Janet Evanovich - Takedown Twenty

I tucked handcuffs into the back pocket of my jeans, rammed a small canister of pepper spray into my front pocket, and clipped an illegal stun gun onto my waistband.

“You need a real gun,” Lula said.

“I don’t need a real gun. I’m not shooting anyone.”

“Suppose they shoot at you first?”

“I wave my arms in the air, scream like a girl, and run away as fast as I can.”

“Hunh,” Lula said. “I suppose I should come with you then in case that don’t work.”

We climbed the stairs to the third floor and tried the window. Locked.

“Probably because nobody hardly ever goes out this window,” Lula said.

We went down one level and tried that window. Also locked.

“Well, it’s just a window, and accidents happen,” Lula said.

She swung her Brakmin at the window, the glass shattered, and the security alarm went off.

“Oops,” Lula said. “I wasn’t counting on that.”

We bolted down the stairs and hid behind the construction Dumpster. The back door to Sunny’s building opened, and two overweight, out-of-shape guys stepped out and looked around. They peered up at the balconies but couldn’t get motivated to climb the stairs.

One of them pointed to the broken window. “Must have been a bird,” he said.

The other guy nodded, then they wheeled around and went inside.

“You should hurry up and go in before they turn the alarm back on,” Lula said. “I’ll stay here and be the lookout. I’ll tell you if someone comes to fix the window.”

“What if I need help getting Sunny out?”

“Call me and I’ll be there in a flash.”

I trudged up to the second floor, carefully stuck my hand through the broken window, and unlocked it. I opened the window, climbed in, and put my ear to the door. I could hear people talking, and noise from the television. I tiptoed up to the third floor and listened at that door. Silence. I eased the door open and found myself face to face with Uncle Sunny. He was sitting on a folding chair behind a long wood table, counting money. There was a monster safe on the far side of the room. The door to the safe was open, and a thin, balding, middle-aged guy was trying to stuff a large leather satchel into the safe.

For a long moment the two men looked at me in shocked surprise, mouths open.

“Did you order takeout?” the skinny guy asked Sunny.

“She’s a bounty hunter,” Sunny said. “And she’s a pain in the ass.”

The skinny guy turned and reached for the gun that had been placed on top of the safe, but I crossed the room and sent a couple million volts into him before he could wrap his finger around the trigger. Sunny scuffed his chair back and bolted for the door. I lunged and tackled him, taking us both to the floor. We rolled around, grunting and cussing. He paused to catch his breath, and I snapped a cuff on him. There was some more scrambling and wrestling, and I got the second cuff on. I scooted away, got to my feet, and pulled him up. He put his head down for a head butt and charged me. I stepped away, and he ran into the wall and knocked himself out.

I stared down at him in complete disbelief.

“Hey!” I said, nudging him with my toe, not getting a response.

I took a closer look to make sure he was breathing. I felt for a pulse.

“Ice cream,” he murmured. “Chocolate.”

The skinny guy was coming around. He was drooling, his eyes were open, and his fingers were twitching. I didn’t want to zap him again, and I didn’t have a second set of cuffs, so I took the cuffs off Sunny and used them to cuff one of the skinny guy’s hands to the safe.

I dragged Sunny into the back stairwell, but I wasn’t going to get him through the window or down the stairs without some help. I leaned out the window to yell for Lula and saw her at the end of the street, running after the giraffe. I dialed her cellphone and was told to leave a message. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Stay calm, I told myself. Murdering Lula wouldn’t solve anything.

I was going to have to try to get Sunny down the inside staircase. I grabbed him under his armpits and backed my way down. I reached the second-floor landing and heard gunshots coming from the floor above me. Probably the skinny guy trying to get someone’s attention. I’d kicked his gun out of reach, but I hadn’t searched him.

Sunny opened his eyes. “Mom?”

“You bet,” I said. “Don’t worry. I’m going to take care of you.”

I dragged him across the landing to the edge of the stairs. I stepped back, lost my balance, and slid the rest of the way on my back with Sunny on top of me. I shoved him off and lay there for a couple beats, trying to catch my breath, thinking the whole falling-down-stairs thing was getting old. In fact, I thought, I might not even be liking any of my job all that much. I heard men thundering down the stairs from the third-floor landing, and Sunny turned his head and focused on me. “You!”

Ignore the pain , I thought. Get up and run!

I had just hit Freeman Street when Sunny’s goons burst out the door and spilled into the alley. I rounded the corner and saw Lula standing by her Firebird on Fifteenth.

“Hey,” Lula called to me. “I saw Kevin!”

“Get in!” I yelled. “They’re after me.”

I reached the Firebird, grabbed at the door, and hurled myself into the car. “Go!” I told her.

Lula took off as a bullet zinged past us and shattered her side mirror.

“What the heck is the matter with those people?” she said, stomping on the gas pedal. “What did you do to get them so mad? Honestly, you have no way with people. And who’s gonna pay for my mirror? Do you know which one of those morons did this?”

I slouched in my seat and closed my eyes. “Remember how you were going to be there in a flash to help me?”

“Yeah, but then Kevin galloped up. He stopped right in front of me and looked at me. He’s got big brown eyes and movie star eyelashes that are about a foot long. And he talked to me and told me he appreciated that I was his friend.”

“He talked to you?”

“It was one of them telepathic conversations.” Lula looked at me. “You don’t look good. You got a hole tore in your jeans, and your knee is bleeding. What happened to you?”

“I fell down the stairs.”

“You gotta stop doing that,” Lula said.

“I’m thinking about getting a new job.”

“What would you do?”

“That’s the problem.”

Truth is, I was a college graduate with no skills. And after a bunch of years spent working as a bounty hunter I feared I was no longer especially smart.

“Where are we going now?” Lula asked.

“St. Francis Hospital. I think I broke my finger.”

Two hours later Lula and I straggled into the bonds office. The middle finger on my right hand was in a splint and taped to my index finger.

“What happened?” Connie wanted to know.

“Broke my finger,” I told her. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“She fell down the stairs,” Lula said. “Again.”

“You ran off and left me,” I said. “Again.”

“Kevin came right up to me,” Lula said to Connie. “I swear I was just inches from him. I was standing in the alley waiting for Stephanie, and I was checking my text messages, and next thing I see Kevin has sneaked up and is looking down at me. And he’s a lot bigger when he’s that close. You’d get a crick in your neck from looking up at him.”

“I don’t understand how a giraffe could be running loose in that neighborhood,” Connie said. “At the very least you’d think someone would have reported it to animal control. How is it eating? Where is it sleeping?”

“I don’t know where it’s sleeping, but there’s not a lot of leaves left on any of the trees for about a four-block chunk of real estate,” Lula said.