Turbo Twenty-Three (Stephanie Plum 23)

I put my finger to my nose, and it came away red. I flipped the visor down and looked at myself in the mirror.

“Greasepaint,” I said.

I got a tissue out of my messenger bag and scrubbed my nose. Some red greasepaint came off onto the tissue, but my nose was still bright red.

“That’s not attractive,” Lula said. “People are gonna call you Rudolph.”

“I need makeup remover.”

“There’s some at the office. I keep it there in case I need to change my look halfway through the day. Sometimes first thing in the morning I’m feeling like blue eye shadow and then after lunch I might want to warm up my color palette and go more to the pink tones. We can get your car and then get you fixed up.”

EIGHTEEN

CONNIE WAS PACKING up to leave when we walked in. “I have the two reports you wanted,” she said. “What’s wrong with your nose? It’s red.”

“It’s more like what’s wrong with her life,” Lula said. “She rode around with the Jolly clown this morning until his truck got blown up.”

Connie handed the reports to me. “Was anyone hurt?”

“No,” I said. “We were in the deli on Beverly Street when it happened. Fortunately the truck was parked in front of an empty lot, and no one was walking by when the explosion occurred. I think it must have been a bomb on a timer.”

I shoved the reports into my bag and went to the restroom. I used Lula’s makeup remover, and I tried hand soap. My nose was still red. I dabbed concealer on it and gave it a light dusting of powder. It was toned down to a rosy glow. I returned to the office.

“This is as good as it’s going to get,” I said.

“It’s not so bad,” Lula said. “I bet if it was nighttime you’d hardly notice it at all.”

Something to look forward to.

“If you’re depressed over your nose we could do something fun like go car shopping,” Lula said. “I know a guy that could fix you right up, and you wouldn’t have to drive that ghetto car no more.”

I stared out the window at my car. It was leaking something.

“Okay,” I said, “but I can’t go over five thousand dollars, and the car has to be legal. I don’t want a stolen car.”

“Boy, you got a lot of rules,” Lula said. “I think you might have to compromise on one or the other.”

“Where is this car person located?”

“Just follow me,” Lula said. “He operates out of his house.”

We took Hamilton to Broad, crossed the Delaware River into Pennsylvania, and headed north on River Road to Yardley. Lula turned away from the river into a wooded area, and I stayed close behind. I was hoping we got to this guy soon because I wasn’t sure what was leaking from my car, and I worried what would happen when it stopped. Lula put her blinker on, and we left the road and followed a single-lane dirt drive that opened into a large field. A split-level house sat in the middle of the field. There were several cars lined up on the grass by the house. Lula found a place to park by the front door, and I pulled up alongside her.

A wiry little black man with close-cropped hair and a skinny mustache looked out at us. He was wearing a red satin tracksuit and fancy basketball shoes.

“Lula,” he yelled. “You lookin’ for work?”

“Hell, no, you nasty-ass moron. I’m looking for a car for my friend.”

He left the house, walked over to us, and gave Lula a hug. She was wearing over-the-knee boots with five-inch heels, and when the little guy hugged her, his nose got buried in her Grand Canyon–size cleavage.

“This is my friend Stephanie,” Lula said to him. “We gotta find her a good car.”

He pulled his nose out of her cleavage and turned to me. “Gaylord Brown,” he said. “It’s the perfect name because I’m gay and I’m brown.”

“Since when are you gay?” Lula asked him.

“It comes and goes,” he said. “I like to keep an open mind. So what kind of car does Sugar Cookie want?”