Janet Evanovich - Finger Lickin’ Fifteen

“No! No shooting. Just grab him and sit on him.”

“I guess I could do that, but shooting seems like the right thing to do.”

“Shooting is the wrong thing to do. He’s an exhibitionist, not a murderer. He’s probably not even armed.”

Grandma helped herself to a cookie set out on a tray by the door. “You wouldn’t be saying that if you saw him naked.”

I eased my way along the wall, inching past knots of people who were more interested in socializing than in grieving. Not that this was a bad thing. Death in the Burg was like pot roast at six o’clock. An unavoidable and perfectly normal part of the fabric of life. You got born, you ate pot roast, and you died.

I came up behind Turley and snapped a cuff on his right wrist. “Bond enforcement,” I whispered in his ear. “Come with me, and we don’t have to make a big scene. We’ll just quietly walk to the door.”

Turley looked at me, and looked at the cuff on his wrist. “What?”

“You missed your court date. You need to reschedule.”

“I’m not going to court. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You flashed Mrs. Zajak.”

“It’s my thing. Everybody knows I’m the flasher. I’ve been flashing for years.”

“No kidding. This is the third time I’ve captured you for failing to appear. You should get a new hobby.”

“It’s not a hobby,” Turley said. “It’s a calling.”

“Okay, it’s a calling. You still have to reschedule your court date.”

“You always say that, and then when I get to the courthouse with you, I get locked up in jail. You’re a big fibber. Does your mother know you tell fibs?”

“Does your mother know you flash old ladies?”

Turley’s attention switched to the door where Lula and Grandma were standing. “What are the police doing here?” he asked.

I turned to look, and he jumped away.

“Hah! Fooled you,” he said. And he scuttled around to the other side of the casket.

I lunged and missed, bumping into Mary Jane Dugan. “Sorry about your loss,” I said, shoving her aside.

“What’s going on?” she wanted to know. “Stephanie Plum, is that you?”

Turley took off for the double doors at the front of the room, and I ran after him. He knocked some lady on her ass, and I tripped over her.

“Sorry,” I said, scrambling to my feet in time to see Grandma do a flying tackle at Turley.

Turley wriggled away from Grandma and escaped into the ladies’ room. Two women ran shrieking out, and Grandma, Lula, and I barged in.

Turley was trapped against the wall between the tampon dispenser and the sanitary hand dryer.

“You’ll never take me alive,” he said.

“Do you have a gun?” I asked him.

“No.”

“Are you booby-trapped?”

“No.”

“Then how are you going to die?”

“I don’t know,” Turley said. “I just always wanted to say that.”

“Could we hurry this up?” Lula said. “I’m missing my Wednesday night television shows.”

“I’ll make a deal,” Turley said. “I’ll go with you if I can flash everyone on my way out of the ladies’ room.”

“No way,” I told him.

“Eeuw,” Lula said. “Ick.”

Grandma slid her dentures around a little, thinking. “I wouldn’t mind seeing that,” she said.

Turley unzipped his pants and reached inside.

“Hold it right there,” Lula said. “I got a stun gun here, and you pull anything out of your pants, I’ll zap you.”

Next thing there was a zzzzt from the stun gun and Junior Turley was on the floor with his tool hanging out.

“Whoa, Nellie,” Lula said, staring down at Junior.

“Yep,” Grandma said. “He’s got a big one. All them Turleys is hung like horses. Not that I know firsthand, except for Junior. And maybe Junior’s Uncle Runt. I saw him take a leak outside the Polish National Hall one time, and it was like he had hold of a fire hose. I tell you, for a little guy, he had a real good-size wanger.”

“We need to get that thing back in his pants before we drag him out of here,” I said.

“I’ll do it,” Grandma said.

“I think you done enough,” Lula said. “You’re the one encouraged him to take it out in the first place.”

They looked over at me.

“No, no, no,” I said. “Not me. No way, Jose. I’m not touching it.”

“Maybe we could drag him out facedown,” Lula said. “Then no one would see. All’s we have to do is flip him over.”

That seemed like an okay plan, so we rolled him over, and I finished cuffing him. Then Lula took a foot, and I took a foot, Grandma got the door, and we hauled him out of the ladies’ room.

All conversation stopped when we dragged Junior through the lobby. It was like everyone inhaled at precisely the same time and the air all got sucked out of the room. Halfway across the oriental carpet, Junior’s eyes popped open, his body went rigid, and he let out a shriek.

“Yow!” Junior yelled, flopping around like a fish out of water, wrangling himself over onto his back. He had a huge erection and a bad case of rug burn.

“I gotta tell you, I’m impressed,” Lula said, checking out Junior’s stiffy. “And I don’t impress easy.”

“It’s a pip,” Grandma said.

It was a pip and a half. I was going to have nightmares.

By now, the funeral director was hovering over Junior, hands clasped to his chest, face red enough to be in stroke range. “Do something,” he pleaded. “Call the police. Call the paramedics. Get him out of here!”

“No problemo,” I said. “Sorry about the disturbance.”

Lula and I pulled Junior to his feet and muscled him to the door. We got him outside, onto the porch, and he kicked Lula.

“Hey,” Lula said, bending over. “That hurts.”

He gave Lula a shove, she grabbed me by my sweatshirt, and Lula and I went head-over-teakettle down the wide front stairs.

“Adios,” Junior yelled. And he ran away into the night.

I was flat on my back on the sidewalk. My jeans had a tear in the knee, my arm was scraped and bleeding, and I was worried my ass was broken. I went to hands and knees and slowly dragged myself up to a semivertical position.

Lula crawled to her feet after me. “I’m surprised he could run with that monster boner,” she said. “I swear, if it was two inches longer, it’d be draggin’ on the ground.”

I DROPPED GRANDMA off at my parents’ house, drove to my building, parked, and limped to my apartment. I flipped the light on, locked the door behind me, and said hello to Rex. Rex was working up a sweat running on his wheel, beady black eyes blazing bright. I dropped a couple raisins into his cage and my phone rang.

“Myra Baronowski’s daughter has a good job in the bank,” my mother said. “And Margaret Beedle’s daughter is an accountant. She works in an office like a normal human being. Why do I have a daughter who drags aroused men through funeral parlors? I had fourteen phone calls before your grandmother even got home.”

The Burg has a news pipeline that makes CNN look like chump change.

“I think it must have happened when he got rug burn,” I told my mother. “He didn’t have an erection when I cuffed him in the ladies’ room.”

“I’m going to have to move to Arizona. I read about this place, Lake Havasu. No one would know me there.”

I disconnected, and Morelli called me.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “I heard you dragged a naked guy through the funeral parlor, and then shots were fired, and you fell down the stairs.”

“Who told you that?”

“My mother. Loretta Manetti called her.”

“He wasn’t naked, and no shots were fired. He kicked Lula, and Lula took me down the stairs with her.”