Janet Evanovich: Plum Spooky

“Works for me,” I said. I was wearing sneakers, but I didn‘t want to chase some fool all the hell over the place, either.

“Where‘s the monkey?” Lula asked. “You still got the monkey?”

“The monkey went with Diesel.”

“That monkey‘s a lucky duck,” Lula said. “I wouldn‘t mind going with Diesel.”

I pulled the case file out of my bag. “Denny Guzzi lives in an apartment on Laurel Street.”

“That‘s not such a good neighborhood,” Lula said. “That‘s off Stark. Probably Guzzi was robbing stores trying to get himself a better way of life.”

“Probably he was robbing stores so he could buy dope,” Connie said.

“See, now that‘s uncharitable,” Lula said. “You‘re judging him without knowing the circumstances. He could have had a reason. He could have a sick mama who needed medicine.”

Connie didn‘t look convinced. “Would you rob a store at gunpoint if your mother needed medicine?” she asked Lula.

“I didn‘t need to,” Lula said. “I had skills. I had a honest profession.”

“You were a hooker.”

“Exactly,” Lula said, taking her purse out of a bottom file drawer and poking around in it, looking for her car keys. “I‘ll drive on account of you probably still got monkey cooties in your car.”

Lula drives a red Firebird with a pimped-out sound system. She had her radio tuned to rap, and by the time we reached Guzzi‘s house on Laurel, I was afraid my fillings had been rattled loose from the bass vibration. Lula parked, we got out of the car, and we stood looking at the building. It was originally yellow brick, but at the present moment, it was solid graffiti.

“This here‘s a good example of urban art,” Lula said. “Denny Guzzi‘s probably a sensitive guy to live in this building.”

I cut my eyes to her. “It‘s graffiti. A bunch of loser gang members marked their territory on this building.”

“Yeah, but they did a good job of expressing themselves. I got a better point of view than you because I‘ve been taking a course at the community college on positive thinking. I‘m a glass-is-half-full person now, and your sorry ass is still in half-empty country. I‘m willing to give people the benefit of the doubt, and all you got is the doubt.”

I opened the front door and stepped into the dimly lit foyer. “Your glass wasn‘t half full when you saw I had a monkey.”

“He took me by surprise. And anyway, monkeys don‘t count.”

A row of mailboxes lined one wall. Twelve mailboxes in all. No names on any of the mailboxes. No elevator. This was a three-story walk-up. Four apartments to a floor. The building wasn‘t large. Probably, the apartments were all studios with kitchenettes. Denny Guzzi lived in 3B.

Lula and I hiked up two flights of stairs, and I listened at the door to 3B. The door was wood, without a security peephole. The veneer was cracked and stained. The area around the doorknob was grimy. I could hear a tele vision droning inside the apartment. Lula stood to one side, and I stood to the other. I reached out and knocked on the door.

“What?” someone yelled from inside the apartment.

The voice was male. Probably Guzzi.

“It‘s Lula, honey,” Lula called out. “I got somethin‘ for you, sugah. Open the door.”

“Go fuck yourself,” came back at her.

“He must be a man of high moral fiber,” Lula whispered to me.

I did an eye roll and knocked again. No answer.

“Hunh,” Lula said to me. “I guess you‘re gonna have to kick the door down.”

Kicking down doors wasn‘t a skill I had ever actually mastered. The men in my life could put the heel of their boot to a lock and destroy it. The best I could do was scuff up the finish.

“Bond enforcement,” I yelled. “Open the door.”

Over the background noise of the tele vision, there was the unmistakable sound of a shotgun ratchet. Lula and I jumped back, and the jerk in the apartment blasted a two-foot hole in his door.

Lula and I looked through the hole at Denny Guzzi, holding a shotgun, sitting in a chair with his foot propped on a couple cases of beer.

“What the dev il was that?” Lula said to Guzzi. “Are you friggin‘ nuts? You don‘t go around shooting at people like that. And after I was real nice to you, giving you an invitation and all. How the hell is that to treat a woman?”

Guzzi ratcheted and aimed, and Lula and I dove away from the door. Boom! Guzzi took out a good-sized chunk of wallboard on the other side of the hall. I looked over at Lula, and she was on her ass, holding the spike heel to her shoe.

“Sonovabitch,” Lula said, eyes narrowed, face scrunched up. “That worthless piece of pig shit made me break the heel on my Via Spiga. That‘s it for me. That‘s the end of my charitable ways. He‘s going down. He‘s gonna die.” Lula got to her feet, pulled a nickel-plated Glock out of her purse, and fired off about ten rounds at the door.

“Jeez,” I yelled at Lula. “You can‘t just shoot at the guy like that.”

“Sure I can,” Lula said. “I got lots more ammo in my purse.”

“If you kill him, there‘s a mountain of paperwork.”

Lula stopped shooting. “I hate paperwork.”

BAM! Guzzi fired through the door again, and Lula and I took off down the stairs. We got to the second landing, and Lula stumbled on her broken shoe. She knocked into me, and we both went head over teakettles down the last flight of stairs. We sprawled spread-ea gle on our backs on the filthy foyer floor and sucked air.

“Been here, done this,” I said. More than once.

“I need to go to Macy‘s,” Lula said. “They‘re having a shoe sale. I got a big date to night, and now I need replacement hot shoes.”

I got to my feet and limped out onto the sidewalk, where two scrawny guys in baggy pants and wall-to-wall tattoos were standing by Lula‘s Firebird, trying to jimmy the door.

“Get away from my baby,” Lula shouted. And she opened fire on the two guys.

“Stop shooting,” I said.

“You can‘t kill them, either.”

“You got a lot of rules,” Lula said to me. “To hear you talk, I can‘t kill anybody .”

The two guys peeked out from behind the Firebird.

“Crazy bitch,” the one said. “We were just gonna steal your car. It‘s not like it‘s a big deal. You park a car here, it gets stolen. Everyone knows that.”

“I just broke my Via Spigas, and I‘m in no mood,” Lula said. “I‘m giving you two seconds to get invisible, and then I‘m putting a cap in your ass.”

The two guys grabbed hold of their pants and walked away, swaying as they walked on feet encased in unlaced basketball shoes that seemed way too big for their stick bodies.

“Between the pants and the shoes, it‘s a wonder they can walk at all,” Lula said.

This coming from a woman in four-inch heels and a dress that fit her like a condom.

Lula checked her car over to make sure it wasn‘t scratched, and we got in and motored back to the bonds office.

“So what‘s this big date?” I asked her.

“Me and Tank are gonna talk about the wedding. You know, we didn‘t have enough time to do the June wedding, what with Tank needing a special-made tuxedo and all, so now I‘m thinking a Christmas wedding would be okay.”

“Does Tank want a Christmas wedding?”

“Hard to tell. He don‘t say. He starts to sweat soon as I talk about it. I swear, sometimes I wonder if I want to spend eternity with a man who sweats like that. He‘s gonna sweat all over my wedding gown. I‘m gonna have to treat it with one of them water-repellent chemicals before I wear it. I‘m gonna have to wear a raincoat when we dance.”

“Tank dances?”

“He don‘t now, but I signed him up for lessons.”