Takedown Twenty (Stephanie Plum 20)

“Hold on,” Lula said. “I’m not done looking for G-47.”

“B-15.”

“Say what?”

“You’ve got a bunch of B-15s,” Grandma said to Lula. “I can see them from here.”

“B-2.”

“Hey!” Lula yelled to Marion. “You got some better place to go that you gotta rush us through our Bingo game?”

The game came to a screeching halt and everyone turned to look at us.

“Lula’s new at this,” Grandma announced to the room. “She hasn’t got the hang of it yet.”

Across the table and two chairs down, Mildred Frick narrowed her eyes at Lula. “Amateur,” she said on a hiss of air.

Lula glared back. “Who you calling a amateur? You got a lot of nerve calling someone a amateur when you don’t even know them.”

“You have a lot of nerve sitting there with thirty cards when you’re not capable of playing them,” Mildred said to Lula. “Clearly you’re too dumb to manage thirty cards. It’s an insult to the rest of the room that you would even try. You’re a dumb bunny.”

“Well, you’re a ugly old hag,” Lula said. “And I find your choice of accessories to be a insult. You got a handbag hanging on the back of your chair that I wouldn’t be caught dead in.”

Mildred was at least eighty years old. She was five feet tall. And she had a spray tan that made her look mummified. She jumped to her feet and leaned across the table at Lula. “You take back what you said about my handbag.”

“Will not,” Lula said.

Mildred shook her blue-veined bony fist at Lula. “I’ll make you take it back, you dumb bunny.”

“Oh yeah?” Lula said. “You want a piece of me? Come get it.”

Mildred got one foot up on her chair and launched herself across the table at Lula. Bingo cards went flying, the chair tipped over and crashed to the floor, and Mildred tried to claw her way to Lula while the women on either side of her grabbed hold of her feet and tried to haul her back.

“Holy bejeezus,” Lula said.

Marion Wenger pulled her .45 out of her purse and fired one off at the ceiling. A big chunk of ceiling fell down and everyone looked over at her.

“Let’s have some decorum here,” Marion said. “This is a Bingo game, not a WWE match.”

“Too bad,” Grandma said. “I wouldn’t mind being at a WWE match. I like when those big men get naked except for them little baggies over their privates.”

“Boy,” Lula said, “that Mildred is a scary old lady.”

“Yep,” Grandma said. “She’s a nasty one.”

“I heard that,” Mildred said. “At least I’m not a slut.”

Lula went indignant. “Are you implying that Granny is a slut?”

“I do get around a little bit,” Grandma said to Lula.

“You should leave,” Mildred said to Lula. “We don’t want your kind here.”

Lula leaned forward in rhino mode. “And just exactly what is my kind?”

“You’re a dumb bunny,” Mildred said.

“Well, I don’t want to play no more anyways,” Lula said. “And I want my money back, because this game isn’t run right.”