Eleven on Top (Stephanie Plum 11)

I ran to the kitchen and got a kitchen towel and a plastic garbage bag. I wrapped Lowe's foot in the towel and pulled the plastic bag over the foot and the towel and tied it at the ankle. “That's the best I can do,” I said to Lula. “You're going to have to deal with it.”

We got him to the curb, and Lula looked down at Lowe's foot. “Hold on here,” she said. “We ripped a hole in the Baggie when we dragged him out here, and he's bleeding through the towel. He's gonna have to hang his leg out the window.”

“I'm not hanging my leg outta the window,” Lowe said. “How's that gonna look?”

“It's gonna look like you're on the way to the hospital,” Lula said. “How else you think you're gonna get to the hospital and get that foot stitched up? You gonna sit here and wait for an ambulance? You think they're gonna rush to come get your sorry behind?”

“You got a point,” Lowe said. “Just hurry up. I'm not feeling all that good. It wasn't right of her to shoot me. She had no call to do that.”

“The hell she didn't,” Lula said. “You gotta learn to cooperate with women. My opinion is she should have shot higher and rearranged your nasty.”

Lula rolled the rear side window down, and Lowe got in and hung his legs out the window.

“I feel like a damn fool,” Lowe said. “And this here's uncomfortable. My foot's throbbing like a bitch.”

Lula walked around to the driver's side. “I saw a picture of what he did to his girlfriend,” Lula said. “She had a broken nose and two cracked ribs, and she was in the hospital for three days. My thinking is he deserves some pain, so I'm gonna drive real slow, and I might even get lost on the way to the emergency room.”

“Don't get too lost. Wouldn't want him to bleed to death since I was the one who shot him.”

“I didn't see you shoot him,” Lula said. “I especially didn't see you shoot him with my gun that might not be registered on account of I got it from a guy on a street corner at one in the morning. Anyways, I figured Lowe was running away and tore himself up on a broken bottle of hooch. You know how these guys always have broken bottles of hooch laying around.” Lula muscled herself behind the wheel. “You coming with me or you staying behind to tidy up?”

I gave Lula her gun. “I'm staying behind.”

“Later,” Lula said. And she drove off with Lowe's legs hanging out her rear side window, the plastic bag rattling in the breeze.

I went into Lowe's apartment and prowled through the kitchen. I found a screwdriver and a mostly empty bottle of Gordons gin. I used the screwdriver to dig the bullet out of Lowe's floor. I pocketed the round and the casing.

Then I dropped the bottle of gin on the bloodiest part of the floor and smashed it with the screwdriver. I went back to the kitchen and washed the screwdriver, washed my hands, and threw the screwdriver into a pile of garbage that had collected in the corner of the kitchen. Discarded pizza boxes, empty soda bottles, fast-food bags, crumpled beer cans, and stuff I preferred not to identify.

“I hate this,” I said to the empty apartment. I pulled my cell phone out of my bag and called my dad. A couple years ago my dad retired from his job at the post office, and now he drives a cab part-time.

“Hey,” I said when he answered. “It's me. I need a cab.”

I locked the doors and secured the windows while I waited for my dad. Not that there was much to steal from Lowe's apartment. Most of the furniture looked like Lowe had shopped at the local Dumpster. Still, it was his and I felt an obligation to be a professional. Probably should have thought about my professional obligation before shooting Lowe in the foot.

I called Ranger. “I just shot a guy in the foot,” I told him.

“Did he deserve it?”

“That's sort of a toug

h moral question. I thought so at the time, but now I'm not so sure.”

“Did you destroy the evidence? Were there witnesses? Did you come up with a good lie?”

“Yes. No. Yes.”

“Move on,” Ranger said. “Anything else?”

“No. That's about it.”

“One last word of advice. Stay away from the doughnuts.” And he disconnected.

Great.

Twenty minutes later, my father rolled to a stop at curbside. “I thought you were working at the button factory,” he said.

My father's body showed up at the dinner table every evening. His mind was usually somewhere else. I suppose that was the secret to my parents' marital success. That plus the deal that my father made money and my mother made meatloaf and the division of labor was clear and never challenged. In some ways, life was simple in the Burg.