think anyone lived in this destroyed neighborhood, and even more shocking to know some of them were good, decent people. They were victims of time and circumstance, struggling not to succumb to the wreckage around them.