One for the Money (Stephanie Plum 1)

I'd always imagined gun store owners to be big and burly and to wear baseball caps that advertised motorcycle companies. I'd always imagined them with names like Bubba and

Billy Bob. This gun store was run by a woman named Sunny. She was in her forties with skin tanned the color and texture of a good cigar, hair that had been bleached to canary yellow frizz, and a two-pack-a-day voice. She was wearing rhinestone earrings, skintight jeans, and she had little palm trees painted on her fingernails.

“Nice work,” I said, alluding to her nails.

“Maura, at The Hair Palace, does them. She's a genius with nails, and she'll bikini wax you till you're bald as a billiard ball.”

“I'll have to remember.”

“Just ask for Maura. Tell her Sunny sent you. And what can I do for you today? Out of bullets already?”

“I need some defense spray.”

“What kind of spray do you use?”

“There's more than one kind?”

“Goodness, yes. We carry a full line of self-defense sprays.” She reached into the case next to her and pulled out several shrink-wrapped packages. “This is the original Mace. Then we have Peppergard, the environmentally safe alternative now used by many police departments. And, last but certainly not least, is Sure Guard, a genuine chemical weapon. This can drop a three-hundred-pound man in six seconds. Works on neurotransmitters. This stuff touches your skin and you're out cold. Doesn't matter if you're drunk or on drugs. One spray and it's all over.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

“You better believe it.”

“Is it fatal? Does it leave permanent damage?”

“The only permanent damage to your victim is going to be the memory of a downright humiliating experience. Of course there'll be some initial paralysis, and when that wears off there's usually a lot of throwing up and a monster headache.”

“I don't know. What if I accidentally spray myself?”

She grimaced. “Darlin', you should avoid spraying yourself.”

“Sounds complicated.”

“It's not complicated at all. It's as simple as putting your finger on the button. For goodness sakes, you're a professional now.” She patted my hand. “Take the Sure Guard. You can't go wrong.”

I didn't feel like a professional. I felt like an idiot. I'd criticized foreign governments for using chemical warfare, and here I was buying nerve gas from a woman who waxed off all her pubic hair.

“Sure Guard comes in several sizes,” Sunny said. “I carry the seventeen-gram key-chain model. It has its own stainless steel quick-release loop, comes in an attractive leather case, and you get to choose from three decorator colors.”

“Gee, three colors.”

“You should try it out,” Sunny told me. “Make sure you know how to use it.”

I stepped outside, held my arm straight out, and sprayed. The wind shifted, and I ran inside and slammed the door.

“That wind can be sneaky,” Sunny said. “Maybe you should go out the back way. You can exit through the gun range.”

I did as she suggested, and when I reached the street, I rushed to my car and jumped inside lest any droplets of Sure Guard were hanging around, waiting to attack my neurotransmitters. I shoved my key into the ignition and tried hard not to panic over the fact that I had tear gas under 125 pounds of pressure per square inch, which in my mind spelled nerve bomb, dangling between my knees. The engine caught and the oil light came on again, looking very red and a little frantic. Fuck it. Take a number, I thought. On my list of problems to solve, oil wasn't even in the top ten.

I pulled into traffic and refused to check my rear-view mirror for telltale clouds of smoke. Carmen lived several blocks east of Stark Street. Not a great neighborhood, but not the worst, either. Her building was yellow brick and looked like it could do with a good scrubbing. Four stories. No elevator. Chipped tile in the small ground-floor foyer. Her apartment was on the second floor. I was sweating by the time I got to her door. The yellow crime-scene tape had been removed, but a padlock was in place. There were two other apartments on the second floor. I knocked on each door. No one home at the first. A Hispanic woman, Mrs. Santiago, somewhere in her late forties, early fifties answered the second. She had a baby on her hip. Her black hair was pulled neatly back from her round face. She wore a blue cotton housecoat and terrycloth bedroom slippers. A television droned from the dark interior of the apartment. I could see two small heads silhouetted against the screen. I introduced myself and gave her my card.

“I don't know what more I can tell you,” she said. “This Carmen only lived here a short time. No one knew her. She was quiet. Kept to herself.”

“Have you seen her since the shooting?”

“No.”

“Do you know where she might be? Friends? Relatives?”