Lean Mean Thirteen (Stephanie Plum 13)

“Mr. Orr is expecting you,” the woman said. “His office is at the end of the corridor.”

I led the parade in a sedate march to Dickies office. I got to his open door and rapped lightly. I peeked in and smiled. Friendly. Non-threatening.

Dickie looked up and gasped.

He'd put on a few pounds since the last time I saw him. His brown hair was thinning at the top, and he was wearing glasses. He was dressed in a white shirt, red and blue striped tie, and dark blue suit. I'd thought he was handsome when I married him, and he was still a nicelooking guy, in a corporate sort of way. But he felt soft compared to Joe Morelli and Ranger, the two men who were currently in my life. Dickie lacked the heat and raw male energy that surrounded Morelli and Ranger. And of course, I now knew Dickie was an asshole.

“No need for alarm,” I said calmly. “I'm here as a client. I needed a lawyer, and I thought of you.”

“Lucky me,” Dickie said.

I felt my eyes involuntarily narrow and did some mental deep breathing.

“Lula and Connie and I are thinking about starting a limo service,” I said to Dickie.

“You bet your ass,” Lula said. “Lula's Limos.”

“And?” Dickie said.

“We don't know anything about starting a business,” I said. “Do we need some sort of partnership agreement? Do we need a business license? Should we incorporate?”

Dickie slid a piece of paper across his desk. “Here are the law firm rates for services.”

“Wow,” I said, looking at the rates. “This is a lot of money. I don't know if we can afford you.”

“Again, lucky me.”

I felt my blood pressure edge up a notch. I planted my hands on my hips and glared down at him. “Am I to assume you would rather not have us as clients?”

“Let me think about that for a nanosecond,” Dickie said. “Yes! Last time you were in my office you tried to kill me.”

“That's an exaggeration. Maim you, yes. Kill you, probably not.”

“Let me give you some free advice,” Dickie said. “Keep your day jobs. The three of you in business will be a disaster, and if you last long enough to go into menopause as business partners, you'll turn into cannibals.”

“Did I just get insulted?” Lula asked.

Okay, so he's a jerk, I said to myself. That doesn't change the mission. You have to keep your eye on the prize. You need to be cordial and find a way to plant the bugs. Hard to do when Dickie was in his chair behind the desk, and I was standing in front of it.

“You're probably right,” I said to Dickie. I looked around and moved to the mahogany shelves that lined one wall. Law books interspersed with personal flotsam. Photographs, awards, a couple carved-wood ducks, some art glass. “You have a wonderful office,” I told him. I went from photog

raph to photograph. A picture of Dickie with his brother. A picture of Dickie with his parents. A picture of Dickie with his grandparents. A picture of Dickie graduating from college. A picture of Dickie on some ski slope. No pictures of Dickie's exwife.

I'd inched my way along his wall, and I was now slightly behind him. I cleverly turned to admire the handsome desk set… and that was when I saw it. A picture of Dickie and Joyce Barnhardt. Dickie had his arm around Joyce, and they were laughing. And I knew it was recent because Dickie's forehead was unusually high in the photograph.

I sucked in some air and told myself to stay calm, but I could feel pressure building in my fingertips, and I worried my scalp might be on fire.

“Uh oh,” Lula said, watching me.

“Is that J-J-Joyce?” I asked Dickie.

“Yeah,” Dickie said. “We've reconnected. I had a thing with her a bunch of years ago, and I guess I never got over the attraction.”

“I know exactly how many years ago. I caught you pork-ing that pig on my dining room table fifteen minutes before I filed for divorce, you scum-sucking, dog-fucking lump of goose shit.”

Joyce Barnhardt had been a fat, buck-toothed, sneaky little kid who spread rumors, picked at emotional wounds, spit on my dessert at lunchtime, and made my school years a nightmare. By the time she was twenty, the fat had all gone to the right places. She dyed her hair red, had her breasts enlarged and her lips plumped, and she set out on her chosen career of home wrecker and gold digger. Looking back on it all, I had to admit Joyce had done me a favor by being the catalyst to get me out of my marriage to Dickie. That didn't alter the fact that Joyce will never be my favorite person, though.

“That's right,” Dickie said. “Now I remember. I thought I could finish up before you got home, but you came home early.”