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

called me just as I finished the sandwich.
    “You gotta get back to the bus,” she said. “There’s a big new development here, and business is booming. Vinnie’s downtown bonding out three idiots. And Connie got a lead on Ziggy.”
    I cleaned up and left a note for Ranger, detailing the few suggestions I had for the plan, apologizing for not being able to finish. I called the control desk and told them I was heading out.
    • • •
     
    Traffic was unusually slow on Hamilton. I got closer to the bonds office lot and realized cars were creeping past it and gawking. I cringed at the thought of another dead body. And then I saw it.
    They were gawking at the bus. It had been totally shrink-wrapped. The background was poison green. The lettering was black. And Lula and I were plastered on the side. It was the exact same message and photo they’d used on the flyers … except I was now seven feet tall, and my breasts were as big as basketballs.
    I parked and ran across the street to the bus. A guy in a truck honked his horn at me, and a guy in a Subaru told me he was bad and asked me if I’d spank him. I kept my head down and scrambled inside Mooner’s monstrosity.
    Connie was at her computer. Lula was on the couch texting. Mooner was standing on his head in the back bedroom.
    “What’s he doing?” I asked Connie.
    “I’m not sure. I think he might be trying to get the drugs to leak out of his head through his hair.”
    “Traffic is backed up for almost a mile down Hamilton because people are stopping to stare at the bus.”
    “The television people were here just a little while ago,” Lula said. “We’re gonna be on the evening news. We’re famous. We’re like rock stars.”
    “Was this the big new development?” I asked.
    “Yeah,” Lula said. “It don’t get much more exciting than this.”
    I pantomimed hanging myself.
    “I hate to say it, but it’s working,” Connie said. “The scumbag losers are loving the flyers. We’re back in business.”
    I looked around the bus. “What about the renovation?”
    “Uncle Jimmy is starting tonight after business hours. He said it wasn’t a big deal to do the walls and the floor. The upholstered pieces will have to wait until Sunday.”
    There was a loud crash, and we all looked to the bedroom.
    “No problem,” Mooner said. “I just fell off my head.”
    Connie went to the fridge and got a bottle of water. “For what it’s worth, my Aunt Theresa lives next to Maronelli’s garage, the one attached to the funeral home, and she said she’s been seeing Ziggy sneaking in and out. Aunt Theresa is ninety-three years old and can’t see her hand in front of her face, so there’s no guarantee it’s actually Ziggy, but I’m giving it to you anyway.”
    “We’ll check it out,” Lula said. “Our motto is no stone unturned.”
    “Does she see him during the day or at night?” I asked Connie.
    “She didn’t say.”
    My phone rang, and I knew from the ring tone it was from my parents’ house.
    “I just came back from an afternoon viewing at Stiva’s funeral parlor,” Grandma said. “Marilyn Gluck took me home and we went past where the bonds office used to be and there’s a bus parked there with your picture on it. It’s a beaut. It looks like you got some of them breast implants, and we never noticed before.”
    “I didn’t get breast implants. They were enlarged on a computer.”
    “The phone hasn’t stopped ringing since I got home. Everybody is calling to say they saw you on the bus. Norma Klap said her son, Eugene, would like to get fixed up with you.”
    “Does my mother know?”
    “Yeah. She’s ironing.”
    I hung up, and Lula and I went out to look for Ziggy. Lula was wearing her cross and carrying a couple cloves of garlic in her purse. I was wearing dark glasses and a ball cap, hoping no one would recognize me.
    Maronelli’s funeral home is at the back end of the Burg, one street off Liberty. It’s been in the Maronelli family for generations, and with the exception of installing indoor plumbing, it hasn’t changed much over the years. The viewing rooms are small and dark. English is spoken as a second language.The Italian flag is displayed in the small lobby. Manny Maronelli and his wife live in an apartment above the viewing rooms, but they’re in their late seventies and spend most of the year in their double-wide in Tampa. Their sons, Georgie and Salvatore, run the business and keep it in the black with a