Janet Evanovich - Plum Spooky

The rat scurried across Lula’s foot and kept going past boxes of potatoes and beans. It took a left and headed for Pennyslvania. Bollo did the same. By the time I got to my feet, and Lula stopped freaking, Bollo was long gone.

A bunch of guys had gathered around us. They were throwing out comments in Spanish and laughing.

“What are they saying?” Lula wanted to know.

“I don’t know,” I told her. “I don’t speak Spanish. The only thing I could pick out was loco.”

“What are you looking at?” Lula said to the men. “Don’t you have anything better to do? This place should be shut down. I’m calling the health inspector. I’m gonna report this place to the fruit police.” Lula turned to me. “And what’s with you and the dud stun gun? Let me take a look at that thing.”

I handed Lula the stun gun, and she tested it out on the guy next to her, who immediately collapsed into a heap on the floor and wet his pants.

“Seems to be working now,” Lula said, handing the stun gun back to me.

I dropped the stun gun into my bag, Lula pocketed her Glock, and we hotfooted it out of there. We chose to leave through the loading dock exit and walk around the building rather than drip egg and melon guts onto the office floor. We wiped off as best we could and climbed into my Jeep.

“You see, this is what Miss Gloria’s talking about,” Lula said. “I got bad juju. How else could you explain it?”

“It’s not our juju,” I told Lula. “It’s our skill level. We’re incompetent.”

“I got a high skill level,” Lula said. “I just shot a rat off a rafter.”

“You weren’t aiming for it.”

“Yeah. My skill level is so high I do things I don’t even try to do.”

I DROPPED LULA at the office, drove myself home, and dragged myself through my front door. The egg-and-fruit gunk had dried en route and was matted in my hair and plastered to my jeans and T-shirt.

Diesel looked me up and down. “Another issue at the produce ware house?”

“I don’t want to talk about it. It involved a rat.”

“What’s in your hair?”

I felt around. “I think it’s mostly egg.”

“Do you need help? Do you want me to hose you off in the parking lot?”

“Jeez Louise,” I said. “I had a really crumby morning and I’ve got egg in my hair. Could I get a little sensitivity here?”

Diesel smiled. “I could take a shot at it.” He gathered me into his arms, held me close, and leaned his head against mine. “You smell nice,” he said. “Like fruit salad.”

AN HOUR LATER, we were all in the Escalade. Carl had pitched a fit about being left alone, so we’d brought him along. He was in the backseat, strapped in by a seat belt, his hands folded in his lap, looking as if at any moment he was going to ask if we were there yet.

“Is it me, or is this whole monkey thing getting a little Twilight Zone?” Diesel asked, checking Carl out in the rearview mirror.

“You think it’s just getting Twilight Zone? You don’t think it’s always been Twilight Zone?”

“Have you heard anything from his mother?”

“No. Not a word.”

“It’s like we’ve adopted a hairy little kid,” Diesel said. “There’s something about him sitting in the backseat that’s friggin’ spooky.”

I looked over my shoulder at Carl, and he sent me a finger wave.

“So if I wasn’t along for the ride, would you just pop yourself over to Philadelphia?” I asked Diesel.

“No. It’s not that easy to get popped someplace.”

“Wulf didn’t seem to have a lot of trouble with it. Is he more powerful than you?”

“No. He’s just different.”

“How so?”

“For starters, he kills people.”

Diesel crossed the Delaware River into Pennsylvania.

“Do you know Wulf?”

“Yes.”

“Have you known him for a long time?”

“I’ve known him forever,” Diesel said. “He’s my cousin.”

That took my breath away. His cousin. He was hunting down a family member!

“This must be hard on you,” I said to Diesel. “I would hate to be in that position.” And my mother would be in a state.

“Someone has to disable Wulf, and I’ve been tapped. Even if it wasn’t my job, I would probably feel compelled to stop him.”

“Has he always been bad?”

“He’s always been different. Intense, melancholy, angry, obsessed with his power. And brilliant.”

Diesel looked normal. He was the embodiment of the all-American charismatic oaf. But he was from a gene pool closely related to Wulf. And Wulf wasn’t nearly normal. Wulf dominated his airspace and radiated unnatural energy. And God knows what else Wulf could do. So I had a few thoughts here about Diesel and his abilities that went beyond normal. Or heck, maybe I’ve just seen so much weird stuff since I became a bounty hunter that I’ll believe anything.

Carl was making sounds in the backseat. “Puh, puh, puh.”

Diesel looked at him in the rearview mirror. “What’s with the monkey?”

“I think he’s amusing himself.”

“Puh, puh, puh, puh, puh,” Carl said.

Diesel turned the radio on and Carl made the sounds louder.

“PUH, PUH, PUH, PUH.”

Diesel shut the radio off and shot a black look at Carl. “If you keep making that sound, I’m going to set you out at the side of the road and not come back for you.”

Carl blew out a sigh and went silent.

“Feeling cranky?” I asked Diesel.

“Not until a couple minutes ago.”

“Chirrup,” Carl said. “Chirrup, chirrup, chirrup.”

“Do you have your gun with you?” Diesel asked me.

“Yeah, but there aren’t any bullets in it.”

“Probably a good thing,” Diesel said.

“Chirrup, chirrup, chirrup, chirrup, chirrup,” Carl said.

Diesel exited the highway and hooked a right.

“You aren’t really going to leave him on the side of the road, are you?” I asked him.

“No. I saw a sign for Wal-Mart. I’m making a pit stop.”

He pulled into the lot and parked. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

Carl sat up straight and looked out the window. “Eeee?”

“No,” I said. “We’re not there yet. Pit stop.”

Carl looked confused. He didn’t know pit stop.

“Just go with it,” I told him. “Diesel will be back in a couple minutes.”

“Chirrup.”

Ten minutes later, Diesel jogged back to the SUV. Carl had gone from chirrup, to choo choo choo, to buhbuhbuhbuh, and I was on the verge of gonzo. Diesel angled behind the wheel, handed me a bag, and tossed a bag into the backseat.

“Knock yourself out,” Diesel said to Carl.

“What’s in his bag?”

“Food and an electronic game. I got them to sell me the demo that was already charged.”

“What’s in my bag?”

“Food.”

Carl selected a bag of chips, and I did the same.

“That was pretty smart,” I said to Diesel.

Diesel stuck his hand into the chip bag and took a fistful. “I have a highly developed sense of self-preservation, and a low tolerance for monkey business.”

“What do you expect to get from Scanlon’s sister?”

“I don’t know. You throw the net out and see what you pull in.”

“I hate intruding at a time like this. She just found out someone killed her brother.”

“She’ll want that person brought to justice. And I’m sure you’re good at talking to a grieving woman.”

“Me? What about you?”

“I suck at it.”

“You’re kidding! You’re going to make me do the interrogation?”

“Yeah. This is one of those girl skills.”

“That’s so sexist.”

“And?”

“What do you want me to ask her?”