Takedown Twenty (Stephanie Plum 20)

Lula and I looked around the bachelor pad. Red velvet couch. White sheepskin rug. King-size bed with a red satin bedspread. Disco ball. A pole that wasn’t intended to be used by firemen.

“I was stripped down to my new lavender thong, doing some real kinky things on the pole,” Grandma said, “and he was singing Sinatra songs, and all of a sudden his eyes rolled back in his head, and crash he’s dead.”

“He had a bad heart,” I told Grandma.

Grandma nodded. “I probably should have gone easy on him instead of using all my hot dance moves in the beginning.”

“I know some working women who would kill for this setup,” Lula said.

“He was a real swinger,” Grandma said. “He even has champagne in the refrigerator.”

“Too bad he had to croak on you,” Lula said.

“Tell me about it. I finally think I’ve got a live one, and he turns out to be another dead one.”

“How could you go out on a date with him?” I asked Grandma. “He was wanted for murder. And you knew I was after him.”

“You gave up on being after him,” Grandma said. “You quit being a bounty hunter. And it’s not like he was ever convicted of murder.”

“Granny’s got a point,” Lula said. “Everyone’s innocent until proven guilty.”

“I ran into him at the bakery yesterday,” Grandma said, “and one thing led to another, and we emailed, and before I knew it I said I’d go to the movies with him. I didn’t see any harm in going to a movie with him, but then our hormones took over, and now here he is dead as a doorknob.”

“What about Rita?” Lula said. “Rita expected Sunny to marry her.”

“He told me all about her,” Grandma said. “He kept her around for appearances. He didn’t really like her. And she wouldn’t play Bingo with him. I brought my laptop so we could play Bingo if we wanted.”

Lula looked down at Sunny. “What are we gonna do with him? We gonna drag his behind down the stairs, out to the car, and take him for a ride to the pokey so Vinnie gets his money back?”

“Yep,” I said. “That’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

Okay, maybe it was slightly unethical, but Sunny was dead. It didn’t matter to him, but it would matter a lot to me. I’d be able to put gas in the car so I could go to the personal products plant to apply for a job.

I lifted the sheet and looked at him. He was fully dressed in a three-button knit shirt and slacks. This would make things a lot easier.

“I guess you were the only one in your undies,” Lula said to Grandma.

“He was crooning, and I was stripping,” Grandma said. “I would rather have had some disco, but I made do with Sinatra.”

We pulled Sunny up and got him into a chair. He didn’t look too bad. A little pale, but his eyes were open, and he looked sort of alert.

“We’ll get him by the armpits,” I said to Lula. “That way if someone sees us take him out it’ll look like he’s still sort of alive.”

I looked down at his feet. He was wearing red socks but no shoes. “Where are his shoes?”

“He kicked them off over by the bed,” Grandma said.

I went to the bed to get his shoes, and I almost stepped on a brand-new package of Venetian blind cord that was on the floor, next to the nightstand. I felt my eyes go wide, and my heart skipped a couple beats. “Holy shit.”

“Now what?” Lula asked.

I held the package of cord up. “Venetian blind cord.”

“He said that was in case we wanted to play spanky spanky or bad boys and good girls,” Grandma said.

“The Dumpster killer strangled all the women with Venetian blind cord,” I told Grandma.

“I didn’t know that,” Grandma said. “They didn’t say anything about that on television.”