Takedown Twenty (Stephanie Plum 20)

“Are you ready to go for a ride?” I asked him.

“Barkeep,” Ziggy said. “One for the road.”

The bartender set a fresh beer in front of Ziggy, Ziggy chugged it, and fell off his barstool.

“You have this strange effect on men,” Lula said to me. “They’re always passing out on you. Guys get stuck with darts, and run into walls, and fall off barstools.”

I hooked my hands under Ziggy’s armpits. “Help me get him outside.”

“I’ll help you get him outside,” Lula said, “but he’s not going in my car. He just wet hisself.”

We carted Ziggy outside, and I called a cab.

“I can’t keep from thinking about Spider-Man,” Lula said. “God made cats and dogs and cows and humans, but he only made superheroes in comic books. What the heck was he thinking?”

“I guess he was counting on us to do the job.”

“You mean us personally? Because I’m a big woman, but I couldn’t stop no speeding train single-handed.”

“I was talking about human beings in general.”

“Probably we’re in a lot of trouble on that one, since most of the men I know can’t even keep their pants up, much less save the world.”

I waved the approaching cab to the curb and loaded Ziggy into the backseat.

“Follow us to the police station,” I said to Lula. “I’ll need a ride after I drop him off.”

The driver looked over the seatback at Ziggy. “He isn’t dead, is he?”

“He’s sleeping.”

I handed Connie the body receipt for Ziggy and she wrote a check out to me for the recovery.

“That looks like pizza money,” Lula said. “If you don’t get too many extra toppings you could get a soda with it.”

“I have information on the latest Dumpster murder,” Connie said. “Definitely strangled. And her bank account was cleaned out the day before.”

“It’s terrible that these old ladies are getting murdered,” Lula said. “It gives me the creepy-crawlies.”

Vinnie’s door was open, and his office was empty.

“Where’s Vinnie?” I asked Connie.

“The ponies are running.”

“I thought Lucille signed him up with Gamblers Anonymous.”

“He said his G.A. group is meeting at the track. Field trip.”

“If Lucille’s daddy finds out, he’ll field trip Vinnie to the landfill,” Lula said.

A text message buzzed on my phone. It was from Ranger. Catch up with you after Bingo.

Oh boy.

“Is something wrong?” Lula asked. “You just got that look.”

“What look?” I asked her.