Four to Score (Stephanie Plum 4)

“So I take it you think this Margie is with Maxine. And maybe Maxine's mama is there, too,” Lula said.

“Yeah. Problem is, I don't know if Maxine's in the house right now.”

“I could be the Avon lady,” Lula said. “Ding dong, Avon calling.”

“If Maxine's mother is in there she'll recognize you.”

“Think maybe we be recognized standing on the street like this, too,” Lula said.

Very true. “Okay, this is what we'll do. We'll go see if Maxine's in the house. If she isn't at home, we'll sit down with Margie and watch some TV until Maxine shows up.”

“Sounds like a plan to me. You want the back door or the front door?”

“Front door.”

“And you probably don't want me to shoot anybody.”

“Shooting isn't my favorite thing.”

Lula walked along the side of the house to the back, and I went to the front door. I knocked twice and Margie answered.

Her eyes opened wide in surprise. “Oh!”

“Hi,” I said. “I'm looking for Maxine.”

“Maxine isn't here.”

“You wouldn't mind if I came in and looked for myself?”

Maxine's mother swayed into view. “Who is it?” She took a long drag on her cigarette and let the smoke curl from her nose, dragon style. “Christ, it's you. You know, you're getting to be a real pain in the ass.”

Lula came in from the kitchen. “Hope nobody minds my coming in. The back door wasn't lock

ed.”

“Oh God,” Mrs. Nowicki said. “Tweedledum.”

There was an empty box in the middle of the floor with a lamp sitting beside it.

“You win this lamp at the arcade?” Lula asked Margie.

“It's for my bedroom,” Margie said. “Twenty-?seven thousand points. Yesterday, Maxine won a deep fat fryer.”

“Hell, we won just about everything in this house,” Mrs. Nowicki said.

“Where's Maxine now?” I asked.

“She had some errands to run.”

Lula sat down on the couch and picked up the channel changer for the TV. “Guess we'll be waiting then. You don't mind if I watch TV, do you?”

“You can't do this,” Mrs. Nowicki said. “You can't just waltz in here and make yourself at home.”

“ 'Course we can,” Lula said. “We're bounty hunters. We can do anything we want. We're protected by a dumb-?ass law made back in 1869 when people didn't know any better.”

“Is that true?” Mrs. Nowicki wanted to know.

“Well, actually the law doesn't cover control of the channel changer,” I said. “But it does give us a lot of rights when it comes to the pursuit and capture of a felon.”