Hot Six (Stephanie Plum 6)

“It's a social club, dude. It's a place of worship. It's a shrine to the men and women who went where no man has gone before.”

“Before what?”

The Mooner gazed off into space, transfixed. “Before it all.”

“Uh-huh.”

“It'll cost you five bucks to get inside,” the Mooner said.

I gave him ten, and Lula and I pushed through the crush at the door.

“Never saw so many geeks all in one spot in my life,” Lula said. “Except for that Klingon over there by the stairs. He ain't half bad.”

We scanned the room, looking for Steiger, trying to identify him from his file photo. Problem was, some of the Trekkies were in costume, dressed like their favorite Star Trek characters.

Dougie rushed up to us. “Welcome to Trekarama. There's hors d'oeuvres and beverages over in the corner by the Romulan, and we're gonna start showing the films in about ten minutes. The hors d'oeuvres are real good. They're, uh, liquidation stock.”

Translation: hijacked goods that were rotting in storage somewhere because he got closed down.

Lula knocked on Dougie's head with her knuckles. “Hello, anybody home in there. Do we look like a couple dumb-ass Trekkies?”

“Uh, well . . .”

“We're just looking around,” I said to Dougie.

“Like tourists?”

“Maybe I'll be a tourist over by that fine Klingon,” Lula said.

Stephanie Plum 6 - Hot Six

13

LULA AND I moved deeper into the room, pushing our way through the crowd, looking for Elwood. He was nineteen years old. My height and slim. Sandy blond hair. Second-time offender. I didn't want to freak him out. I wanted to very quietly move him outside and slip the cuffs on him.

“Hey,” Lula said, “you see that little dude in the Captain Kirk suit? What do you think?”

I squinted across the room. “Looks like it could be him,” I said.

We worked our way over, and I came up beside him. “Steve?” I said. “Steve Miller?”

Captain Kirk blinked at me. “No. Sorry.”

“I'm meeting a blind date here,” I said. “He told me he'd be dressed as an officer.” I extended my hand. “I'm Stephanie Plum.”

He shook my hand. “Elwood Steiger.”

Bingo.

“Boy, it's really hot in here,” I said. “I'm going outside for some air. Want to join me?”

He looked around, nervous, needing to see if he was missing anything. “I don't know. I don't think so. They said they were showing the films right away.”

Lesson number one: no point in coming on to a Trekkie when the films are up. So I had a choice. I could force the issue, or I could wait around until he decided to leave. If he stayed to the end and left en masse with everyone else, it could be a problem.

Mooner ambled over. “Wow, nice to see you two getting it on. Elwood here's fallen on some hard times, you know. He was making some great shit, and they shut him down. It was a real blow to all of us.”

Elwood's eyes were darting around like his head was a pinball machine. “Are they gonna do the films soon?” he asked. “I just came for the films.”