Smokin' Seventeen: A Stephanie Plum Novel (Stephanie Plum Novels)

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 offanother 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 takingresponsibility 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